John Lennon: The Life

This is one great biography. Seriously. For one thing, it is very well-written. Mr. Norman brings to life the early Liverpool years, the Beatlemania period, and his final decade of activism mixed with domesticity. His writing is clear, often elegant and frequently plain hilarious. There are dozens "turns-of-phrase" that'll having you grinning and sometimes flat-out laughing sprinkled throughout the book...I got the feeling he was being influenced by Lennon's own legendary humor. I felt like I got a clear picture of the man John Lennon. In fact, the parts of Lennon that were not so attractive are what add to the three-dimensionality of my impression. He is presented in all his prickly, thorny beauty. This is not all just "the good parts" nor is it a one-sided Goldman-esque vitriolic spew. It feels complete. There are myths that are cleanly debunked, his good-natured, sweet side is on full display and yet his treatment of first wife Cynthia and son Julian are among the numerous aspects of his character that will make you wince a little while reading. He's no angel. I knew a lot about John Lennon. I now know a LOT more. I've read pretty much all of the essential Beatle books, and this is now, without hesitation, one of them. If I have a quibble, it's that the last period of Lennon's life gets the short end of the stick when compared to the pre-Beatles and Beatles sections. However, if you know about Norman's first Beatle book, "Shout", (which stoked my nascent Beatle fervor when it was originally released over 20 years ago), then this is not surprising. He's just better at that stuff. But it's still a fascinating section...I just wanted more, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, is it? I have to say that as I was nearing the end of this thick tome, I felt an acceleration. The only thing I can compare it to, and this is morbid as hell, is that crescendo roar before a plane crashes into the ground. I knew this horrible ending was coming...it was one of those thing, for me, where I will always remember where I was when I heard...yet I was still irrationally hoping for some different ending. I couldn't stop reading...I inhaled the last 100 pages without blinking and barely breathing. I was involved in this terrific life, and the book proper ends, with a wrenching jolt. There is no reportage of the aftermath; of the reactions, of the tributes. However, there is an epilogue of heart-breaking poignancy. It's a conversation with Sean Lennon. I read those last pages through tears, the presence of which surprised me. He was five when his dad died. My son is five now. That may have had something to do with my reaction; big deal. I used to like John Lennon. I love this guy now and his absence, for me, is all that much greater. The things he would have done, said, sung, been...this book will make you think.

Lots of details, some of them entirely new to me and likely to be to any regular Beatles fan. Competently written but not as energetic as the author's prior Beatles book. Enfatuation with detail remains, the sometimes envious but always enthralled tone of his prior work is gone. "The Life" is decently paced, interesting, follows chronology but appears to have limited resources (John's 'lost weekend' lasted a year and a half and I think its description covered only 10 pages in this book... getting Nilson to scream himself hoarse and thus ruin his career isn't covered, the many women John slept with while 'on a break' with Yoko aren't detailed any more than to list the one that was assigned as his designated lover (a Ms. May) by Yoko). I was surprised to learn so much more about Yoko, like that she was a classically trained musician and heiress of a famous Japanese art/banking line before meeting John (but which she had broken from prior to meeting him). Her expressing herself in Beatles' recording sessions, onerous as that must have been for the rest of the band, appear to have been informed by more than mere whim. The fact that John had been an aspiring artist, real artist artist with turtleneck and a broad reading list and crazy friends, before his occasional band got good helps to explain partly why he left the Beatles for the actively avant garde Yoko... I think he was well on his way to being an acid casualty too and his plunge into symbiosis with her certainly saved him from the worst of that. Its strange to realize that John was already a married man, already on his way to being a father before he showed up anywhere on TV in chirpy lad mode. This book is heavy with info on his youth, about which I'd only read dribs and drabs here and there before. The last chapter, apparently distilled from an interview with John's son, was surprising and very moving.

In JOHN LENNON: THE LIFE, Author Philip Norman has complied possibly the most complete, concise, honest and forthright biography of the late John Lennon to date. And it saddens me that Yoko couldn't bring herself to endorse it because, as she said, "He was mean to John." That may be the most telling aspect of the whole ordeal. For, if anything, it was John himself who was most mean to John - and nearly everyone else. Even the most casual Beatles fan knows that. And Yoko was, in many ways, his facilitator. In others, the mother figure he never truly experienced. Nonetheless, from his early childhood to Quarry Bank, to Beatlemania and well beyond - until the day of his tragic murder - Philip Norman covers it all in exacting detail, straight from the mouths of John Lennon's family, friends, and closest confidants. And all the names and footnotes are laid out for all the whole to see. So, to that end I say, "Bravo Mr. Norman!" You've taken on one of the most beloved and controversial figures of the 20th Century, laid him bare, raised him up, praised him where deserving, and - not really criticized - but shown us all just how complicated, confused and conflicted this self proclaimed "Working Class Hero" could be. In doing so you've painted a picture of a man with parental & authority issues, who never quite grew up, yet managed to reach heights never before scaled by anyone in his chosen profession. A man full of insecurities and paranoia. A drug addict. Sex addict. And God only knows what else. And yet he managed to author some of the most endearing, inspiring, tender, and meaningful songs of his time. And despite all his flaws, bared to the world for decades now, he remains beloved by untold millions still. You've taken the story of this complicated man, and told it in a straightforward, unapologetic fashion. Told his story, good, bad and otherwise - warts & glory - in a manner easy for anyone to understand and relate to. And done a fine job of it sir. And John Lennon fans everywhere (this one included) are forever in your debt.

A must read for music fans, Phillip Norman has complied a work that in my view can be considered definitive. The book is a very long read which at various times provided so much detail that it seemed tedious. The book does provide fascinating and previously unknown details about the life of one of the most beloved and prolific artists of our time who was tragically and abruptly taken from us just when he was starting to find some measure of true happiness in his life. Somehow, as a music fan, when you have followed the career of a favored musician from the faraway perspective of your own life, you can’t help adopting popular myths. This is especially the case when many of those myths are perpetuated for reasons of privacy or business. Apparently Yoko Ono provided invaluable input to the author, and even reviewed the manuscript, but did not want the book to be called an “authorized” biography choosing to remain in the shadows. Then later on refusing to endorse it because she thought it was “mean to John”. Like the author, I beg to differ. I would characterize the book as candid and unequivocal, but guileless. A very straightforward and carefully compiled biography that is both respectful and comprehensive. All aspects of John’s life are explored for what they teach us about the real person behind the myths and how his life turned out. John was a complex man who was possessed of an irrepressible talent. It was that indomitable artistic spirit that eventually led him to escape a tumultuous p

I grew up on the Beatles, thought I knew just about everything there was to know about them. I was always fascinated by John in particular, so took extra time over the years to glean what info I thought was honest and true about him from alot of different sources. This book blows it all away. More detail than I could have dreamed of. Seems to have been very well researched and although Yoko stated she felt the author was "mean to John", I don't see how that could be the case. There were plenty of quotes from John himself and info from people who knew him best to back up the facts. Of course, she was closest to him than just about anyone else in a more personal, day to day way, but still. I think the portrayal of John was probably pretty much accurate. It made me sad all over again to get to the end, outside the Dakota. This is a BIG book, 882 pages I think, over 24 hours on my Kindle. But I read it in less than a week and was sorry to see it end. Totally drew me in, got me to thinking, made me laugh, made me cry. Made me sing every Beatle song I know in my mind, stuck there looping around for days...which isn't a bad thing. I very much enjoyed this book and thank the author for all his hard work writing it. It couldn't have been easy!

I read this book in conjunction with Peter Ames Carlin's Paul McCartney: A Life, written within about a year of each other. I was primarily interested in the creative relationship between these two men, which was so different from most songwriters. Unlike say Jagger & Richards or Elton John & Bernie Taupin, or even Rogers & Hammerstein and George & Ira Gershwin, these Beatles songwrites didn't differentiate tasks between lyrics and music. It perhaps could be said that Lennon was stronger on lyrics and McCartney on music (if one takes out the third element of George Martin's productions), but in the main when the two wrote songs together, they allowed each other to influence and add elements of the song with an open mind and spirit. That seemed to me to be a tremendous achievement between artists, who usually don't take well to the tinkering of others in their sacred personal creation, and I wondered what were the dynamics that made such work possible and magical. No doubt there was love between them, a strongly emotional love quite different from most musical partnerships, where in a stage of their development they practically meant everything to each other. Norman's book even suggests (as does Yoko in an interview) that there may have been something a bit homosexual about the attraction on John's side. They went through all the emotions of a divorce when the Beatles split and formed primary relationships with their wives as they reached their thirties. But they kept an abiding love for each other, despite quarrels and vicious squabbles. I believe that speaks well for the both of them, and both books tell great stories of a highly successful relationship that might provide guidance to other men loving each other, especially through their artistic creations. Norman's Lennon is a little dryer than Carlin's McCartney, due to the fact that Norman seems to depend on almost entirely on interviews, while Carlin allows a little speculative imagination to fill in. But both are well written and add new insights to the making of Beatles music and John & Paul's individual projects.

Despite the content being very well researched and informative and the fact that I was very keen on learning about John Lennon, I struggled to get through this book. I don’t know if it was just the author’s writing style, but I felt it was excessively wordy and did not flow and I had to constantly look up words in the dictionary which really made this book a slog. I would be hesitant to read another book from this author just for that reason, although it was very well researched and I learned a lot.

For the biography, as usual, it is important to distinguish the life from the merit of the writing. Author Philip Norman is a fan of The Beatles and to a lesser extent John Lennon’s work with Yoko Ono. He comments on songs down to the minute, or at least day, during which they were written, and takes extra joy out of connecting lyrics to puns and real life events. This detailing highlights Lennon’s personality, even though based on his broken home and based on the childish appeal of early Beatles pop songs, many of the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” standards would not have ulterior meaning. Norman is perhaps the biggest Beatles fan, but if Lennon is the topic, it is perfectly acceptable to worship him subliminally and from a safe distance, while discussing the inevitability of groupie exploitation, legendary selfishness, unacceptable temper, alcoholism, and his incredible vulnerability to trends. Based on the full circle of his subject’s maturation, Norman is able to tell-all without fear of staining a legacy or screaming his love from the front row. The five post “lost weekend” years make this possible, and had they not been lived in the first place, the life would not have made the biography such a sign of textured redemption and humility. Without Lennon, the book has to be a who’s who. Brian Epstein was the manager whose death at 32 would lead to all the wrangling about the catalogue of songs in the 1980s. For so important a figure in the “black and white” years, his death is just a headline and a subsequent financial void. With Lennon, Epstein is one example of his roughneck political incorrectness, the first real glimpse of the honesty that makes people uncomfortable. Phil Spector is here in the same role, supervisor of production so artistically schooled his artistic sensibilities become clouded by his otherwise insensibility. He lived behind barbed wire and bodyguards, and always tends to do more than he says. The pages of this book would not help Spector sway a jury during a murder trial. Ringo Starr is by far the most level-headed, cooperative and helpful person, always content to craft a line in someone else’s song and play it as it was written. George Harrison, it must be noted, is a poor man’s Brian Jones, whose death is never in the book but whose musical talent, in Norman’s opinion, is the one to match Lennon’s. Billy Joel is the one famous musician who was watching Ed Sullivan in February, 1964. As it turns out, Lennon would someday become the distant admirer of “Just the Way You Are” and yell from Long Island Sound, “Billy, I have all your records!” Norman has no qualms about painting the female clothes on J. Edgar Hoover with almost every reference, and calls him a transvestite. Nixon is a stern but temporary obstacle, not an enemy so much as a politician looking to mobilize on an issue during the Vietnam War; his re-election actually meant leaving Lennon alone. Harry Nilsson is the enabling alcoholic and musical soul-mate in Los Angeles, the inadvertent victim of Lennon’s reckless influence. I can find no connection to Yoko Ono worth building into the larger Lennon message. The author cites himself as being accused of being “anti-Paul” but never says the same about her. He does not show her in gratuitously bad light or anybody unfairly, accept possibly Hoover. There is but one legitimate excuse for her wrecking the timeline and persona of the most influential band in history, and that is the claim, made by both husband and wife, that she could not have fallen for John the Beatle, since she was so abstractly artistic and culturally isolated that she had missed the whole Beatles craze. Part of my disgust comes from the acquainted fact that she missed the craze because she had been too old for it, seven years to be exact. Aunt Mimi was most likely never reconciled to this above all else. Julian and Cynthia Lennon are low points in his narrative, over and over again. He was not a bad husband and father for several years to them both but much worse. John Lennon treated his family like they were fans in the front row, screaming and mindless nuisances who were blocking his attempts to be a real artist. Of course the marriage and divorce could be understood, but the manner in which he introduced the end of their lives together looks much more like Pete Townsend’s version of how Eric Clapton stole Patty Boyd from Harrison: too much LSD, sitting yogi style on the floor, free love, and pseudo-transcendence. This leaves Paul McCartney, who, despite being almost as likable as Ringo Starr, is not as interesting and proved to be nowhere near the songwriter as John Lennon . After Revolver and Rubber Soul I couldn’t help but notice, or confirm, that the “Paul songs” were the ones I had naturally just wanted to skip when I first started listening in high school to greatest hits tapes. I am infatuated with the concept that “Yesterday” was a song he woke up with, convinced it was derivative until people he played it for told him that it was indeed not a rip-off. “Eleanor Rigby” is a Paul song that had a Lennon title, based on an old otherwise anonymous headstone. “Hey Jude” was “Hey Jules,” one written after consoling Cynthia for John’s ultimate callousness, the highpoint for McCartney in the book but ultimately not a top-tier song or level of artistic complexity. “The Long and Winding Road” isn’t in the book. “Paperback Writer” is, and again connected to Lennon based on some foreshadowing childhood, or perhaps Quarrymen, reference point. Wings perturbed Lennon, and solo McCartney evidently perturbed everybody, the bouncing but sad puppy dog eyes grown stale for a lot of people who didn’t want their father singing to them. Nevertheless, Paul was nicer to Yoko than John was to Linda Eastman. This can be, perhaps, attributed to the dark emotions and the dark memories intrinsic to John, all part of his larger and more widely varying artistic stamp. His insecurities are what ultimately endear him to so many. When people asked, “Are you going to get back together,” as the book details was more likely after financial hatchets had been buried in 1974, everybody telling Paul he was correct about management and Allen Klein, they wanted to see “the other three” reunited with John Lennon. In fact, Lennon’s turmoils, ideas, voice, persona, and emotional output are alone equal to that of three other people. “Dear Prudence” was written in India to Mia Farrow’s little sister. Elvis had remote control in 1964 and was holding a bass, disappointingly, when he met the group. Keith Richards’ name is misspelled more times, many times, than it is correctly spelled with the “s”. Mick Jagger and Marrianne Faithful don’t make anything more interesting to read. Norman speculates that Stu Sutcliffe may have died as a result of kicks to the head from John Lennon’s boot. Based on the antics of Julia Lennon, sexual and otherwise, and her suppression of the real Alf/Freddie Lennon, without music John Lennon could have turned into Mark David Chapman. But there was Aunt Mimi, giving him the tools to play Buddy Holly.

un merveille - même pour quelqu'un qui pensais de connaître l'histoire de la vie de Lennon - je ne connaissais pas - les details sont surprenants et il est très bien écrit

This book seems in my opinion like a great and true book about johns life it tell everything perfect anf all the story’s and everything, it’s just sweet sad and also funny in some way. Perfect book for perfect Lennon fans!

John Lennon was a great composer and a decent musician, but he was quite a difficult person. This book helped me understand his complex character. This biography is very well documented and written. I highly recommend it to any serious Beatles fans.

Livro muitíssimo importante para conhecer sobre a vida desse estupendo artista.

Quick and easy to buy but received Book and it's fairly weathered. Not in new condition at all. Disappointing