Bob Dylan Book:

Tarantula (His 1st Book) Reviews:
"THERE IS NO SENSE IN TRYING"
2007-10-04 - I bought this book because I wanted the picture on the front cover. However, I forgot to read the reviews beforehand so I was sort of surprised to read the content. Short clips of sort of short stories or takes or thoughts--each has a title all right. Nothing to write home about. Maybe you can read bits and pieces on your breaks at work. Maybe some of this stuff had to do with Bob taking drugs back then. I really laughed until I cried reading portions of two of them--really really funny. Silly funny sometimes, very deep thinking emptyness, peaks of intelligence with overcast mud slides. I don't know really what to call the contents of this book. Is it worth buying? You be the judge. Hey, the picture on the front cover must have been professionally done!!! That's worth something!! You might have lots of fun reading, you might get annoyed, but at least we reviewers gave you prospective buyers disclosure statements so if you do buy, you can't really complain later on. Just when you think this is nonsense, you see glimses of genius and deep thought, just when you think this is a message of deep thought you find yourself saying, "oh this is nonsense." He keeps you guessing all along all right.

Know the price you pay, and if you can afford it and are curious, go ahead and purchase it. If you worship Bob Dylan, anything he says or does will be perfect and great. It will be another part of Bob's work that you will have on hand.

I think he took us for a ride on this one. I think he just wanted to have fun with the reader, never letting his true thoughts or feelings be known, and not really trying too hard to achieve much of anything by writing it--that's what I call real talent and genius!!! You go and try that!! Ha Ha. He just gives you a glimse into his overachieving mind back then. He is obviously brilliant, and his writings give you this glimse into his creative mind--whichever direction it wanted to go . . .

Some content will be less than enlightening and less than sensitive but still within boundaries of acceptable, I guess.

If you want LITERARY GENIUS, may I suggest The Tale of Genji, written in the year 1000 by a Japanese noble lady, Murasaki Shikibu, and considered to be the VERY FIRST NOVEL--but what a novel it is!!! Now that's a BOOK!!!!!!!!!!

The Dangers of Heroin
2005-09-19 - Dylan is by far the greatest songwriter of all-time and perfectly deserving of a noble prize in literature if ever one is bestowed upon him. However this stream of consciousness book is pure crap. It will be a highly collectible book if you have the first edition, first printing in good conditon in about 50 years. Till then read Lyrics 1961-2001 or Chronicles vol.1 instead.

Strange meal
2005-07-21 - You`ve more than probably heard the man`s music, and for sure you thought that was great. Most people would go as far as calling Dylan`s texts litterature. He`s even been mentioned several times as a fair Nobel Prize candidate. If they had one for music, he surely would have had it long time ago.

Well, Tarantula, initially expected to come out around 1967 (You can see him working on the typewriter in Pennebaker`s Don`t Look Back (London 1965).) was published in 1969. The book`s reception was, to put it gently, mixed. The publisher didn`t want it when they read the result, but the contract was signed, and the end of that was Tarantula in the book stores.

This book is a chaotic caleiodoscope of odd characters, taken out of an American pre-Vietnam social context. They are all blended into the ink of Dylan`s pen, which flows like the salty water near Cape Horn on a windy day.

You need patience to read this book; but if you have that and in addition you fancy the temperature of Bobby`s head; then this strange meal is yours.

Odd, but highly enjoyable
2005-06-12 - if you only skim the lines in Bob Dylan's prose, it appears to be random words and phrases...however, there's a lot of meaning to be found between the lines...that being said, i've never actually listened to his music or sat and read his lyrics, but i love poetry that's full of metaphor and requires thought because why write poetry if you mean exactly what you say? the prose in this work offers something different each time it's read and it's my favorite book of poetry.

Sorry Bob
2003-12-04 - 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.