Ken Tucker

Been thinking it all over and I thought it all through.

I've made up my mind to give myself to you.

Polito's book accepts the common idea that Dylan lost his way in the 1980s, putting out mediocre music, giving listless live performances.

I'd certainly noticed that something was up when Dylan seemed re-engaged starting in the late 90s, but I was struck by the way Polito cast this as a near-total reinvention.

Key to this, he thinks, and I agree, was Dylan letting go of mere careerism in favor of the pursuit of art, making paintings and sculptures, his book writing such as 2004's Chronicles Volume 1, the hundred episodes of his Theme Time Radio Hour, and a tighter approach to his live shows, which in turn revitalized his studio recordings.

I crossed the Rubicon on the 14th day

Of the most dangerous month of the year At the worst time at the worst place That's all I seem to hear I got up early So I could greet the goddess of the dawn I painted my wagon abandon all hope

The result of all this activity, argues Pulido in After the Flood, is a new method of Bob Dylan music making.

Instead of social commentary or first-person pseudo-confessions, he crafts songs in what Pulido repeatedly refers to as collage, songs with melodies rooted in the blues and early rock and roll, containing lines and images borrowed, changed, or rewritten from a wide variety of literary sources and visual artists.

Pulido points out examples of Dylan giving the game away, as in his year 2000 song, My Own Version of You, in which the speaker operates as a Dr. Frankenstein, creating his own beautiful monster of romanticism.

All through the summers into January I've been visiting morgues and monasteries Looking for the necessary body parts

After the Flood takes the form of an abecedarian, or alphabet book.

26 chapters, each beginning with a letter of the alphabet that reveals a topic.

The chapter beginning with Q, for example, examines quotations Dylan has embedded in his work.

Chapter R discusses how Dylan rewrites and revises.

The book itself is a flood of ideas, of information, of emotion.

As it proceeds, we begin to learn things about the author, that the writing of this book, for example, was interrupted by an illness that was almost fatal.

but which also inspired him to make sure he completed it.

Steady and sure.

Nothing more empty than what I must endure.