Listening To Van Morrison by Greil Marcus
This is obviously not a comprehensive review of all Van Morrison's output, nor a biography (no need to repeat other books already out there). Rather it is a series of essays on particular aspects that have struck the writer personally, rather like Bob Dylan's Chronicles which only focuses on 3 particular albums as I recall.
Astral Weeks (and Madame George in particular) is most prominent and 15 years and as many albums are dismissed within a few paragraphs. But this is fair enough; Astral Weeks is much quoted as Morrison's greatest work and I expect many listeners would agree that his output had less impact in the 80s and 90s.
Sure it is personal, it is literally how Greil Marcus feels listening to Van Morrison and his personal ramblings sometimes don't make sense to an outsider, but as such it does what it says on the tin. Whatever its shortcomings I thoroughly enjoyed this short book and devoured it in a few sittings.
0 comments:
Post a Comment