Bob Dylan Reaction

1. What is your reaction to this text?
It seemed to just be about important moments in these two people lives. About their addictions, behavior, and married life. Overall there's a lot of mention of substance abuse, violence, and then briefly more romantic and sweet things. There's also mention and connection to works by Bob Dylan. Him and his works are related to the main male character in the story. I'm not sure what is the main connection to draw between him and Subterranean Homesick Blues but after watching the documentary I can see a connection between him and Dylan in general. Both seem easily agitated and to a degree pessimistic. I can see why the man in the story looks up to and aspires to be like Dylan, as both are similar personality wise. Dylan seems like a more successful version of him.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.
It might be just because am particularly tired this morning but I found the article kind of hard to get through. I didn't make a lot of connections with the author or her husband. But I also feel like thats okay for this piece. There is a whole paragraph about being able to sympathize with people without actually identifying with them. It reads, "We must not suppose that we can imagine other people's sufferings at all fully, and we must not imagine that in supposing them we can identify ourselves with them. Try never to use the phrase 'identify with.'" This all goes back to our sympathy vs empathy debate we had in class one time. But overall the connections I made to the text were few and far between. Not to sound rude or heartless, but I couldn't relate and even though that's not a deal breaker for emotional investment I found myself uninterested and confused. Kind of left wondering why I should care in the first place.

3. What changes would you make to adopt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?
I can see this story fitting well into a movie or some sort of screen adaptation. There's a lot of scenes that would create visual interest such as their conception spot in the mountains, the parking lot, or their idyllic wedding. Also this story would benefit from the audio cues that are implemented into movies or TV. A soundtrack composed of Bob Dylan would help strengthen the established connection between him and the man in the story. Also overall the story seemed kind of all over the place and out of order, which is fine. A story doesn't have to be completely linear all the time. But it got confusing and I had trouble keeping up with where or when each excerpt from the story was taking place. Having a visual aid makes it easier to establish a setting or time period. In short, visual and audio cues would help this story immensely.