Bob Dylan 의 "Chronicles" 에서 1

1. 작년 이 책을 사온 다음날(12/6/2016) 쓴 글에다 인용글을 몇 더 추가한 것 (인용은 모두 "3 New Morning" 에서)

Bob Dylan 은 이름이나 알고 있었다. 대학 졸업반 때 그룹 활동 모임에서 우리가 종종 불렀던 노래 "Blowin' in the Wind" 가 그의 노래인 것도 이번에 뉴스를 통해서 알았다. 집에서는, 처음 라디오를 갖게 된 때부터 여지껏, 듣는 음악이 늘 고전 음악이니 그럴 만하다.

바람 쏘일 겸 어제도 들른 Smoky Hill Library 카페에서 눈에 띈 Bob Dylan, "Chronicles: Volume one" (2004) 을, 좀 읽어 보니 꽤 재미가 있어서, 샀다. 노벨상 때문이겠지만, 다른 책 값의 두 배인 5불이었다. 어제 밤에도 조금 읽다가 잤다. 그가 이미 유명해져서 겪은 젊었을 적 일에 대해 읽으면서, 신문에 난, 노벨상 수상 소식을 듣고난 후의 그의 반응을 떠올렸다.

"3 New Morning"에서 몇 구절 인용한다. 나처럼 Bob Dylan 을 잘 모르는 사람에게도 그의 어떤 면이 엿보이는 게 흥미로웠다.

There  was a letter from Archibald MacLeish, Poet Laureate of America -- one of them. Carl Sandberg, poet of 

the prairie and the city, and Robert Frost, the poet of dark meditations were the others. (107)

I liked T. S. Eliot. He was worth reading. (p110)

MacLeish tells me that he considers me a serious poet and that my work would be a touchstone for generations after me, that I was a postwar Iron Age poet but that I had seemingly inherited something metaphysical from a bygone era. (p111)

He asked me if I'd ever read the French poet Francois Villon, and I told him that I did read him and then he said he saw some slight influence in my work. (p112)

Being born and raised in America, the country of freedom and independence, I had always cherished the values and ideals of equality and liberty. I was determined to raise my children with these ideals. (p115)

I really was never any more than what I was -- a folk musician who gazed into gray mist with tear-blinded eyes

and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze. (p116)

I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meanings subverted into polemics and that I had been anointed as the Big Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent, The Duke of Disobedience, Leader of the Freeloaders, Kaiser of Apostasy, Archbishop of Anarchy, the Big Cheese. What the hell are we talking about? Horrible titles any way you want to look at it. All code words for Outlaw. (p120)

James Joyce seemed like the most arrogant man who ever lived, had both his eyes wide open and great faculty of speech, but what he says I knew not what, ... (p130)

Earlier in the week we had gotten back from Princeton, New Jersey, where I had been given a Honorary Doctorate degree. (p132)

I was glad I came to get the degree, though. I could use it. Every look and touch and scent of it spelled respectability and had something of the spirit of the universe in it. (p134)

A few years earlier, I 'd read The Prince and had liked it a lot. Most of what Machiavelli said made sense, but certain things stick out wrong -- like when he offers the wisdom that it's better to be feared than loved, it kind of makes you wonder if Machiavelli was thinking big. I know what he meant, but sometimes in life, someone who is loved can inspire more fear than Machiavelli ever dreamed of. (p141)