Review: 'George Harrison On George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters'

It's very tempting to begin a review of a 550-page book of George Harrison interviews with mocking cliches about how he was "The Quiet Beatle," yet that tired old label is actually somewhat relevant to what may be the main lesson of George Harrison On George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters. Perhaps it was George's refusal to play the game on his interviewers' terms that got him slapped with that label. Averse to cliches himself, Harrison had little patience for questions about how long The Beatles would last, why they were so great, his feelings about occasional antagonist Paul McCartney, and other well-worn inquiries. He'd answer those questions but not without making his exasperation with them clear. So, for journalists, "quiet" may be a coded synonym for "difficult."

However, when it came to topics he was genuinely invested in, Harrison was anything but quiet. A good deal of these 550 pages, and all of the ones set during the last four years of The Beatles' career, are devoted to Harrison's devotion to Hinduism. This can be wearying to any reader who isn't specifically interested in this topic, but it is key to conveying editor Ashley Kahn's main goal in assembling the interviews and speeches he selects: getting to know the least-knowable member of the best-known band that ever was. I have zero interest in religion, but learning how deeply into spirituality Harrison was, and how informed he was about his chosen one's history and practices, is interesting. It is also interesting to read about how cool he was with his wife getting together with his best friend, his disdain for the music business and stardom, his ventures in movies with his production company HandMade Films, how much he liked to get silly and quote The Rutles, how unfiltered he was when discussing his conflicts with everyone from Paul to Sean Penn and Madonna, how much love he had for Paul even when the media was reporting otherwise, and how much contempt he had for the media in general. Perhaps George would be better labeled as "The Most No-Bullshit Beatle."