Chronicles, Volume One
Chronicles • Book 1
by Bob Dylan
Narrated by Sean Penn
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
Dylan writes memoir the way he writes lyrics — oblique, vivid, and answering none of the questions you came in with.
- Great if you want: atmosphere over chronology, mood over biography
- Listening experience: wandering and literary — closer to prose poem than narrative
- Narration: Penn's gravelly delivery matches Dylan's street-level, seen-it-all tone
- Skip if: you want a factual, linear account of Dylan's career
About This Audiobook
Bob Dylan's memoir does not attempt a chronological biography or a systematic account of his career. Instead, it circles around three specific periods: his arrival in Greenwich Village in 1961, his confused and creatively blocked years at Woodstock in the late 1960s, and the recording of Oh Mercy in New Orleans in 1989. Through these three windows Dylan examines how he became who he is, the books and people and accidents of circumstance that shaped his sensibility, and the nature of the creative process at both its most fluid and its most obstructed.
Sean Penn's narration is one of the most celebrated in memoir audio, his voice catching Dylan's prose rhythms with the authority of a genuine artist reading genuine art. Penn does not attempt to imitate Dylan but rather finds a parallel register, giving the text the cadence of a man thinking aloud in carefully chosen words. At just over eight hours, the production is an intimate and absorbing listen that rewards attention with the same density as Dylan's lyrics.