Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jlmb 's review for:
Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink
by Elvis Costello
DID NOT FINISH
I gave it the good ol' college try, but I couldn't finish this long-winded, unself-aware memoir. I slogged through Morrissey's memoir a few months ago and one self-indulgent memoir per year is all I can handle.
This memoir is a hot mess. What on earth is going on in the publishing industry?! Are there no more editors?! There was the potential for a great memoir here, but that didn't happen because Elvis was given free rein to write - and not write - whatever he felt like, no matter whether it furthered the book or not.
I read about a third of the book and then skimmed the rest. There is absolutely no self-assessment or growth in the memoir. Just a stream of consciousness about parts of his life. Elvis doesn't write in a chronological order, there is no continuity for the reader. The memoir veers wildly about, never settling on one thing for long.
The final straw for me was Elvis's HUGE problem with women. For some reason he never explains, Elvis looks up to his philandering father and that colors his relationships with women when he grows up. Why emulate a cheater? Why excuse the behavior ("oh, my mom never complained about it so it's no biggie")? Elvis has a real madonna/whore complex going on. Because of his Catholicism? Who knows! Elvis is all surface, no depth and never discusses why he acts the way he does. He is the king of downplaying and dismissing his behaviors. "It's too boring to write about" is how he rationalizes not writing in detail about any of his serious relationships except with his current wife. Hmmmm. So all the women prior to Diana Krall are "too boring" to write about? It reminds me of the old saying about how if you are complaining about how everyone around you is an asshole that maybe what is really happening is that YOU are the asshole, not every other person you interact with. It made me wonder what really went down in those other relationships that he cannot discuss them at all.
I was looking forward to hearing about Elvis producing my favorite Pogues album and his meeting with Cait O'Riordan and what it was like for him to be involved - for 16 years! - with another musician and if that strengthened or hurt the relationship, both being in the same business. There is so much to write about here. They collaborated professionally and also were married. How do those two relationships overlap? What drew him to her? What caused them to break up? Instead Elvis devotes about 2 sentences in the book to her.
He writes about a paragraph about Bebe Buell, who he dated for years. Also extremely dismissive of her. No mention of how he pushed her to have an abortion - threatening to break up with her if she did not and make her raise the baby alone. It would have been interesting to hear about how he went back and forth from his childhood sweetheart/first wife to the much more worldly Bebe. Hello there Madonna/Whore complex! He could have written about how conflicted he felt being with Bebe, who represented the debauched rock n roll world that punk rock was degenerating. His relationship with her caused a lot of problems with his band but again, not written about.
I adore Elvis's music and am very sad that his memoir was such a huge disappointment.
This memoir is a hot mess. What on earth is going on in the publishing industry?! Are there no more editors?! There was the potential for a great memoir here, but that didn't happen because Elvis was given free rein to write - and not write - whatever he felt like, no matter whether it furthered the book or not.
I read about a third of the book and then skimmed the rest. There is absolutely no self-assessment or growth in the memoir. Just a stream of consciousness about parts of his life. Elvis doesn't write in a chronological order, there is no continuity for the reader. The memoir veers wildly about, never settling on one thing for long.
The final straw for me was Elvis's HUGE problem with women. For some reason he never explains, Elvis looks up to his philandering father and that colors his relationships with women when he grows up. Why emulate a cheater? Why excuse the behavior ("oh, my mom never complained about it so it's no biggie")? Elvis has a real madonna/whore complex going on. Because of his Catholicism? Who knows! Elvis is all surface, no depth and never discusses why he acts the way he does. He is the king of downplaying and dismissing his behaviors. "It's too boring to write about" is how he rationalizes not writing in detail about any of his serious relationships except with his current wife. Hmmmm. So all the women prior to Diana Krall are "too boring" to write about? It reminds me of the old saying about how if you are complaining about how everyone around you is an asshole that maybe what is really happening is that YOU are the asshole, not every other person you interact with. It made me wonder what really went down in those other relationships that he cannot discuss them at all.
I was looking forward to hearing about Elvis producing my favorite Pogues album and his meeting with Cait O'Riordan and what it was like for him to be involved - for 16 years! - with another musician and if that strengthened or hurt the relationship, both being in the same business. There is so much to write about here. They collaborated professionally and also were married. How do those two relationships overlap? What drew him to her? What caused them to break up? Instead Elvis devotes about 2 sentences in the book to her.
He writes about a paragraph about Bebe Buell, who he dated for years. Also extremely dismissive of her. No mention of how he pushed her to have an abortion - threatening to break up with her if she did not and make her raise the baby alone. It would have been interesting to hear about how he went back and forth from his childhood sweetheart/first wife to the much more worldly Bebe. Hello there Madonna/Whore complex! He could have written about how conflicted he felt being with Bebe, who represented the debauched rock n roll world that punk rock was degenerating. His relationship with her caused a lot of problems with his band but again, not written about.
I adore Elvis's music and am very sad that his memoir was such a huge disappointment.