easolinas's review
2.0
Jim Morrison is one of those figures who, despite a brief life, people can't stop writing about. Books about him range from the sublime ("Break on Through") to the ridiculous ("Strange Days," Wild Child").
And Dylan Jones introduces a new kind of book: the Cliffs Notes guide to Jim Morrison. Rather than a full-length biography of the rock star, "Mr. Mojo: A Biography of Jim Morrison" is more of a skim-over of his career with the Doors and his tumultuous personal life.It's like a very long school essay that hits on most of the major points and contains most of the important information, but doesn't have the rhythms and depth of a proper biography.
For those who don't know who Jim Morrison is, he was a Navy brat who openly rejected the conservative safety of his father's lifestyle, and instead embraced a life of excess, art and rock'n'roll. He was the lead singer and creative nucleus of the Doors, a quartet who produced some of the most underrated music of the era, and despite his long-term relationship with his beautiful lover Pamela Courson, he also went wild with many a lady.
However, his behavior often leaned on the self-destructive (Jones touches on him walking over a fatal drop, merely to demonstrate to Nico that life was meaningless), and his creative impulses were strongly linked to his love of drugs and alcohol (an account of Morrison becoming drunk and violently ill, immediately after writing "The Unknown Soldier"). As a result, Morrison's public behavior often bordered on the obscene, and contributed to his early death.
It wouldn't shock me if "Mr. Mojo" was actually Dylan Jones' senior dissertation on pop culture or rock music or something, and it was well-written enough that he decided to publish it. Honestly, it feels like a dissertation. While he does touch on the conservative upbringing and education of Morrison (including that whole Indian-died-by-the-side-of-the-road story that has been told to death), Jones spends most of his time analyzing the cultural context and public touchstones of Morrison's career.
As a result, Jones doesn't go too in-depth into any one subject -- his relationship with Pamela Courson, his work with the Doors, his experiences as a rock star, or anything else. Well, he does seem rather fixated on Morrison's penis, to be fair. Uncomfortably so. As in, we're informed with a little too much graphic, down-to-the-finger-action detail that Morrison liked to masturbate onstage.
Instead, Jones skims swiftly over the course of Morrison's career, peppering it with various bits of trivia that are interesting but not terribly insightful (such as the origins and nature of his famous leather pants) and the occasional outburst of wackiness when exploring his charismatic, primally-charged performances ("All hail Morrison! He is here to cure our ills, to feed our poor and fill our souls. All hail the King! Oh lordy, the drunk King!"). Furthermore, it lacks the gradual quality of a typical biography, the analysis of a person's evolution through all stages of their life, and their interactions with all important people they met.
It's like reading a Wikipedia entry of a movie's plot and themes -- you get the idea of what it's about, but without the nuance and complexities of the characters. Were this not about such a notoriously dissolute rock star, it would make a good children's biography. It's the right length, actually.
He also lacks a certain measure of objectivity expected in professional biographies, mostly in his depiction of the notorious Patricia Kennealy -- despite conflicting reports from all others who knew Morrison (including the other Doors and her former friend Janet Erwin) and her own past interviews on the subject of Morrison (see "Rock Wives," which he cites but does not seem to have read in full), he seems to believe her infamously self-serving contradictory image as the strong, non-nonsense neopagan angel who was saving him from himself. Why? Because she was nice to him. Oddly, he does not cite her actual book in the bibliography.
For those who want a brief overview of Morrison's career, or who are just finding out about him, "Mr. Mojo" is a fairly good Cliffs Notes for Morrison's life -- but those who want more than the shallow, rather seedy angle shown here would be better off finding one of the thicker books.
And Dylan Jones introduces a new kind of book: the Cliffs Notes guide to Jim Morrison. Rather than a full-length biography of the rock star, "Mr. Mojo: A Biography of Jim Morrison" is more of a skim-over of his career with the Doors and his tumultuous personal life.It's like a very long school essay that hits on most of the major points and contains most of the important information, but doesn't have the rhythms and depth of a proper biography.
For those who don't know who Jim Morrison is, he was a Navy brat who openly rejected the conservative safety of his father's lifestyle, and instead embraced a life of excess, art and rock'n'roll. He was the lead singer and creative nucleus of the Doors, a quartet who produced some of the most underrated music of the era, and despite his long-term relationship with his beautiful lover Pamela Courson, he also went wild with many a lady.
However, his behavior often leaned on the self-destructive (Jones touches on him walking over a fatal drop, merely to demonstrate to Nico that life was meaningless), and his creative impulses were strongly linked to his love of drugs and alcohol (an account of Morrison becoming drunk and violently ill, immediately after writing "The Unknown Soldier"). As a result, Morrison's public behavior often bordered on the obscene, and contributed to his early death.
It wouldn't shock me if "Mr. Mojo" was actually Dylan Jones' senior dissertation on pop culture or rock music or something, and it was well-written enough that he decided to publish it. Honestly, it feels like a dissertation. While he does touch on the conservative upbringing and education of Morrison (including that whole Indian-died-by-the-side-of-the-road story that has been told to death), Jones spends most of his time analyzing the cultural context and public touchstones of Morrison's career.
As a result, Jones doesn't go too in-depth into any one subject -- his relationship with Pamela Courson, his work with the Doors, his experiences as a rock star, or anything else. Well, he does seem rather fixated on Morrison's penis, to be fair. Uncomfortably so. As in, we're informed with a little too much graphic, down-to-the-finger-action detail that Morrison liked to masturbate onstage.
Instead, Jones skims swiftly over the course of Morrison's career, peppering it with various bits of trivia that are interesting but not terribly insightful (such as the origins and nature of his famous leather pants) and the occasional outburst of wackiness when exploring his charismatic, primally-charged performances ("All hail Morrison! He is here to cure our ills, to feed our poor and fill our souls. All hail the King! Oh lordy, the drunk King!"). Furthermore, it lacks the gradual quality of a typical biography, the analysis of a person's evolution through all stages of their life, and their interactions with all important people they met.
It's like reading a Wikipedia entry of a movie's plot and themes -- you get the idea of what it's about, but without the nuance and complexities of the characters. Were this not about such a notoriously dissolute rock star, it would make a good children's biography. It's the right length, actually.
He also lacks a certain measure of objectivity expected in professional biographies, mostly in his depiction of the notorious Patricia Kennealy -- despite conflicting reports from all others who knew Morrison (including the other Doors and her former friend Janet Erwin) and her own past interviews on the subject of Morrison (see "Rock Wives," which he cites but does not seem to have read in full), he seems to believe her infamously self-serving contradictory image as the strong, non-nonsense neopagan angel who was saving him from himself. Why? Because she was nice to him. Oddly, he does not cite her actual book in the bibliography.
For those who want a brief overview of Morrison's career, or who are just finding out about him, "Mr. Mojo" is a fairly good Cliffs Notes for Morrison's life -- but those who want more than the shallow, rather seedy angle shown here would be better off finding one of the thicker books.
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