Bob Dylan's memoir, Chronicles, offers a way to understand the mind and art of its author at a crucial juncture, when Dylan is finding the voice that speaks to and for a generation. Over several pages of the volume, Bob Dylan discusses all the books which influenced him as a very young man. The list of books which he read is astonishing: Rousseau, Ovid and Poe; the Greek classics, Lord Byron, Shelley and Balzac; Dostoevsky and Dickens; the Inferno."The books were something," Dylan writes. "They were really something." One can see how his early saturated lyrics must have come out of this intense period
of reading.
On Tuesday evening October 9th Galway City Writer in Residence, the poet Michael O'Loughlin, will be present in the City Library to introduce and talk about Dylan's favourite books and their possible influence on his lyrics and music. 
Gerry Hanberry, poet and musician, will be present to sing a few Bob Dylan songs and will examine some of Dylan's references to Tacitus, Gogol, Dickens, Machiavelli, Dante, Ovid and Howl.
2 comments:
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