From one genius to another.
Umberto Eco was perhaps a little difficult and complicated (I have suffered as much as I enjoyed trough every page) but with this book I had no problems whatsoever. It was completely by chance that one passenger on my ship had mentioned that in a ship's library there is a first volume of Bob Dylan's autobiography - so far I was too busy to even check out the library & from previous experience I assumed this is a place forbidden for crew (it just shows what kind of everything-is-forbidden circumstances I lived with for many years on different ship companies) - this was too good to miss so one day I sneaked in to have a quick look at this library and it is truly a cornucopia, embarrassment of riches. Yes, Bob Dylan was there, amongst many other interesting and inviting titles. I hurried back to my room with book under my arm, feeling guilty as I had stolen something, when in fact later I found out there is no problem with it, crew very rarely goes for books - they mostly spend their free time drinking and cavorting in crew bar, I might be one of the very rare few to even think of browsing the bookshelves.
Bob Dylan is of course the name I was always familiar with, but in my early years the language barrier and cultural differences meant this music was way above my head - I knew he was influential songwriter whose voice was far removed from easy listening pop that appealed to me back than and I knew nothing about American Folk music, Woody Guthrie or what it all means. So I ignored him for a longest time, until recently I kind of took a task to educate myself and give his music a careful listening. Being careful, orderly and systematical Virgo, I started with his earliest LP albums from 1960s and this is where I am still stuck more or less, still enjoying work of young artist very much - I love not only the music and lyrics but also got used to highly individual and stylized singing style which purposely and decidedly rejects any "pretty crooning" - this is someone raised on raw Folk music and inspired with artists like Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson - I couldn't wait to read his autobiography.
I gulped it.
I swallowed it all and wallowed in it and I thought the library book has to be returned (for the sheer honesty of sharing it with others) I will probably buy my own copy, that's how much I enjoyed it. Did I expect it to be so good? I probably did, somewhere down in the bottom of my heart, though musicians often don't write interesting books - I have read many autobiographies that were not very illuminating at all, however Dylan knows his way with words and as a writer he is inspired, passionate and darn brilliant. Contrary to what people might expect, he did not go for any chronological order but roams trough several chapters of his life (his arrival in New York in 1961, circumstances around recording two relatively obscure albums in 1971. and 1989, than back to his earliest music influences that inspired him to became songwriter) and again I found this to be highly individual, original concept that works beautifully - he writes perceptively about his early, young years when he was still a homeless musician playing around New York's clubs and about people he had meet, about books he read, how exciting it was to discover Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, Gogol, Maupassant, Poe, Byron, Shelley, Milton, Ovid and Baudelaire, who were people he hung out with, his very first impression of Joan Baez ("A voice that drove out bad spirits") as seen on national TV, the thrill of hearing Bertold Brecht's "Pirate Jenny" or any of the music that inspired him - the person emerging from these pages is intelligent, witty, sensitive, honest and perceptive. I know very well Dylan had been cursed with all this adulation where people worshipped him for seeing in him whatever they recognized as their own voice articulated artistically - and often he would have been tired of it all and misunderstandings built around his public image, however I also understand how easy it is to get carried away with his work, because it is really so good. I mean, how to find faults with someone who writes so brilliantly and makes you feel like this is in fact your other self somehow living in 1961. New York? I just loved everything about this book and yes, I bow down to a talented man.
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