Mythological non-fiction

About the first Russian biography of Jim Morrison

No, this is not a typo - for the first time in Russia, a biography of Jim Morrison, frontman of the legendary group The Doors, written by a Russian author has been published. Aleksey Polikovsky, a journalist who once worked for that same “Rovesnik” magazine, a cult magazine for all music lovers born in the 70s, shouldered this difficult, thankless work on his shoulders.

Question: “Why does one of us write about something that is not ours?” We'll take it off right away. The topic is fate, forgive the pathos. Here is one English playwright who wrote a play about Russian revolutionaries who disappeared a hundred years ago, and everyone liked it.

The action of the Morrison saga. The Shaman's Journey begins in Crete, where the author recently met Morrison. Or maybe not Morrison, but just an unkempt bearded tourist who looks like the famous poet and singer. Or maybe not very similar, just Morrison, if he had not died on a July evening in 1971 in the bathtub of a Parisian apartment, this is exactly what he would have looked like now. It's interesting here's why. Few people admit to having recently seen Elvis or Morrison live. (Jimmy Hendrix and Curt Cobain are wandering around somewhere, but there is less demand for them.) Even American fans, convinced that their idols are alive, will never say: “I saw him.” Rather, it’s like this: “I know a guy who knows a guy who was there, and there he was, completely by chance...” Don’t “inject yourself”! And then a Russian journalist saw Morrison. Well, or not Morrison. But he admitted it, damn it. This alone is worth a lot.

But besides this, Polikovsky turned over mountains of material, working with The Doors for three decades. In the book, he conducts, so to speak, a psychoanalysis session of his hero. This guy’s difficult life: his military father, first love, like in “Romeo and Juliet” (thank God, without the ending), women and alcohol, music and poetry, fame, with which it is not clear what to do. Became a great rock musician. Even during his lifetime, in his youth, he was a monument to himself. Only this is not enough: I wanted to be recognized as a poet, but instead of the delights of the literary establishment - hits, money and hateful groupies. I could think like that and I could suffer from it. But what he really wanted there and why, by the way, not having any musical skills, he “stirred up” the group, and not some almanac of youth poetry - this is unknown. The book is replete with “maybe” or “according to myth” clauses. This is some kind of new genre, mythological non-fiction: they tell about a real person, practically our contemporary, based on myths and legends. The author himself admits that it is impossible to write a complete and definitive biography of Morrison. “The chronology of his life is limited to concerts... at the first attempt to penetrate deeper than the surface, the researcher experiences disappointment. This is not life, but fog, a mess... Just as in 1967 no one knew where he disappeared to when leaving the studio, so no one knows now.” In short, “when you write about Morrison, nothing can be certain and nothing can be asserted.” It's clear. It's clear that this is a dark matter.

The book's lively and funny moments are not directly related to Morrison. Like the fact that it turns out that the apartment where the singer died is still for rent! Moreover, landlords are not shy about advertising this hut; a famous rock musician allegedly died here. True, the year was mixed up. But there are few such details, more and more about how violent he, Morrison, was, how unpredictable and uncompromising he was. Just a sight for sore eyes! Russia systematically falls for rude intellectuals who cut the truth. Fortunately, Morrison had someone to cut her off; there were quite a few extras. In addition to the lovers and musicians of The Doors, the book marches through a number of characters involved in the history of the psychedelic 1960s, and all the cult and significant figures are mentioned: Abbie Hoffman, Charles Manson, Timothy Leary and many others. This, by the way, is the most interesting thing in the book: the counterculture of the 1960s somehow stubbornly does not want to be forgotten or weaken its influence, and there is little popular material about this time... Another motif of “The Shaman’s Journey” is our Soviet life. Well, yes, “layers”, cops, vigilantes, VIA, fartsa, censorship and so on. No, this did not influence Morrison in any way, and why even remember Soviet nonsense in vain is a question. Even in the perestroika 1980s, teachers scolded me for not cutting my hair, and there was nothing underground or romantic about it, I tell you. Dumbfounded and bored...

I may not like the plot and presentation in this book as much as I want, but the very fact of its appearance is a good sign. We don’t have a lot of literature related to music. The book was published by the KoLibri publishing house, that is, it is not a fan samizdat intended for a narrow circle. She looks good; inside there are a bunch of rare photos, on the cover there is an unblurred shot: Morrison looking at the sky. By the way, the editor wanted to put a blurry shot on the cover, the one where Morrison with outstretched arms and beads around his neck. It turned out that using a photo that is four decades old, replicated a million times all over the world, costs almost a thousand dollars. Who do you have to be for your photos to be so valued? It is pointless to look for the answer to this question in a biography. In any biography.

Alexander BELYAEV