The Dylanist

by Brian Morton

Sally Burke feels alienated growing up, eventually realizing that she is a "Dylanist"a rebel whose feelings are an end in themselvesleading to efforts to be of use in the world, in a new edition of the debut novel by the awardwinning author of Starting Out in the Evening. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

356 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.


BRIAN MORTON is the author of four previous novels, including Starting Out in the Evening, which was a Salon favorite book of the year and was made into an acclaimed feature film, and A Window Across the River, which was a Book Club selection on the Today show. He is the director of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence and teaches at New York University and the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out slowly for me, but I ended up loving it. I know I must be a "Dylanist" too, that is, someone who responds emotionally, because the emotionality of the main character completely pulled me in. Sally also overthinks everything...but in an emotional rather than a logical way. For many years, Sally has been living with a man who really doesn't make her happy. She meets a man who is a union organizer, as is her father. He is curious about her, asks questions, pulls her out of herself. "She was charmed by his questions, flattered. It felt good to be here. Usually he was too anxious, too eager to please. But she appreciated him here, in this calm. She felt cared for." But she questions this relationship as well. She realizes that "her parents were in the thick of life: staying up all night trying to help some very poor people win a raise and a touch of dignity...Her parents were closer to the cutting edge than she was. She was off the history train...and maybe her willingness to leap aboard wasn't a sign of individuality at all, but how her time had deformed her.

As Sally finds fault with her friends life choices (motherhood) or career or a simpering mate, it's reallyThen she criticizes another friend, Caitlin, who has a baby...it's really all about Sally trying to figure what life SHE wants to live, who she wants to be. Her friend Beth was going to law school to make a lot of money. "She had lost her bounce But that was good. Sally's job was to rid the world of lost bounce." Sally is impossible...and she feels utterly real.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author has turned out to be one of my favourites, unfortunantly after reading this book I will have read them all. One can only hope he is working on something else.

This was a great read, not as outstanding as Breakable You, but still a formidable work. Honestly, and I don't know why, the first 200 pages had me holding this book up with my all time favorites, but somehere after that it lost me. While I would still reread this book again, it is that good, I can't call it his best.

[Diane · Rating 1 out of 5]

The short choppy sentences were annoying. The main character was whining and spoiled throughout the novel. Was this a comment on a generation of people ( the "me generation") or was it a portrait of a singular character? In any case, Morton is a better writer than this. His "Starting Out In The Evening" is a much better book.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lost patience with the character and the tedium of plot development.

[Sissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up because it was mentioned in Greil Marcus' Old Weird America. The song "I'm Not There" by Bob Dylan on the basement tapes was an obsessive personal favorite and also the favorite of the main character in Dylanist. This is the reason I picked up it, and I enjoyed that it was a female protagonist and found the book insightful and deeply enjoyable. It had an aching quality that preceeded gender in an awkward way.

[Patrice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uninteresting characters, no real plot, weak character development—a huge disappointment.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved narrator Sally and her endearing overthinking of things.

[Kathleen Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and quite astonishing that a man wrote so poignantly from inside a woman's head. It starts out during the same period, the 1960s, when I was a young idealist and much of what Sally thought and experienced was so similar to my own young life. I loved her parents -- Burke and Hannah -- two liberal/communist activists. I actually liked them better than any of the other characters in the book. As the story progressed I became somewhat annoyed with Sally's endless introspection. At one point she tells herself to just stop thinking about herself all the time and I thought "yes, yes, yes -- you're finally getting it!" But she didn't. I loved Ben -- he was too darn good for her.

A very well-written book with an interesting story and a heroine who would have been much morelikeable if she could just get over herself.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

i tore through this book in two days while traveling to and staying in utah. it reads fast and is generally well-written. it's kind of a meditation on how we think about thinking about ourselves (deep) and our relations to others set against a shifting cultural background: the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with other reviewers that Sally's constant introspection was annoying, and had to remind myself that in today's terms she is still young enough to be undecided. Her parents were, by far, were the best and strongest characters in the book. And, as in his other books, Morton's vocabulary and language is sublime; I wish I knew people who talked the way his characters do.

[Melanie Mccullough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I were a New York intellectual.

[Julie]

I liked his other book, Starting Out in the Evening--so I picked this up. Lately, i'm reading whatever i find at HOME. i could open my own branch of Barnes & Noble...pathetic.