Pete rates Bob Dylan's 'Chronicles Volume One' 4 out of 5 aliens

A Review of Bob Dylan’s Chronicles Volume One

I remember long ago when a local politician came to our high school to make a speech. He said something about how our brains are small now, but like a sponge they’ll soak up knowledge and grow large and smart. Of course, a 17 year old kid doesn’t want to hear how small his brain is, but his words were so true and a good bit of wisdom for young people.

Bob Dylan has such a sponge-like brain. After reading his Chronicles Volume One, it was interesting to me how much knowledge he’d acquired even as a young man named Robert Zimmerman, before transforming into the famous Bob Dylan. Although he was laser-focused on folk music, he had a deep understanding and appreciation for seemingly every form of music and its historical significance. He was also well read. Again, with a vast curiosity of subjects from literature (except, like me, he didn’t get James Joyce) to poetry, to antiquity, to current events and not so current events. Dylan spent a great deal of time at the New York City Public Library reading newspapers from the Civil War era. He wrote that he preferred old news to the news of the day.

My wife bought me this book when visiting City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Dylan had been there too, back around 1965. Some of his early influences had been the Beat writers and poets who frequented City Lights. I confess it took me some time to get around to reading Chronicles Volume One. I’m such a fan of Dylan’s music, I didn’t want to be disappointed if I didn’t get his writing or learned something I didn’t want to about him personally. I realize this is a silly notion (albeit human), as one is supposed to separate the art from the artist. But those are books for you. Sometimes you just bide your time before reading them for any number of reasons.

I do want to mention a prior book I reviewed for this blog because it pertains so well to Dylan. That book is Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Gladwell writes about the 10,000 hour rule, whereas when one devotes 10,000 hours to their craft or profession, they have a good chance to develop a high level of proficiency or even genius. Dylan certainly has surpassed 10,000 hours in his long career, but even as a young man he put in tons of practice time and played every show he could get. His family reluctantly let him follow his bliss and he had great timing. I mean, how often does folk music become hot?

If you liked Patti Smith’s Just Kids, I would suggest you also read Chronicles Volume One. They’re both well-written tales of true artists making their way through interesting times. I would rate Chronicles Volume One by Bob Dylan a solid four out of five aliens. The only part I didn’t like was a segment where Dylan goes to New Orleans to recapture a certain sound he wanted. He tries to find it, sort of finds it, loses it, picks it up again, and on and on…A musician would better appreciate that part. But for someone who doesn’t know how to play an instrument, can’t sing or dance (except for a certain move I do for the ladies past midnight), I sure got a lot out of this wonderful book.