Lennon&McCartney

artney

Round glasses, beaky nose, an air of faintly amused cynicism: the man on the cover of Philip Norman's latest book is instantly recognisable. John Lennon's iconic face is as perfect for T-shirts as Che Guevara's. And, like Guevara, he's deified as a man of the people, a musical genius, a 20th-century romantic figure to admire and emulate. At least, that's the sell.

'He's a secular saint,' claims Norman, whose book John Lennon: The Life is his second foray into the late superstar's life. The first, 1981's Shout!, took in all of The Beatles, though it had an obvious Lennon bias. 'His image is painted like a holy icon. He himself would have been appalled by that. Lennon tried to demythologise himself while he was alive. He hated the unreality of his life with The Beatles and tried to reinstate normality the whole time.'

When it comes to Lennon's more unpleasant qualities, Norman's latest venture doesn't beat around the bush, but it's unlikely to debunk the musician's godlike status. Weighing in at a hefty 817 pages, the affectionate biography paints a more detailed picture than any Lennon book before it, and includes interviews with Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney.

'With a story like this, if you find any new information, you can't bear to leave it out,' shrugs the author. 'There are events that were the same as in Shout! but I had to revise a lot of my conclusions. That was a portrait of four people; this is like a full-length portrait of John in oils.'

A lot of new information about Lennon is revealed, from the mystery woman who inspired Norwegian Wood to his romance with pop-star Alma Cogan. However, the revelations that Lennon had sexual thoughts about his mother and Paul McCartney have grabbed most of the media attention.

Norman, however, insists Lennon didn't have an OediPaul complex. 'It tends to be put in an idiotic way,' he sighs, 'but he didn't really have a gay lust for Paul at all. He wanted to be a real artist, like Matisse or Van Gogh, and he thought artists had to try everything, so he wondered if he should try a gay relationship. Paul was around. He'd also have done anything to get The Beatles famous. And, according to Yoko, there was a side of him that quite liked campness.'

'His mother was this extraordinary figure that was in his life but was not his [to own],' Norman continues, 'because she had another man and the two sons from that relationship. But he saw her all the time and she was like a flirtatious big sister. And he had a big imagination.'

Norman likes Lennon and makes no bones about it, despite the warts-and-all account. 'For me, the biggest surprises were about John's character,' he says. 'The hidden John; insecure and vulnerable and very romantic. The world remembers a cynical, tough character but there's an incredible romantic side. And the insecure side where he never felt happy with what he did.'

Source: Metro.co.uk

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