Bob Dylan – Tarantula Review

Charmingly ridiculous is about the nicest thing anyone could say about Tarantula. A book of poems from Bob Dylan which he never intended to write. But he did want to edit them. A motorcycle accident prevented this from happening, and so we are left with a book of experimental prose. Another word for that, in this instance, is nonsense. But some of his best lyrics, some of the finest sentences, are built on nothing but goodwill and a prayer. David Byrne, Hunter S. Thompson, Dylan too, focused on the tangential and the emotional experience occurring in this synonym exercise. Tarantula is a love-it-or-hate-it experience, but the middle of the road is easier to lay in. It is unintelligible at times, often nonsensical, too. But there are moments in Tarantula which speak from the heart, and that is all we can ask of artists.  

Take a poem like Chug a Lug – Chug a Lug Hear Me Hollar Hi Dee Ho, where a narrative thread can be found but the conclusion, the message we receive from this short interaction, has just the tangential to rely on. That much is a thrill ride for Dylan fans, or those who want to understand and at least appreciate his more leftfield prose. It can be found in his best songs, in his worst, too. All that matters is the experience. Subterranean Homesick Blues may linger as the best example of Tarantula-like works. A fast-paced, spoken-word delivery where the tempo is key. It is harder to control that in the written word but the experiment founded in Tarantula is admirable. Vague stories and vaguer conclusions are all part of Dylan’s charm, and that much is clear in his greatest songs, let alone his most ridiculous, off-the-cuff poems. 

Sometimes the hook and line come from the post-poem text. Those little, faux letters written and signed by some strange character. Those are the moments that seal what becomes a rather wordy preamble, which never tends to have a sinker or conclusion. We must accept the open-endedness, otherwise, the possessive nature that breaks down solid, and crucially entertaining writing, appears. Many of the poems within Tarantula take on a form similar to that of The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. Focus is on the media analyst and his subjugation of art, the rejection of control in the artistic space. Tarantula finds this a suitable avenue of work.  

That may just be high-art jargon equivalent to the nonsense found within this poetry compilation, though. There is a spark of intrigue there, a question hanging over what is and is not sense, what can and cannot be considered art. Would these poems have the same effect, the same talk around it, had they not had Dylan write them? No. It is an unfortunate spurious question and a line of argument which leads to whataboutism, but the joys of Tarantula are found in discussions about it, rather than the specifics of the text. There is plenty to love, much to frustrate, and enough to bother getting through it. Not just for the seasoned Dylan fan, but for those wanting a slice of fascinating, often challenging for the sake of it, prose and meaning.