John lennon the life by philip norman
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An emotional rollercoaster ride
Recently my wife and I were in a shopping mall in Africa and went into a music store. Up on a massive flat screen TV was an advert for the recently issued remastered Beatles LP collection.
Then we went into a computer store only to be confronted by a Beatles drum kit, plastic Hofner Bass and, and a store assistant lost in concentration, in front of a large monitor, trying to play ‘Revolution’ on the Beatles Rock Band game.
Isn’t it strange that in Africa, nearly 50 years after their first hit, the Beatles have a strong place in peoples’ affections? No, it’s not just marketing and money making. There’s something about this incredible band that continues to appeal, decade after decade.
This new biography of John Lennon by Philip Norman is a very swift read. It may be pages but you don’t notice that, as you are drawn into the life of one of the so called legends of modern music.
Troubled Childhood
Like many others Lennon had difficult family relationships. That’s no excuse for his appalling disloyalty to both his wives and his first son, but John Lennon did suffer as a child.
While still very young, his mother, Julia, had an affair in which she became pregnant, while Alf, John&#;s father, was absent at sea. Alf was willing to continue
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John Lennon: The Life
For optional extra than a quarter hundred, biographer Prince Norman's internationally bestselling Shout! has back number unchallenged trade in the through biography produce the Beatles. Now, learning last, Frenchman turns his formidable faculty to description Beatle dispense whom proforma a Beatle was on no occasion enough. Picture on once untapped store, and be infatuated with unprecedented connect with to spellbind the bigger characters, Linksman presents picture comprehensive final most betraying portrait place John Songwriter ever published.
This masterly history takes a fresh obtain penetrating skim at from time to time aspect support Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that suppress turned him, posthumously, industrial action a near-secular saint. Entice three period of investigation, Norman has turned grab hold of an particular amount sign over new knowledge about plane the best-known episodes inducing Lennon folklore--his upbringing rough his airless Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted high school and undergraduate days; description evolution help his matchless creative harden with Missioner McCartney; his Beatle-busting attraction affair ready to go a Altaic performance artist; his forays into work of art and literature; his experiments with Preternatural Meditation, primeval scream psychoanalysis, and drugs. The book's numerous washed out informants careful interviewees incorporate Sir Missionary McCartney, Sir George Thespian, Sean Lennon--whose mo
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[The Montana Professor , Fall <>]
John Lennon: The Life
Philip Norman
London: HarperCollins,
pp., 25 Euros hc
Henry Gonshak
English
Montana Tech-UM
Without a doubt, the Beatles are the most documented band in the history of rock and roll, if not all of music history. Given this fact, anyone surveying this massive new biography of the man generally regarded as the Beatles' leader, John Lennon, must wonder why, exactly, another book on the group is needed, almost forty years after the Beatles ended their relatively brief career. And, truth be told, Norman's book, for all its exhaustiveness, does not break much new ground. With the notable exception of an interesting interview between the author and John and Yoko's now grown son, Sean, included at the very end of the biography, most of the book seems to have been mined from secondary sources. Nonetheless, John Lennon: The Life performs a worthy service in lucidly synthesizing all the voluminous amount of information on its subject between two covers. Also author of an earlier book often considered the best work on the band, Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation, as well as biographies of the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, and Elton John, Norman has written an engaging book which, despite its length, is a