you touched on it a little in your recent "if i fell" post, but i was wondering if you'd consider going a little deeper on your thoughts/issues with the ian leslie book (or direct me in a post that could articulate your feelings)? thanks for everything you do on this blog!
I actually have never made a post entirely about Ian Leslie's book. I only finished reading it quite recently, so this question comes at a good time, lol. After finally reading it, my opinion of the book became a bit more nuanced than it was before. I realized that my main issue with Leslie isn't so much the book itself, but rather some of the things he said while promoting it in interviews. Ian is a good writer, but for me (and for many others here), the book itself is rather bland because there is pretty much nothing in it that I hadn't already read or heard elsewhere. Leslie didn't interview any new insiders or uncover fresh anecdotes or perspectives, so everything he presents is material that was already publicly available. I completely understand why many people were disappointed. I wasn't, though, as the book turned out to me quite similar to what I excepted. That said, I definitely don't think it's a bad place to start for a general Beatles fan who doesn't know much about the lore surrounding John and Paul. In fact, he includes far more suggestive material than I expected. He includes Yoko's speculation that John wanted to have an affair with Paul but that Paul "rejected him sexually," and that John's anger toward Paul during the early 70s was so disproportionate that she wondered "what it was really about" (interestingly, Leslie does not include Philip Norman's phrase describing Paul as having an "immovable heterosexuality." He only uses that phrase later in interviews when explaining why he "doubts" anything sexual ever happened between them). He also discusses Paul saying that John told him Jealous Guy was about him, points out the clues suggesting I Know (I Know), Starting Over, and Let Me Roll It may have been songs directed at each other, and even notes how Paul initially denied any Lennon connection in Let Me Roll It before later contradicting himself. He also explicitly argues that John and Paul's respective marriages in 1969 were partly reactions to one another, just like Paul himself said. He discusses Paul feeling left out when John became absorbed in Yoko, and John rushing to marry Yoko after Paul married Linda. When describing the church fete, Leslie writes that Paul was "struck" by how good John looked, then later quotes John's own remark that Paul "looked like Elvis. I dug him," and that John was equally impressed by "how handsome Paul was." He also includes Yoko's observation that if Paul had been a woman, "he would have been a great threat", John's 1971 rant (including the that "at the end, he chose me" part), John's jealousy of Linda (as well as saying that John was disturbed by Paul's engagement to Jane), and even the story of John cutting up the clothes of the girl Paul had in bed. There are many moments like these that I'm sure most of the general public have never encountered before. I think most readers came away at least wondering whether John might have been in love with Paul, as there are many passages where Leslie clearly encourages that interpretation. Throughout the book, Leslie discusses John's sexuality quite a few times. He concludes that there is "little doubt" John was "predominantly heterosexual", but argues that he was probably more sexually fluid than Paul and "possessed genuine same-sex curiosity and desire".
Paul's side of the story, however, is presented much more ambiguously, which was exactly what I expected. As I mentioned, Leslie includes Yoko's speculation that Paul rejected John sexually, but he argues that the rejection or abandonment John felt most likely existed largely in John's own mind. That is actually something I broadly agree with. What I didn't like is that Leslie sometimes writes as though this interpretation is objective reality rather than simply John's perception. He said that John eventually "had to accept the truth" that Paul, "the person he regarded as his creative soulmate, best friend, and equal", simply "did not see him in the same way". Had Leslie presented this as John's belief, I would have had no issue. Instead, he often writes as if he knows exactly what both men were thinking and feeling. He frequently says things like "Paul believed...", "Paul felt...", or "Paul did this because..." in a way that sometimes makes the book read more like a novel in which he is the omniscient narrator. Throughout much of the book he portrays Paul as emotionally distant while John increasingly feels ignored, neglected, and abandoned. He even says that he "doubts" that Paul even realized John was speaking to him in In My Life (which again, mirrors what he says in interviews about Paul being very "oblivious"). John certainly was needy, but focusing on this so much has the overall effect of making everything feel more one-sided than it was.
Another issue was how little attention Leslie gives to Stuart. He briefly notes that John formed a close friendship with Stu and includes one sentence about Paul feeling jealous, but the discussion focuses almost entirely on Paul's complaints about Stuart's bass playing. He doesn't explore the emotional dimension of the John-Stuart-Paul triangle at all, how significant John's friendship with Stuart was (and the fact that John was actually closer to Stu than to Paul for some time), or show direct quotes that reflect how deeply Paul's jealousy ran according to various insiders and Paul himself. Considering how central that period was to their relationship, it feels very understated. Likewise, when discussing Paul's wedding to Linda, Leslie briefly mentions that Paul and Linda argued the night before and that Paul had doubts, but he greatly minimizes Maggie's account. He merely writes that Maggie "received a phone call" from Paul expressing uncertainty. We know from Maggie's own recollections that the episode was considerably more dramatic than that, and that it wasn't "a phone call" at all. He also omits the "John's princess" nickname given by Apple staff. I was surprised to see that Leslie included a few quotes from Francie's book, though he leaves tthe most revealing anecdotes in her book, that Paul visibly looked disturbed whenever John openly talked about how much he loved Yoko. He doesn't mention John's "I wish I was back with Paul!". He also edits one of Paul's quotes from his phone call to Hunter Davies. He leaves out the bit where Paul says, "he went through all his old affairs, confessed them all", when he was explaining that he completely understood why John was publicly slagging him off.
Then there are Leslie's interviews promoting the book. In interviews he repeatedly says he found no evidence of an actual romantic relationship, describes their bond as "romantic but not sexual," or argues that while John may have wanted something more, Paul's "immovable heterosexuality" prevented it from ever becoming mutual. Yet every now and then he would randomly say things like:
"Towards the end of the decade, there were intimations that they might even rekindle their friendship fully—in the platonic sense, at least."
Or says that the relationship might have had "a physical or erotic component to it."
I've said before that I actually suspect Leslie believes the relationship was more mutual than he openly argues, and that he's exercising a degree of self-censorship for the sake of writing a mainstream Beatles book. But overall, the book reads like a fairly conventional Beatles biography, with the clear difference that it often uses romantic language and incorporates a great deal of suggestive lore that most Beatles books either ignore or gloss over. The implications are often difficult to miss. I think most of the general readers came away having learned many lesser known details about John and Paul's relationship, and the book would probably leave them wanting to learn more, which is good. I suspect many readers finished the book wondering what Paul actually felt, while seriously entertaining the possibility that John may have been in love with him. Leslie leaves Paul's side much more ambiguous, but never portrays it as anything less than deeply intense.
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