George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle<\/strong><\/em>
Philip Norman<\/strong>
Simon & Schuster, $39.99<\/strong><\/p>\n
The closest I ever got to a Beatle was at Abbey Road in \u201993. Producer George Martin was conducting some Fab media event when the other George strode in waving a shield of incense. He reminded us with that lop-sided smirk that \u201call you need is love\u201d, then strode out before the adoring strangers who had blessed and cursed his life could mob him.<\/p>\n
Oh well. Never meet your heroes, goes the fanboy\u2019s rule. And after slogging through these 500 pages, I\u2019m no closer to breaking it.<\/p>\n
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Fab Four: (from left) Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison in 1968.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n Philip Norman is the author of the classic 1981 Beatles bio Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation <\/em>\u2013 dubbed Shite!<\/em> by their maligned bassist, Paul McCartney \u2013 as well as tomes on John Lennon, McCartney, Eric Clapton and other rock gods. He expands his prior research here without significant gains to a legend that long ago yielded everything George Harrison\u2019s fans will ever know.<\/p>\n That said, should less Beatlemaniac readers harbour the curiosity, they are in for a ripping yarn with a seam of tragedy that grows ever more profound as rock\u2019n\u2019roll itself loses its once-untouchable lustre, and fame turns out to be as cheap and nasty as an Instagram post.<\/p>\n On the face of it, the youngest Beatle had the most charmed upbringing. He was poor but loved; spared the parental losses that darkened Lennon and McCartney\u2019s childhoods and the illness that plagued Richard \u201cRingo\u201d Starkey. A rebel and a failure at school, he nonetheless had to quit a decent job in a Liverpool department store to follow his elders to the topmost of the you-know-what.<\/p>\n Norman is to be admired for his stamina in retracing every leg of this exceedingly well-worn journey, even if dozens of references to his own books indicate substantial cut-and-paste. My first shag \u2026 with John and Paul and Pete Best all watching<\/em> is the name of one chapter that blew its saucy punchline many retellings ago.<\/p>\n His other sources dip heavily into the public record too, not least Harrison\u2019s 1980 memoir I Me Mine<\/em> and his monologues in the Beatles\u2019 Anthology<\/em>, and Wonderful Tonight<\/em> by his confessed \u201cdoormat\u201d first wife, Pattie Boyd. Absent are first-hand testimonies from George\u2019s widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, from whom the author asks forgiveness for his poorly researched and much reviled obituary upon George\u2019s death in 2001. Ouch.<\/p>\n In other crimes, Norman\u2019s quaint phrasing and faithful recitation of hackneyed facts can conspire to read more like scripture than journalism. \u201cPeter Blake\u2019s cover was an artwork such as had jacketed no \u2018LP\u2019 before,\u201d he intones of Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em>, before noting that George was pictured holding the smallest instrument.<\/p>\n This theme of the diminished and underappreciated little brother remains key to the fable but as always, until the songwriter\u2019s frankly limited blossoming with Within You, Without You<\/em>, While My Guitar Gently Weeps<\/em> and Something<\/em>, Norman presents little evidence to indicate injustice in the face of Lennon and McCartney\u2019s superior craft.<\/p>\n A George Harrison key ring, on sale at the Beatles gift shop in Liverpool on December 1, 2001, a few days after Harrison\u2019s death.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n Within a few years, his blockbuster solo arrival with My Sweet Lord<\/em>, All Things Must Pass<\/em>, and the Concert for Bangladesh bookends his brief window of critical and commercial acclaim \u2013 at least until the Traveling Wilburys\u2019 late-\u201980s splash.<\/p>\n And so the last third of the book invites us to rattle around a 65-acre, 25-bedroom gothic mansion with a moody recluse alternately toying with music, film production, racing cars and gardening while wishing we\u2019d all leave. Harrison\u2019s endless quest for peace behind gated walls in Oxfordshire and assorted tropical islands, craving spiritual validation while relishing the decadent spoils of showbiz, comprises the main drama of his life.<\/p>\n His daily conflict is neatly captured in one scene recounted by personal assistant Chris O\u2019Dell, apparently one of the few women who resisted the quiet Beatle\u2019s \u201cseveral moves on her\u201d: \u201cPattie would say to me in the morning, \u2018What\u2019s he got his hands in today, the prayer beads or the cocaine?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The serial adulterer\u2019s callous treatment of Boyd, not least the appalling horse-trading arrangement with his best mate Clapton, has been laboriously documented. His affair with Ringo\u2019s wife Maureen, it can now be revealed, was under both cuckolds\u2019 noses, in one of those 24 empty bedrooms. Classy.<\/p>\n \u201cF—in\u2019 big bastards, that\u2019s what the Beatles were,\u201d John Lennon once confessed. We forgive them, mostly, because of the joy they gave us. But the further they recede into history, the more clearly we see the lives of clueless privilege we foist upon them, and the cost of all that happiness.<\/p>\n Harrison survived the horrific stabbing by an adoring fan in his own home in December 2000, but it fatally compromised his battle with cancer. One could argue that, like his infinitely more celebrated bandmate 20 years earlier, it was fame that really killed him. Whether or not you call him a hero, there\u2019s an awful lot there to process.<\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. <\/i><\/b>Get it delivered every Friday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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