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Title: Tarantula by Bob Dylan ISBN: 0-7432-3041-8 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 January, 2006 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (20 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Essential for Dylan fans
Comment: Dylanophiles have long tired of (..) literary critics saying that Dylan is "not really a poet; this book does something to put the lie to the accusation. It IS poetry, though not in the "conventional" sense. The majority of the book is written in a style of prose poem/poem/prose poem (repeating the cycle for however long the poem is), and then closing the piece with a written letter signed by some character from Dylan's imagination. As you may have surmised, the prose poems are of the type that Dylan wrote for the linear notes to Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. And yes, the poems are in the style of the poems that Dylan wrote for The Times They Are A-Changin' and Another Side. Precious little of it is literal; it is almost wholly written in the rambling, seeming stream-of-consciousness style that Dylan introduced in the aforementioned prose poems. He was highly into writing allegerical fables at that time, and this book abounds in them. Dylan fans will certainly enjoy this book a lot. It gives a peak into his creativity and writing process like nothing else really does. This is Dylan unpolished, not buried beneath the stream of re-writes that produced such masterpieces as "Visions of Johanna." There are references to many of his songs and lyrics within the poetry - whether this came from those, or vice versa, is anyone's guess, but it's a fascinating glimpse into Dylan in any case. You can get something out of these poems. They are fun to read, and have a quick, rolling meter and cadence that all of Dylan's poetic works seem to have, and this makes for interesting and thought-provoking seat-of-the-pants reading. Dylan fans will revel in it. Probably, those who are not already taken with the author will not be converted by this book. This book is actually a less-than-stellar book in the eyes of many (admittedly, by Dylan himself, who held off publishing it for 5 years), and, though interesting and thought-provoking, it is a very ornate and abstract work, without also offering the insights into life that his lyrics have always offered. So the merits of this book for those who are not already Dylan fans is questionable. On the other hand, it is certainly essential for Dylanophiles, and it certainly is a further contribution from Dylan to the field of poetry, and a more legitimate one in the eyes of many. Here's hoping that it helps Bob win the Nobel Prize for Literature that he so geniunely and truly deserves. It is not a cultural opinion, but indeed a fact, that Dylan did more for poetry than anyone else in the 20th century - at least in the sense of bringing it to the masses. And he certainly re-defined popular music as we know it. This book is a further gem in his canon, and helps show a small part of the reason for why Dylan means so much to so many different people.
Rating: 4
Summary: Bob Dylan's "Tarantula"-- A Labyrinth with a Bottom
Comment: It will be very hard for me to decide what star rating "Tarantula," Bob Dylan's first and only "novel" should deserve. Lyrically and verbally it is marvelous, though it is hard to conceive of this when the pages are full of people, events, ideas, and actions wandering aimlessly about. The layout of this book is similar to the layout of Dylan's albums--sure, if you look at them for a few moments they seem meaningless and pretentiously inaccessible, but you must read them and read them and read them once more before they start to resemble something you've known or thought of. You read them again, and your mind begins to formulate their positions--this goes along with this and that coincides with that. You undoubtedly get a feeling similar to the notion you get when reading the liner notes of his early albums after listening to the album many times--it all fits together somehow, but your mind has not solved the puzzle yet. This is one of the greatest things about Dylan and his writing; people like Luis Borges don't seem to understand "carnivals" of thoughts, such as "Christ on a boulevard" or "Hamlet on the train." Borges was the master of labyrinths, a whole collection of his writing was based upon and included various types of different labyrinths--basically every type of labyrinth one could think of. Bob Dylan's writings and music are the closest to labyrinth I have ever seen. He can outfit you with a picture, for instance "Cinderella sweeping a lane," and add so many similar, but incredibly different pictures, "Ophelia beneath a window" and "Einstein disguised as Robin Hood," and stir them all together, decidedly haphazardly, but your mind whirls them together constantly as you read the printed lyrics or listen to the song, and over time, perhaps 50 times or 1,000 times--your mind solves the puzzle almost subconsciously and reveals the finished project to you. This is what "Tarantula" is, this is what "Highway 61 Revisited" is, it's what all of Dylan's work is. His labyrinth, you see, makes sense and has point, and perhaps this is why so many refute his writings.
Rating: 2
Summary: Sorry Bob
Comment: I love his songs, I love his lyrics, but Tarantula is basically a bunch of words and really bizarre sotires that do not go anywhere. I kinda expected better from him since his songs were so great.
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Title: Bob Dylan: In His Own Words by Bob Dylan, Miles, Christian Williams, Chris Williams ISBN: 0711932190 Publisher: Omnibus Press Pub. Date: June, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title:Masked and Anonymous ASIN: B00000F2L9 Publisher: Columbia Tristar Pub. Date: 17 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.96 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.47 |
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Title: Writings and Drawings by Bob Dylan ISBN: 9998257557 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: June, 1974 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Lyrics, 1962-1985 by BOB DYLAN ISBN: 0394542789 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 12 October, 1985 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title:Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back ASIN: B000035P7X Publisher: New Video Group Pub. Date: 04 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $20.46 |
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