Reading Log: November 2016

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Books acquired: none

Books read: “Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan,” Howard Sounes; “Positively Fourth Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina,” David Hajdu; “Positively Main Street: An Unorthodox View of Bob Dylan,” Toby Thompson; “Gentlemen of the Road,” Michael Chabon.

I hit the road in November, reading books with “highway,” “street” (twice) and “road” in the titles. (In real life I didn’t stray far.) Three are biographical studies about Bob Dylan, the much-traveled singer-songwriter, each with titles spun off his songs, while the fourth is a novel.

Let me say from the outset that I’m a major Bob-head who owns all the albums and has read many of the books. I also own a bunch I haven’t read. The Nobel announcement prompted me to read one in October, and that created the momentum that made me want to keep reading. The Sounes bio, published in 2001, has been on my shelves most of that time, and it’s likely the definitive Bob-ography. So if I had an urge, finally, to read it, and others, it was an urge worth pursuing.

It’s light on chin-stroking and guesswork and heavy on facts about his life, including the revelations that he’d married a second time and had a sixth child, and also that he owns a coffeehouse in Santa Monica. Go elsewhere for insights about the music, but come here for a last roundup of childhood friends, Village folkies and ex-lovers. Intriguingly, family members contributed on the sly.

The Hajdu book came out the same year. I went in knowing little about Mimi and Richard Farina, and skeptical they merited equal attention with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, but this thoroughly researched book (with an interview-by-fax with Richard’s pal Thomas Pynchon!) brings the lesser-known Farinas to life. It also scrubs some gloss off the Dylan legend, offering the novel theory that he didn’t really find himself until ’64 and his fourth album.

Circa 1969, Thompson had the novel idea of visiting Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota to interview people who knew him as a boy before he began obscuring his past. The hard information herein could probably be condensed to one chapter, so the book is more about Thompson and his pilgrimage, and the novelty of learning, say, “this is where Bob got hot dogs with the gang.” It’s naive, lame and self-absorbed — and a little embarrassing as he and Dylan’s high school girlfriend get chummy — but kind of fun anyway.

To get another “road” book in, and one that’s not about His Bobness, I read Chabon’s 2007 novel “Gentlemen of the Road,” a modern, literary attempt at a swords-and-sandals-type adventure novel. I’d say it was a way of leavening this month’s Reading Log, but since Chabon’s working title was “Jews With Swords,” maybe unleavening would be more accurate.

Anyway, and to my dismay, the giddiness of the opening chapters faded for me into a story that I was anxious to have end. Sincerely done, but I don’t think it lives up to its pulp influences.

The Chabon book was bought at Borders; the others were purchased used between 2002 and 2010, although I’ve forgotten the details. At least they’re from this century. They also constitute books 34, 35, 36 and 37 of 2016.

If you’ve read any of mine, chime in, but otherwise, share what you read in November.

Next month: books 38, 39 and 40.

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