John Lennon: The Life

I have not read any other book about John Lennon so i cannot comment on the claims of "hackery" and my views are therefore only based on my reading of this book alone. And what a book. A brilliant read, very interesting details about his early life but also the book weaves the genesis of various songs and albums into the various stages of Lennon's life. I agree that the Yoko Ono years are slightly less interesting, however the final chapter, where Sean discusses some of his memories of John is really moving, sensitive and perceptive. Superb. A bout of flu has helped me devour the book in 4 days! I couldn't put it down. Wonderful.

BEATLES JOHN LENNON (2/3 people found this helpful)

Well I have just read what has been the most interesting book on John Lennon's life. I have a few books on the Beatles and John Lennon for me this was a wonderful time capsule of this life. I loved the letters that Aunt Mimi received from a fan at the time of the Beatles success which Mimi seemed happy to correspond with. She even tells her of the pending move to the South Coast, sharing all this with someone she never met. Ok, it was interesting for me to learn about John's grandparents and also that Julia gave birth to four children. It was also an eyeopener for me to learn about John's father Freddie and that he did try to keep in touch with John. The story did not end there for both of them because John did buy him a house and they kept in touch.
My only complaint is that the hardback version is heavy to hold up for a nightime read !! Joking aside - a publication well written and one I shall use as a reference to the life of John Lennon.

Haunting (14/19 people found this helpful)

In The Word magazine (October issue), Philip Norman suggested, in passing, that his latest book was intended to be a biography of Lennon to set alongside similar volumes devoted to Churchill, Ghandi and Hitler: - an antidote to the flimsy paperback pop-biog formula, and a reflection of the musician's huge place in 20th Century culture. The sheer size of the book (853 pp, not the 448 in Amazon's product details) testifies to this hubristic ambition, and, at over 1/3 million words, the result is a true epic, `half-as-long-again' as the Great American Novel, "Moby-Dick" (213,000 wds)...

Does the size of the book make it an equal to Kershaw's `Hitler', or Jenkins' `Churchill? No. But the lucid quality of the writing does. This book is by far the most literary volume ever written about the phenomenon of late 20th Century pop music, to rank alongside Peter Guralnick's `Elvis' tomes, and Greil Marcus's various studies. A skilled novelist and playwright, Norman shows his hand in the opening lines, neatly sidestepping biographical convention with a novelistic slight-of-hand which telescopes 100 years of history into a bewildering instant. From there, the opening chapter goes on for 18 pages, painting the scene of Lennon's boyhood with a poignancy and skill recalling the lives that make up Joyce's `Dubliners'.

To pick at such a book with eyes for nothing but `new tidbits' of information, and to reject it as such, seems faintly like passing on Broch's `The Death of Virgil', or Bergmann's `Fanny and Alexander', while complaining that they lack any new gossip. A new `fact' (the attraction to McCartney, say, or the identity of the girl in `Norwegian Wood') may be interesting, but it might just as soon appear on an internet blog. This book extends past these, on the other hand, into a subtle beast, resounding with the voices of those who knew Lennon, through Norman's voluminous interviews, and through correspondence (both his own, and some freshly discovered - such as the revealing letters from Mimi to Jane Wirgman).

The whole, it must be said, is certainly the best book by Philip Norman, catapulting him from the Beatles expert who wrote `Shout!,' and from his own novels and plays, into the poet chronicler of the 20th Century's `favourite pop icon'. More importantly, it is also the best book about John Lennon, easily eclipsing the risible Goldman, and surpassing the over-tired Coleman. In its 850 pages, we are offered a grand story that ranges from 1855 to 1980, of an Alice in Wonderland haunted childhood, through to an artistic re-awakening in the stormy waters of the Bermuda Triangle. Only Norman has the eye to see this for what it is: the Great (English) Novel, an epic story that he steers accordingly, drawing out all of the haunting and surprising parallels between three generations of the Lennon family (Alfred, John and Julian), and the distant calling of Yoko Ono (`ocean child') matching Lennon with the tale of her own prophetic ancestors (just check out p. 762)...

Right up to the hideous abruptness of its closing chapters, Norman's story is a rich and unforgettable one, horrible, inevitable, and full of grace. The book ultimately surpasses the intentions with which he supposedly began it: this is not a work to shadow Kershaw, or Jenkins. It begins with the faint shade of James Joyce (a favourite of Lennon's), travels through the prismatic ages of cinema and psychedelia, and ends up with the tragic surrealism of a room full of cats. A masterpiece.

Hackery (6/10 people found this helpful)

I was expecting great things of this book given that Norman had access to Yoko but this is really a compilation of all that's already been written about Lennon with no credits, footnotes or bibliography referring to the authors whose shoulders he stands upon. What's worse, he doesn't even seem to have read some of the best of the recent books. He overlooks Lennon's brief conversion to Christianity covered by Steve Turner's The Gospel According to the Beatles, Geoffrey Giuliano's Lennon in America, Frederic Seaman's Living on Borrowed Time and Robert Rosen's Nowhere Man. Turner did extensive coverage on how the 'more popular than Jesus' crisis broke but Norman just repeats the story without any reference to Turner's discoveries. He disses Albert Goldman's earlier biography (well he would, wouldn't he) but at least Goldman came up with a lot of new material - material which Norman has absorbed. What's actually new in this book could fill a couple of pages. Most of what's truly original is merely incidental, such as Mimi's postcard comments about John's hair. But even without sensational new material Norman could have achieved something if he'd striven to give a perspective on Lennon, if he'd taken the available material and made sense of it for us. But he just presents the findings documentary style and in the end we're left with the old received wisdom - boy damaged by death of his mother becomes rebel, sells rebellion, becomes wealthy and famous, dies. Surely there must be more to it than that? What about the childhood visions he discussed with Playboy (unmentioned by Norman)? What about his attraaction to the spiritual and his conflicted relationship with Christianity? He plays down the power that Yoko exerted over his life and the post Beatle years come over as a crashing bore. But why did a man whose vision helped shape the popular culture of the sixties become such an empty vessel in the seventies. Norman does not ask.

A serviceable biography (7/8 people found this helpful)

I'm not working just now and like one of the other reviewers I read it in three days. I really enjoyed it. I was 12 when Love Me Do came out and my sister and I bought all their albums on the day of release for several years.

I was also around in London in the late sixties so enjoyed reading the detail about that period.

There are several things about this book which really impressed me however. One is the carefully built up and three dimensional portrait of Lennon's childhood, particularly the portraits of his parents and aunt Mimi. They really come alive for me. So does the picture of Lennon as a 'Just William' character. Clearly for almost his whole life he was a relentless rebel, a continual thorn in the flesh to anyone in authority. I found the stuff about his interest in art and writing really interesting too, going back to his art school days and earlier.

The stuff on Hamburg is great too - that was a hard school, and made them as a band. There is of course a lot of detail on all the Beatles and the changing personnel and friendships. Many readers may be more familiar with this than I as I had never read a book about the Beatles before, but it is really good to get the lowdown on Stu Sutcliffe for example.

The nature of the Lennon McCartney relationship, the friendship with Jagger all add to the mix.

I was less interested in the Yoko Ono years as her work doesn't interest me but the book does bring out how Lennon's personality found his life in New York a new vehicle to express himself in a more explicitly radical way.

The section on the breakup with the Beatles seems to have as much to do with Paul's relationship with Linda as with John's with Yoko but armed with this support they both adopted different financial gurus and that was what really did it.

The is a comprehensive and disciplined book. It doesn't answer every question but for me really brought those years back.

Philip Norman

Reader Reviews:

Definitive and a great read (0/1 people found this helpful)

BEATLES JOHN LENNON (2/3 people found this helpful)

Haunting (14/19 people found this helpful)

Hackery (6/10 people found this helpful)

A serviceable biography (7/8 people found this helpful)

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