Review: John Lennon, The Life

"I've done more living than
most people do in ten lifetimes."

If someone were to ask me what is the most misunderstood aspect of John Lennon I would say it's his honesty. Strike me down from the heavens but I will go on record as calling John Lennon the most honest person (and easily greatest artist) since Jesus Christ. Most of us lead deceptive lives and it's human nature to paint the world with our brush. But as Johnny boy put it, "Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey".

Bottom line is when delving into John's life you see a mirror of your own. That's really tough to take. You see, there's no man a liar fears more than an honest man. The liar needs to justify his lies but the honest man's existence proves him false to the world - and unworthy of love in his mind. People have started wars over this - and committed more than one assassination.

So I put off for months reading Philip Norman's biography of John Lennon. Norman had written the fabulous Shout: The Beatles In Their Generation. The Sixties and the entire Beatle phenomena were put into perspective to show how one influenced one as much as the other. Norman showed a keen understanding of the genius of the Beatles and that in itself is a form of genius. But when one scratches the surface of the Beatles it begs a deeper understanding of Lennon, its founder and driving force.

A guilty looking Philip Norman

I did not find what I expected in Norman's Lennon biography. By Lennon's own admission there's all sorts of mythology surrounding his life - one of "walking on water" - and I had hoped to see that magic laid bare even if I had to admit my own shortcomings. But Norman backtracks in this book. It was as if facing Lennon overwhelmed him and he lost faith in himself. Sure, there's plenty of well researched information but it's insight that makes one biography stand out from another.

There's an underlying tone to prove a level of fraudulence on Lennon's part. Where once Norman understood the plight of the artistic soul he switched to a more judgemental attitude of "Lennon never really had it so rough", that he suffered from fictions in his mind. Also, since John could hide nothing, he's an easy target for mischaracterization, portraying him in a single dimensioned manner that obfuscates his true nature. At times in his editorializing, Norman's comments border on bitterness if not mean-spirited. Whatever Norman understood before, he lost in this book.

One thing I did fear did happen in that subjects he'd covered in the Shout book Norman would feel compelled to find a new angle and not repeat what he had previously written. The chaos of Apple, for instance, which details an employee running off in a Jaguar in Shout, is hardly mentioned. In fact, the book has such a compressed feel to it you start to wonder whatever it was that made John special, that brought him from the lower rungs of society to its pinnacle.

I will say it's still a must read for Lennon fans if only for the wealth of detail of John's childhood and pre-Beatle years. Leave out any conclusions Norman may interject and just imagine yourself in 1950's England (Norman does a fairly good job of painting that backdrop) and the unrestrainable nature of John Lennon during those repressed (but burgeoning) times. John also attracted like characters of an eccentric nature whose stories could be quite amusing.

John was already a legend in his own mind as a teenager - while at the same time feeling a freak of nature like no one else alive. These two forces drove him onwards while holding fast to his then unprovable faith in himself. If John needed an harmonica to live, he took it. He refused to be suffocated, "Death before work" a motto of his, horrifying his respectable Aunt Mimi. John did whatever it took to live, a person completely committed.

Before we get the shit knocked out of us, before our lacking parents foist their insecurities on us in fascist hell, before we slowly lose faith in ourselves, lies a wide-eyed child whose belief in life is absolute. John never lost that and his was a life many of us know only from the corner of the eye of dreams unlived. "All you need is love" was never John's philosophy, but his reality.

But as the book strays further from childhood so does the author's path. A pattern of incompletion emerges, such as with the Maharishi and therapist Arthur Janov. At one point John was under each of these men's spells in his search for an answer but as John said, "There comes a point where I see." The Answer Man always blows his cool - because he has no answer. But Norman makes no mention of John's eventual clarity. In the case of the Maharishi it's implied John was unfair in his rejection and of Janov's primal therapy sessions no mention is made of John falling out with him.

This left me with a feeling of a claw scratching my back, digging into to me while reading the book. On one hand I'm trying to enjoy it and on the other I'm like, "What is that annoying the hell out of me?" Just a vague, disturbing feeling leaving me unsatisfied. It crystallized for me when I read in the epilogue where Norman had submitted the book to Yoko. Yoko invited him to the Dakota after his release of Shout and he expected a similar response this time.

Instead, Yoko's reaction was that Norman had been "mean" to John (Hear! Hear!). Norman brushed this off as an overprotective Yoko and that "no one else would feel that way." Well, I for one do. John was a liberal's liberal. He had his faults, of course, but he always worked through them, always returning home. For those without a home (ahem) his is a story of inspiration. But for those who have given up on love, it's a story to be attacked.

As for me, I cannot wait until the day when all souls are revealed and we see Johnny boy as the true shooting star of love he truly was.