In His Own Write

A decent compilation of nonsense verse and poetry, although the book's writing style can make it hard to understand. My favourite is the deliciously evil 'Good Dog Nigel', and it is no coincidence that this is one of the more straightforward pieces. However, the book, and its follow-up, A Spaniard in the Works, probably wouldn't have seen the light of day if not written by a Beatle.

What more could any child ask than to have these two classics bound in the same volume? It's like getting two big scoops of surrealism at once. Oddly, I have the "Signet" edition with a much more interesting cover...

Stephen King once said that once he became established that "they would publish [his] laundry list." John Lennon's laundry list might have been more interesting than this unmitigated glop. If I hadn't been a Beatles' fan when I bought it....

Certainly absurd... Monty Python-esque. Most interestingly, I found myself often reading aloud - a lesson I learned while studying Shakespeare - to help with my understanding of the text.

Witty, funny, brainy, doodles... But charming! Fun to go back to.

As a huge Beatles fan, it pains me to write this, but I feel I should. John Lennon, despite being a brilliant songwriter, actually had some horrible personality traits that some people would rather ignore. Before he married his first wife, Cynthia, John saw her dancing with Stuart Sutcliffe and slapped her across the face so hard that her head hit the wall. Three months later, they got back together (after apologizing). An employee of theirs witnessed him hitting her again and warned Cynthia to stay away from him. During this marriage, Cynthia was a victim of domestic violence. When his son Julian was born, he didn't see him until three days after he was born, and then he went on holiday to Barcelona with Brian Epstein. He had little to show more do with Julian, referring to him as "a Saturday night special; the way most people arrive," and also said that his son "came from a bottle of whiskey." He himself admitted that he had several affairs during his marriage. Julian's words about his father: "I never wanted to know the truth about what my father was like. He said a lot of negative things about me... like when he said I came from a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night. Things like that. It makes you wonder where the love is in that? Paul and I used to spend time together... more than my father spent with me. We had a great friendship, and you can see more pictures of him and me playing together than I have pictures of my father." John became estranged from his son. The best Julian could manage was a £100,000 trust fund that he had to share with John and Yoko's son Sean. After Jonn's death, Julian had to buy his father's things at auction in order to have some memento of his father. John Lennon always talked about peace and love, but never seemed to put it into practice. He also thought it was funny to make fun of a disabled person. In short, besides being a great artist, he mistreated his first wife and was a terrible father. show less