The question of personae (when does the mask begin to stick permanently to the face?) is a big one for considering Dylan (and Yeats too, for that matter, who wrote better about it than anyone). I think I am baffled in an uninteresting way by Dylan now -- I compare him with someone like Yeats, or even the Reverend Gary Davis (now there was a complex guy in later years) -- maybe it is the opaqueness in the passivity that is hard to fathom. Think of someone like Son House in his eighties -- like some kind of demented hurricane.

Well, maybe it is an interesting puzzle after all. I sure pity the women in his life, though.   

yours,

Peter T.