Phone Booth

“The phone booths were like sanctuaries” (225).
Dylan does not have a problem with being alone; in fact Dylan’s obsession with the tranquility and peacefulness that comes with privacy is reverberant throughout his entire autobiography. On page 225 he claims that the phone booths of the city drive the noise and dirt away, but the fact of the matter is that the people on the other side of the line are not alone or private. As soon as Dylan gives off any signal of his being/whereabouts it will become public.
After Dylan explains to the irony behind being able to seclude oneself to the privacy of a city phone booth (while opening oneself to the public), he moves on to tell of his childhood and teenage years. He makes public the ideologies and learning’s from his early childhood. It is important to note that Dylan’s story is not chronological, and he often steps away from different anecdotes in his life in order to tell of another.
I thought the most interesting part of chapter five involved Dylan’s vivid explanation as to how his recordings with Lou went down. Dylan quite modestly and cunningly clarifies the fact that he was not a songwriter, at least not a conventional songwriter. He explains that he rearranges old blues ballads, and eventually adds an original line here or there. In my opinion, Dylan’s perspective towards himself and his music is vividly different to the Dylan who was speaking in the beginning of his autobiography. Dylan’s modesty was evident at first, but there was a clear sense of arrogance in his telling of what was to come for his future as a musician. Now that he has told the reader of his journey up to this point he feels that there is nothing to hide; Dylan must reveal all his secrets.
On page 228, Dylan continues to bash on his own musical style. He claims that his music is simple and was not thought consuming. He rambles on in his recordings with Lou, without a sense of remembrance.
Dylan then claims that for a while he rode on the shoulders of Woody Guthrie in his music.
Perhaps Dylan feels like the privacy he had gained from his “phone booth” has been exploited by the publicity of his life on the other line (perhaps the reader).