Book Reviews

Anthology covers every (well, probably almost every) aspect of the Beatles' life and musical career. It starts as four seperate stories as every band member describes his childhood, then melds into the story of the band. All the interviews from the wonderful Anthology TV series are in the book, but so are many more. There are far more details - especially about the music itself, which was neglected in the series. While in the series some albums were hardly mentioned, in the book the Beatles refer to almost every song, telling a thing or two about its background. Also, more touchy subjects which were avoided in the series appear here - such as, the (phony) death of Paul McCartney, the (real) death of Stuart Sutcliffe, the unfortunate Hell's Angels incident and the terrible case of Charles Manson and his connection to the White Album. The photographs and documents shown in the book are facsinating as well.

And no, it's NOT too long. The only problem with the book is its weight, which makes it quite uncomfortable to read. Anthology is a superb book, which reminded me why I used to love the Beatles so much and got me to hear all their albums again - twice.

The book does a real service by covering each band member. I really enjoyed the "updates" of each surviving Beatle. The interviews of the three surviving Beatles throughout the 1990s was refreshing and certainly provided unique insights into the (I think) world's number one band. John was quoted extensively throughout the book and the inclusion of John's comments was vital to the construction of the group. Hailed as the "Chief Beatle," John, now deceased was certainly a central figure and input by and about him was vital. These updates provided the reader with a sense of each Beatle; one came away feeling that they had a relatively accurate portrayal of the input and interpersonal relationship of each member.

On a lighter note, one smiles at the adolescent hijinks of the Beatles in their pre-glory days. The "Fab 4" are portrayed as normal kids engaging in typical teenage rebellion and mischief. In reading a description of George's "sexual rite of passage," one can almost smile at the sheer adolescence of it. Ringo, the lovable basset hound eyed drummer describes of a harsh life in the rough Dingle section of Liverpool and of the crowd he ran with in his salad days. Paul appears to be "prematurely mature," and John was a natural comic. John had a WICKED sense of humor and a DELICIOUS gift for the satirical. He was a riot! This book does justice to John's work and the compositions he and Paul shared with the world.

I loved this book and I would certainly recommend it. This is a work to be treasured and taken seriously.

I would estimate that at least 80% of the information contained in this book is already old hat for die-hard Beatlemaniacs who have memorized Mark Lewisohn's "Complete Beatles Chronicle" and read every Beatle book out there. But it's not so much the substance of the information as the way in which it is told--it's great to be able read about these events from the Beatles' point of view, even as seen through the prism of the thirty to forty years that have passed. And I am grateful that George was able to participate in the whole Anthology project before his untimely death in 2001.

The modern-day comments from Paul, George, and Ringo were apparently taken from the interviews from the Beatles Anthology circa 94-95 (if you watch the entire video/DVD and compare it to the text in the book it's pretty obvious). Hard-core fans will be able to recognize where many of the other quotes came from, although they aren't sourced, unfortunately--after each such quote there's merely a superscript such as "64" or "70" showing the year it was said, with no reference to the publication or interview it was taken from. That said, the editors had an incredible job piecing this thing together; they could almost be listed as co-writers!

There's a great deal of eye-candy (photographs, memos, handwritten notes, drawings, etc.), which are fascinating to look at. Sometimes, though, the arrangement of text, typeface, and photographs on the page seems rather random and thrown together, and even can make it difficult to read (for example, page 177, which tells about George and John's first LSD trip is printed on a background of garish red with magenta and orange text that all but obliterates the actual text). But it's never dull.

Despite the fact that it may be a bit of a chore to read, since it's large and heavy (even in paperback), it is a joy to read and I heartily recommend it to all Beatle fans.