gregisdead121_ 's review for:

Journals by Kurt Cobain

3.0

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This isn't really a book. It's a scrapbook by a tortured creative depressive of their life before and after it got more complicated. An undeniable invasion of privacy. You feel uncomfortable very often when reading this deceased man's journal especially when you come across moments of vulnerability you know you would want broadcasted in your passing. An exploitative addition to his legacy. I decided to reread this book because the first time I read it (2018) I had been giddy, grateful almost. Kurt Cobain's legacy is maddening to look at,the music pulls you in but the man makes you stay. You stay and pick him apart until you're halted by a tragically predictable full stop in the form of a gun. Once at his suicide the awe of his talent and magnetism of his devil may cry attitude brings you to a delayed mourning and a bereaved curiosity (that lingers on morbid. ) He no longer feels like a person but becomes a subject one I aimed to know everything about: from the haunting autopsy photos, his cash in documentaries etc. So when I learned his once private journal (diary) had been published I wasn't appalled by how invasive and exploitive it was. I was just excited to get to peer behind another curtain . But now,older and removed from the throes of that obsession I feel uneasy. From how the first page is a hand written demand to not read their diary when their gone to psycho-sexual nightmares you can feel like a voyeur, a peeping tom trying to get off through violating a safe space. That's how it feels to read this.

With that said I did enjoy this book still a second time around. His illustrations both darkly funny and troubling are proof of a mad genius. And the look into how he came up with songs, merch and music video ideas is a once thought impossible treat. Getting to also witness the history of nirvana play out through a myriad of entries, letters and doodles is unparalleled insight.

Cobain's journal irrespective of it's availability's ethics is an irreverent milestone not just in music but in history. A coveted humanizing of an iconic figure who is often reduced to his politics