A review by marginalian
Bob Dylan Chronicles by Bob Dylan

challenging mysterious reflective

I didn't know much about Bob Dylan and nothing has changed after reading this book. I came across his songs about five years ago and stayed with them. Now, after reading this, I realised that I don't know much about song making either.

I like how Dylan openly speaks about his influences. There's nothing completely original in the world. His words made me realise that one's output is determined by what one takes in. Apetite grows by what one dines on. So, one must always dine best. Be it books or role models. People are only good as what they surround themselves with. Dylan followed his favourite artists to the core, studied them intensely and scraped his own work out of that. 

One thing that struck me about the book was his observations on attention. Sociologists were already warning about dwindling attention spans due to TV. Long songs were replaced by smaller ones and back in the 60s, Dylan, therefore, tried to cram long poems !!

Some quotes from the book: 

• "The books were something. They were really something"
• "Privacy is something you can sell, but you can't buy it back"
• "Art is unimportant next to life and you have no choice"
• "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"
• "With basically not much media to speak of, it was basically life as you saw it"