Dylan’s Odyssey

Writings and Drawings, by Bob Dylan. New York: Knopf. 315 pp.

A man, no longer young, with a history of having wanted to be famous; then, having achieved that in a rush, of hiding out from an adoring and rapacious world. With a history, too, of saying, writing, and singing the opposite of what he means, or not quite what he means, and sometimes not even knowing what he means, yet always, presumably, pledged to a species of truth-telling. On some occasions when Dylan has sung what he means straight out, he has later retracted it and disabused many who thought they understood what he had in mind and were pleased by it. Dylan has gone through a number of changes. For several years, he worked diligently at making himself R...