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 enlarge | Author: Suze Rotolo
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $12.27
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New (35) from $12.27
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 5674
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.5
ISBN: 0767926870
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42164092
EAN: 9780767926874
ASIN: 0767926870
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: BRAND NEW! Great Gift! 100% Professionals Since 1976! No Marks Ever! Beautiful First edition, First Printing Hardcover In Dust Jacket! Trackable Shipping Goes Right OUT!
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| Customer Reviews:
Somewhat interesting, but get to the part about Dylan August 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this book because of my interest in Bob Dylan and his involvement in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 60's. I enjoyed the parts of Dylan's recent book devoted to this subject. Rotolo really captures the time and place well. I felt I was there. A lot of personnal information about her relationship with Dylan is also revealed, but I felt that she was also holding back a lot. In 1962 she leaves Dylan in the Village to go to Italy for 8 months, He writes to her several times and she reveals that these were excellent letters "full of pain, humor, and storytelling." The book shows photos of a few envelopes. She excerpts a few paragraphs in the book. BUT I WANT MORE OF THOSE LETTERS!!! I WANT EVERY WORD OF THOSE LETTERS!!! Why tease us by saying the letters are incredible but then not reveal the contents??? I felt there were many instances were she starts an interesting episode and then drops it right before we get to the juicy part.
The parts of the book about her life outside of Dylan I found to be boring, not because the facts were not interesting, but because she does not develop them well and often repeats herself.
Rotolo has said she has not spoken before out of deference to Dylan and her own reticence at becoming involved in celebrity. I can't help but wonder what she could reveal if she were willing.
New perspective on an often told tale July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've been a Dylan fan since 1970 and have followed his career through all of its ups and downs, the good albums and the bad (yes, there have been more than a few of the latter), and along the way I've also read many of the books that have been written about the man. Most have been utterly forgettable; some have been insightful; and a rare few have actually been enlightening.
Suze Rotolo's A Freewheelin' Time is, if nothing else, enlightening. More than just the story of a life -- or in this case two lives, Rotolo's and Dylan's -- it is an insider's account of a time and place that now seems strangely distance from our own. For more than being just Bob Dylan's girlfriend, or the girl in the picture on one of the most iconic album covers of the 1960s, Rotlo was also someone who, raised by radical, working-class parents in the 1950s, was steeped in the counterculture ethos that defined the early Civil Rights and Anti-War movements that Dylan ultimately gave voice to. In fact, fascinating though her insights into young Bob Dylan are, some of this book's most interesting passages deal not with Dylan himself, but rather with Rotolo's efforts to find her own true identity as a woman in pre-feminist America, and with her struggle to define herself as a non-conformist in a country that even in the do-your-own-thing '60s valued conformity above all else.
Finally, I don't know what Publishers Weekly was talking about when it took Rotolo to task for her having described Dylan as a genius who at heart isn't very honest--as if it isn't possible for someone to be both brilliant and dishonest at the same time. Give me a break. This isn't the first book to suggest that Dylan has often been less than decent (to say the least) in dealing with others. Stories about Dylan putting people (often old friends) down in public are both ubiquitous and legendary. And you only have to listen to some of the more caustic songs on Blonde and Blonde (and let's not forget Positively 4th Street) to know that the man can wield a song like an ax when he really wants to hurt someone. But that's all part of what makes Dylan -- the man of many masks -- so fascinating. Right? I guess some people (the reviewer from Publishers Weekly no doubt being one of them) prefer having their heroes depicted cookie-cutter neat and without any warts.
Bottom line: This is a fine book that will be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about Bob Dylan, about American on the verge of social and political upheval in the early 60's, or who might simply enjoy reading about a young girl who survived a prolonged encounter with greatness and came out all the stronger for having experienced it.
Nice deposit in the nostalgia bank July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a well written depiction of the 60's. I was a Bob Dylan fan at this time and he was always quite a mystery to me. This could have been one reason, other than his music which I loved, that he infatuated me. Having never been to the village I'd always been curious about the life style there and Suze Rotolo put it together beautifully. I particularly enjoyed how she linked so many of the folk era greats together and their personal dynamics with each other. The book would be worth reading even had she not been the girlfriend of Bob Dylan. Her story was mesmerizing and without a great deal of empty sentiment.
 INTERESTING SOCIAL HISTORY BUT NOT ENOUGH DYLAN July 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A bit repetitive and poorly edited, but still a fun social history reaffirming a great time in American musical development...
Interesting stuff, writing was often flat, still: Recommended July 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is for the most part, but not entirely, about the time that Rotolo was lovers with Bob Dylan. She's an interesting person so I was also interested in the stories about her time in Italy, her life as an artist, her upbringing as a working class red diaper baby, her experiences in Greenwich Village, the people she knew in the folksinging world there in the Village. Then, of course, there's Dylan. Interesting stuff. However, her writing was often flat and the ending was disappointing. She skips chunks of time. I would have liked to know more about her evolution as an artist and the ways she may have struggled to keep being a creative person.
I do recommend it to those of you who are interested in that period of time and Greenwich Village.
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