This book had very positive reviews. I really wanted to read this book as the musicianship captured me. However, the label Chronicles is very accurate. Dylan includes an immense amount of details about clubs of which I have never heard, references to classic folk musician that I do not recognize, details of New York to which I cannot connect. In that way the book was a bit of a struggle.
The reviews, however, were accurate in that the writing styles have many moments of poetic imagery and classic metaphors.
A blizzard was kidnapping the city, life spinning around on a drab canvas. Icy and cold.
Roy Orbison…with Roy you didn’t know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. With him it was all about fat and blood…he was now singing his songs in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal…His voice could jar a corpse.
The place had an overpowering presence of literature and you couldn’t help but lose your passion for dumbness.
About himself…Always prolific but never exact, too many distractions had turned my musical path into a jungle of vines…It was like parts of my psyche were communicated to me by angels. There was a big fire in the fireplace and the wind was making it roar. The veil had lifted. A tornado had come into the place at Chrismastime, pushed all the fake Santa Clauses aside, and swept away the rubble. It was mystifying why it had taken so long for this to happen.
About his creativity...The problem was that after relying so long on instinct and intuition, both these ladies had turned into vultures and were sucking me dry. Even spontaneity had become a blind goat. My haystacks weren’t tied down and I was beginning to fear the wind.
About composing…A song is like a dream and you try and make it come true. They are like strange countries that you have to enter.
About reality…Reality can be overwhelming. It can also be a shadow, depending how you look at it.
About the night…I like the night. Things grow at night. My imagination is available to me at night. All my preconceptions of things go away. Sometimes you could be looking for heaven in the wrong places. Sometimes it could be under your feet. Or in your bed.
About the lyrics…Sometimes you say things in songs even if there’s a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with truth that you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you’re thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it.
From his father…”Remember Robert, in life anything can happen. Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have, that you don’t want.
About folk music…Folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension. It exceeded all human understanding, and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be sucked into it. I felt right at home in this mythical realm made up of not with individuals so much as archetypes, vividly drawn archetypes of humanity, metaphysical in shape, each rugged soul filled with natural knowing and inner wisdom. Each demanding a degree of respect.
On Woody Gutherie – Each one (sic. Song) seemed like a towering tall building with a variety of scenarios all appropriate for different situations. Woody made each word count. He painted with words. That along with his stylized type singing, the way he phrased, the dusty cowpoke deadpan but amazingly serious melodic sense of delivery was like a buzz saw in my brain, and I tried to emulate it in anyway I could.
About his childhood…A great section on his recollections of his childhood including things like bike races, ice hockey, bumper riding, tree houses and BB guns.
And so the book has a lot to recommend it, but it may be more appealing to a specialty interest group.
I was disappointed in this book. Alice Munro is an exquisite writer (rated as one of the best in the English language). The focus of this book is a combination of historical novel combined with her autobiographical story. There are capturing moments in the book, however the cast of characters can get confusing. It is a refreshing read to have all the settings in Canada and there is no question about the authenticity of her portrayal of life from the brutal conditions of early settlement to the simplicity of contemporary rural Ontario. Maybe it is just the subject matter never really captured me. It is evidence of the difficulty of making someone else's nostalgia meaningful to a stranger.
