Off-Topic: Boogie With Bob; On-Topic: Page 34, Paragraphs 5 and 6; Page 35, Paragraphs 1 and 2

Posting kind of late tonight, but I don't mind - I had the pleasure of seeing the great Bob Dylan in concert, courtesy of my friend (and fellow blogger) Doug Smith. I have to admit, it was a much more rockin' show than I was expecting, heavy on the rockabilly- and blues-flavored numbers and light on the introspective acoustic ballads. Bob's current sepulchral vocal stylings take some getting used to, but once you do, it's really kind of a groove, especially on the more sarcastic and cynical numbers. All in all, a great show - I'd recommend seeing him if he rolls into your town. (Caveat emptor: Some familiarity with the Dylan oeuvre is advised, as Bob's reworkings of his old tunes can be pretty radical at times.)

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Okay. Back to business.

Page 34, Paragraph 5 (first paragraph after the break):

Now another strange thing comes. I hear a noise, and know it's my mother, hopping on one foot through the trees to find me -I open my eyes to look at her but don't see her. There's only the pigpen, quiet in the dark, and the noise is coming from behind the wall with the gate in it. I stand up to walk to the wall in the light of the moon, which has climbed high in the sky while was unaware. Now I'm by the wall, and I look across it.

Paragraph 6:

All around the rise, the reeds have become white and sharp, like ice in the moonlight. Walking in the grass, bent over*, is Hob, and a boy walks by him. Like the moon and the reeds, they're white, and everything is white, and I see now that Hob's face isn't black anymore except where the black is rubbed dark into his eye-sockets, so he can't wash it away.

Page 35, Paragraph 1:

The boy walks by Hob, and the hair on his head is black and cut short. I see that he doesn't have hair on his chin or face, so I think he's even younger than me. Out of the reeds now, their white shapes walk up the rise to the little thicket of trees, and Hob walks hand in hand with the boy. The moonlight falls whitely on their backs and their asses, which go into the trees and turn into pieces in the blackness of the branches, where I see no more.

Paragraph 2:

For a long time I look at nothing, and now I sit back down in the hay. I think that boy is Hob's son. I think of my mother, leaning on the tree and saying, "Where did my foot go?" It's a strangeness of the dark. The dark makes it so we can see spirit-dogs and dead people. The hay is warm. The dark presses on my eyelids now, as I don't have the strength to hold them up. And warmth. And dark.


*the best I can do with "low to he's belly"