| | |  | Sheet Music | Home » » » Chronicles: Volume One | | | | | | | Description: | | "I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities -- smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times. By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780743244589
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Bob Dylan | | Paperback:
| 320 pages | | Publisher:
| Simon & Schuster | | Publication Date:
| September 13, 2005 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0743244583 | | Product Width:
| 1.5 centimeters | | Product Height:
| 2.12 centimeters | | Product Weight:
| 0.01 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 305 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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300 of 317 found the following review helpful:
 So much for enigmasOct 27, 2004
By John M Flora
"olioscourge.blogspot.com"
When I was in college back in the mid-1960s, I remember a piece in the student newspaper that sought to explain the new folk music phenomenon Bob Dylan. I wish I had a copy of that story today, just to see how it matches up with the man revealed in Dylan's new autobiography, Chronicles Volume One.
My dim recollection is that the sophomoric student article painted Dylan as an inscrutable eccentric trickster, deep yet elusive.
That's pretty much the general impression I've had of Dylan since I first heard him around 1964 or '65. And, of course, I thought of him as the conscience and voice of my generation.
Well, it turns out that he's neither, as least not in the way most of us thought.
Dylan, in his own words, comes across as a regular guy who just wanted to do his job and go home to his family without being hassled by every freak and geek who imagined him to be the new Messiah.
In a recent radio interview on NPR - the first he's given in my memory - he's asked if he ever thinks about walking away from music.
"Every day," is his comeback.
The book reveals a devoted family man who has spent much of his life plugging away at his craft and trying to shield himself and his loved ones from the glare of offstage attention.
The further I went in the book, the most shared impressions and cultural perceptions I discovered. I became a grandfather earlier this year and have been wrestling with the idea and its implications of advancing age and life changes. I feel a whole lot better about it now that I know Dylan owns a "World's Greatest Grandpa" bumper sticker.
Oddly enough, many of us thought of him as the voice of our generation while at the same time seeing him as detached and set apart from the rest of us.
It turns out that he's much more one of us than we realized and it's probably more accurate to think of him as the voice of every generation, whether they know it or not.
This is an invaluable book because it demystifies Dylan and blows away all of that "mad genius" stuff that has swirled around him for 40 years.
My son, who owns a recording studio, is getting this book for his birthday this year for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the chapter on working with producer Daniel Lanois in New Orleans.
I find maybe two books a year that I just can't put down. This is one of those books.
48 of 51 found the following review helpful:
Even Better Than Expected.Nov 24, 2004
By V. Messner
Some people have said this book doesn't reveal enough about Bob Dylan's personal life and that it skips around too much. I feel differently. Far as self-disclosure goes, Bob Dylan will never write a tell all, because that's just not the kind of person he is. I was very happy with the many personal thoughts and experiences he did share in Chronicles; he was way more open that I expected. This book does not read like a normal story. It's true. Bob doesn't always stick to a chronological line, but in no way does that detract from this unique and wonderful book. The joy in reading this autobiography doesn't lie in seeing Dylan neatly connect the dots. For me, it is just in taking each thought as it comes and enjoying it. Bob explains everything he's seen and done down to the most minute detail. In the book Dylan claims to "never forget a face," and I believe him. He certainly has close to a photographic memory. He remembers things from 30 years ago that I would have forgotten about yesterday - he's a professional observer if there ever was one. It's really unbelievable. It's easy to see that he's a very well read individual. This you will see in the book, as he elaborates and gives interpretations on the works of author after author, poet after poet. His unique personal writing style is no doubt a result of these many influences. I enjoyed this book more than anything I've read in a long time. I eagerly await Chronicles, vol. 2. and if you find Bob Dylan fascinating, I'd highly recommend Chronicles, vol. 1.
43 of 48 found the following review helpful:
Uh...I actually read the bookOct 07, 2004
By Brianna Lauren
I don't like how people review this book (and too many others around here) based on an excerpt in a magazine (well, at least they read SOMETHING instead of reviewing it based on whether or not they like the author the way people do with books by Ann Coulter and other political types). No one needs your thoughts on an excerpt that they can read for themselves by visiting Dylan's website.
I bought this book the day it hit the shelves, and read it in one sitting. How could I not? I'm a Dylan addict. If you're a Dylan fan, you should enjoy his remembrances of his early years in New York and of his alarm at being annointed the guru of the whole anti-establishment movement of the 60s. Dylan skips around through his life, so this is not an autobiography by any means. It's almost a self-interview. If you're looking for his life story, you're better off with a book by Clinton Heylin, Robert Shelton, or even Bob Spitz. I look forward to future volumes of "Chronicles."
I'm rather disappointed that the audio version of this book is read by Sean Penn! I like Sean Penn, but imagine what a pleasure it would be to hear Dylan read this himself.
23 of 24 found the following review helpful:
Not "autobiography", but essential for even casual fansOct 10, 2004
By Robert P. Inverarity
So the man has finally gotten around to writing about himself in prose, and you're thinking of grabbing this, the first fruit. A few remarks are in order, then, to help you decide whether to shell out the bucks. First I want to banish some possible misconceptions (ones I had and you very well might share); then I'll take a longer view of the book and tell you why I think it's worth five stars.
First, it's not an autobiography in the usual sense of the word. Sure, Bob is writing about himself and what he's done, but time flows freely forward and back and the subject changes (sometimes radically) every few paragraphs. He doesn't indulge in much self-justification, he doesn't try to chart a distinct arc of personal development, and it's not rare for him to start down a detour that screams for more exploration and then to turn the bus around. The comparison to X-Ray, the autobiography of Ray Davies of the Kinks, isn't entirely justified -- I don't think Dylan fictionalized much -- but Chronicles is closer in spirit to that than to more conventional rock autobiographies.
Second, Dylan lets you into his mind but he doesn't much open his heart. Suze Rotolo is the subject of some lyrical reminiscence, for instance, but their relationship is kept very abstract -- maybe he's protecting her privacy, I don't know. He talks about his love for his wife and kids at length in the "New Morning" chapter, but they never even show up as characters! His second (?) wife does show up in the "Oh Mercy" chapter, but she remains nameless and faceless. The only emotions Bob really describes are awe for his idols in his early days and frustration and loathing for himself in the "Oh Mercy" period.
Third, and finally, don't overestimate how much ground it covers. At 293 pages, the book is short; the font and the large amount of whitespace padding make 293 pages sound longer than it is. I read the book in just about five hours of reading, and much of that time my pace was leisurely. The content is pretty rigidly circumscribed, too: the first, second, and last chapters cover his early life and career, in Minnesota and in New York (1949-62); the third and fourth his "New Morning" (1969-70) and "Oh Mercy" (1988-89) periods, respectively. There's only a handful of anecdotes that fall outside those ranges.
One brief, nitpicky comment before I praise the book: Dylan needed a better proofreader than he got. I know he missed at least one deadline with the manuscript and probably more, and so publication was likely something of a rush-job, but he has a tendency to use words whose meanings elude him ("incredulously" instead of "incredibly" -- facts don't tend to be credulous), and a sharp set of eyes should have caught them in a once-over. The grammar, on the other hand, is better than some have given him credit for. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if awe of the man stood in the way of proper proofing.
Anyhow, my three corrections to misconceptions could be taken as negatives. If it's got these problems, you might say, why is it worth five stars? My answer to that is that the man has a way with words, and just 'cause he won't be tamed by chronology & word choice & all that jazz doesn't mean that his recollections aren't delightful.
The book doesn't resemble a chronological biography so much as a Jim Jarmusch movie, a collection of short anecdotes tied together with a declarative sentence here or an interrogatory paragraph there. Dylan, who's rapidly turning into everybody's favorite dubious grandpa, full of funny stories and odd ways of looking at the world, sheds light on his influences, his contemporaries, and his colleagues that are alternately revealing, funny, incisive, and patronizing, but always entertaining. The anecdotal approach he's chosen couldn't be better suited to his personality or even his view of life (after all, Louie the King, Georgia Sam, and God shared the same song). For sheer entertainment value, Volume One of Chronicles slays the rest of the Dylan bookshelf.
Postscript: there's a six-song companion CD available for free from some retailers with two unreleased songs ("The Cuckoo" from the Gaslight and the original demo of "Dignity") and four released tracks from "New Morning" and "Oh Mercy" ("New Morning", "Father of Night", "Man in the Long Black Coat", and "Political World"). Keep your eyes out.
25 of 27 found the following review helpful:
AnnoyedAug 29, 2005
By Nichole Hersey
I was reading 1 and 2 star reviews of this book and got sick of the whining and complaining by their respective authors. Bob doesn't tell us what his songs mean, Bob doesn't tell us about his wives and kids, bla bla bla. Look, Bob's going tell what Bob wants the public to know, and what he tells in the book I found interesting. It was like hearing someone tell stories that happened during his life. We all do that with our families and friends. What is wrong with him talking about what he feels fit? Why can't people accept the fact that he doesn't want his personal life open to the general public??? Once that happens, maybe they might find the book an interesting read.
Aside from this, I did find the book intereseting and funny. I liked the flow of the language. I enjoyed reading his descriptions of things, how he saw them, and how he saw himself. You can learn a lot about people by listening to the way they talk and how they perceive themselves (whether it is an accurate perception or not).
Reviews were written saying that he seems like less of a genius and more human...duh...Hasn't Dylan been saying that for 4 decades? Now that some people have read his book, they finally believe it. Maybe the book does give more insight to the man than they thought!!
If you are looking for juicy gossip about Bob, this is not the book for you. I can't believe that people expected him to write about affairs he had, rude things he said, or whatever. Maybe this would have been better...Chronicles Vol 1: Bob Dylan's Failures. Unfortunately, people would have eaten it up like vultures because today's society thrives on sex and other's misfortunes. Who in their right mind is going to write a book telling total strangers all of their faults, failures, and personal problems during their lifetime? Would you?
Hey, if you are a Dylan fan, read the book. If you aren't, why did you buy it in the first place???
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