Absorbing ... Ravishing detail ... Each part of the book, it should be said, presents its author with its own serious challenge. If Part 1 has Mr. Norman trying to cut the least charismatic Beatle out of the herd and make him a personality on his own terms, then Part 2—when the subject finally emerges blinking into the spotlight—is in some ways even trickier to negotiate. To pore over the last quarter century of Harrison’s life is, in the end, to remark its faint air of desultoriness.
Passages do feel warmed-over, as if Norman were reciting a familiar story while reminding himself to keep the focus on the lead guitarist just behind John and Paul. It is in the chapters on Harrison’s childhood...and on the post-breakup years that we get closer to the particulars and paradoxes of this enigmatic man ... Mostly a dutiful recounting of the life of a poor but happy kid who loved rock-and-roll with a purity that precluded the need to get famous and whose response to becoming one of the four most celebrated people on the planet turned him into a seeker and a churl, a mystic and a misogynist.
Norman has fashioned an authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness.
Norman has fashioned an authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness — quite common among people aiming for a higher state of consciousness, funnily enough — that was never far away.
Much of the story will be familiar to those who have read previous works about the Beatles. This book is short on immersive musical analysis of specific songs and recordings, and it’s somewhat cursory in dealing with some of Harrison’s later years. Readers who are not extremely familiar with Beatles history or who are seeking a Harrison-focused biography will want this. They’ll gain more insight into the most enigmatic member of the Beatles.
