Author s :. David Dalton. Release Date:. April 24, Buy on Amazon. Reviewed by:. Tony Bailie. Examples: Dylan did visit Woody Guthrie, there was no benediction, no passing of the torch; the dying folkie may not have even known Dylan was there. The supposedly life-changing near-death motorcycle accident was likely no more than a minor scrape. If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible.
Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project. Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom. In her third book, Doyle Love Warrior , , etc. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Already have an account? By placing Dylan beyond the reach of time and space, by seeing him as a mythological figure like Homer or Shakespeare, Dalton frees himself to praise and blame songs, albums, and performance on the basis of little more than personal taste.
And in the end he gets us no closer to understanding either the biographical Dylan or the mythological Dylan. Chief among these were the disaffection and rage against the failure of the country to live up to its historical promise.
Where was life? Where was liberty? Where was happiness though all the Founders promised was the right to pursue it? Where was the "more perfect union" envisioned by Lincoln?
After two World Wars, a Great Depression, a brutal waste of blood and treasure in Korea, and an ongoing slaughter of ideals in Vietnam, America was both the most powerful nation on earth and a spiritually exhausted, creatively defiled place.
Dylan saw all this and expressed it for my particular generation. It's a story Dalton tells with an insider's savvy and an aging-hipster style that makes the book a lot of fun to read—even if he's too often in love with his own cleverness and too often moved to drop names like a bad cook over-spicing the broth. There's only one way in which Dalton's book actually fails. It fails to deal seriously with the quality of Dylan's work since 's Time Out of Mind , including songs that didn't make it onto a formal album, such as "Blind Willie McTell".
It will probably take someone with two generations or more personal distance from the s to do the subject justice, but it ought to be done. Dylan has done us the favor of marginalizing himself as a cultural force, and that shift—I think of it as his divorce from the capital "M" Media and the more venal trends in the music business—has freed him to create ever stranger, more more revelatory songs. Let's talk about that now, ok? Now that David Dalton has given us the last word on Dylan the icon.
Mar 30, Jaime Twisting the Lens rated it really liked it. But soon, Dylan turned up the color dial and the monochrome slid away. He began to write songs filled with imagery, tunes, dream sequences, and word play, and vocal inflection that changed the world, not just of music, but the world itself.
It is into that world that David Dalton takes the reader. From the middle-class Bobby Zimmerman to the twenty year old folk-singing hobo named Bob Dylan, to the enigmatic pied piper who mystified and enthralled those who would hear his words and see his vision. Read the Swedish translation. Terribly difficult to find the energy to read this book.
I picked it up in the fall of to learn more about Bob Dylan ahead of the novel prize ceremony, but feel like the only way to enjoy it would have been if I was an expert on his music and life already.
The writing was also very scattered and repetitive, not at all enjoyable for me. Jun 09, Richard rated it really liked it Shelves: By becoming the consumate performance artist of the past 50 years, Bob Dylan more than any artist of his generation has invited the question that is the title of this book.
He's a fascination beyond his artistic output. Ultimately, though, at least for me, the persona is much less interesting than the work. Depending on the biographer Dylan is tragically screwed up, a pretty nice guy with normal faults, a young schmuck, a generous friend. He's a paranoid speed-freak, a religious fanatic, a civi By becoming the consumate performance artist of the past 50 years, Bob Dylan more than any artist of his generation has invited the question that is the title of this book.
He's a paranoid speed-freak, a religious fanatic, a civil rights crusader, a little boy lost, a womanizing cad. Contains multitudes - amen. David Dalton adds an interesting volume to the creaking Dylan shelf, comes up with lots of new gossip entertainingly written, interesting recording studio tidbits, and generally avoids over analyzing lyrics in order to prove a phantasmagoric point - the downfall of many Dylan biographers. The book is a breeze, and it's fun.
Dylan sums it up himself as usual, "Sometimes the "you" in my songs is me talking to me. Other times I can be talking to somebody else It's up to you to figure out who's who. A lot of times it's "you" talking to "you. It could be I or it could be the "I" who created me.
And also it could be another person who's saying "I. View 1 comment. Jun 05, Mattc rated it liked it. Jan 21, Kimberly rated it really liked it Shelves: biography , music. A very fun, hip read that focuses on Dylan's hipness and amazing artistry, rather than on tawdry details about his relationships, sex life, and the like. I especially liked the chapters on "inside bob's brain" about his mostly unviewed films "Eat the Document" and "Renaldo and Clara" and about him performing for and meeting Pope John Paul II.
I loved the hip and sometimes irreverent drawings. A real breeze of a book, I read it in a day or two. Great fun. Mar 19, Danielle rated it it was ok Shelves: bob-dylan. Oh my god this was torture. The concept of the book intrigued me but the writing style and the assumptions of Dylan's character were just too much. Every sentence was a convoluted mixture of words.
You had no idea where they were going and often they didn't go anywhere relevant. Jun 09, AmmaLinda rated it did not like it. David, I give you a "D" and that's being generous. Aug 06, Meleya rated it liked it. I drug my way through this one. I learned a few things but I was hoping it read like a story but it read more like an encyclopedia. Jul 06, Steve Lane rated it it was ok.
The book reads like one continuous liner note. Sep 06, Hal rated it liked it. More of an essay than a biography on Dylan, David Dalton a journalist type takes a look at the chameleon nature throughout his years primarily from a perspective of his music. No question of the iconic nature of this man but his aura of mystery and elusiveness is the focus here.
Dalton looks at Dylan's seeming evolution but in reality his outright change, again and again. And that chord is what bogs the book down some, the non-stop repetition of trying to define both the man and that changeabili More of an essay than a biography on Dylan, David Dalton a journalist type takes a look at the chameleon nature throughout his years primarily from a perspective of his music.
And that chord is what bogs the book down some, the non-stop repetition of trying to define both the man and that changeability. Biographies often bring out what their subject is going through in their personal life, their triumphs and challenges. This is limited in the book as we don't much on his personal relationships and such things. They are there but Dalton does not explore them in depth. On the other hand the writing flows well and is on balance an entertaining read.
We are left with some ideas as to Dylan's motives and peccadilloes, but this troubadour of his generation remains the enigma he seems to want to project. Jan 12, Allan Heron rated it liked it. Intriguing but ultimately not entirely satisfying book. The theme is not a new one and is covered in other books alongside other thoughts about Dylan, leaving this tome seem a bit under-developed.
A number of factual errors as well.
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