Profoundly disappointing
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If you're a pretentious egghead, you may enjoy this book. If you're a fan of Love or "Forever Changes," you will not. I bought this because I'd enjoyed the book in the same series (by a different author) about the Kinks' "... Village Green Preservation Society" album. That book discussed the songs on the Kinks album (and others that were recorded for it, but not included) individually and in detail, and contained plenty of interesting information about the making of the album. In contrast, this book, supposedly about "Forever Changes," contains little of interest about that album, instead wasting its pages on yawn-inspiring examinations of Gnosticism, intellectual musings on prophecy, and even self-analysis by the author(!). I agree with the reviewer below who compared Hultkrans' "Forever Changes" book to a doctoral thesis. If you enjoy reading those, by all means buy this book. If you want to read about "Forever Changes," look elsewhere.
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Love's Forever Changes (33 1/3 series)
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I was excited to get this book, to learn a bit about the album and it's making. What I got was someone's (at least it reads like) doctoral thesis. This is an intellectual analysis, guesswork in many instances, some fact thrown in. When someone tries so hard to have a heady read, over the head of many indeed, it is usually, in my experience, a lot of maybe this did happen..and maybe some of it didn't, but it is just very boring and it is taking far to long to read this little book that offers little about the group, and guesses much about the mental state of Arthur Lee.
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Interesting, but..."zeitgeisticide"?
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This was a thoughtful and deeply personal book. Often elqouent and profound (I guess). Personally, I found all the literary and cultural allusions annoying -- like the author was just trying to impress upon us how intellectual and deep he was. I mean, he goes on and on about "prophecy" and America and even spins into Gnosticism. Please. Save it for the Amherst coffee house. The "Iceman" is Death? OK, if you say so Mr. Marat/Sade-Virginia Woolf-SDS-Nathaniel West- Sartre-Nauseau-Pynchon--Didion--Zeitgeisticide intellectual poet depressive New York man. Sorry if that was harsh. I really did like reading it, especially the first chapter, which I loved. But still, all the cultural theory crap annoyed me.
What you won't get is any specific/actual information about the recording of the album, such as: how the songs were recorded -- in what order? how was the ochestra utilized/conducted? How were the songs written (for instance, was there much collaboration between Lee and Maclean?).
Of course, there is a lot of great stuff here. And the author paints a more holy and laudable image of Lee than others have done, especially Michael Stuart-Ware; who I think wrote a great book.
"Forever Changes" is the greatest human creative production of all history, and so anything written about it is great -- and this book certaily had its charm and insights and passion and stuff. But too intellectual and hyper-analytical for me.
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Perspective and Context
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I discovered Forever Changes about two years ago and was blown away. Unlike many other albums from the psychadelic era, the album does not seem dated at all. This book is remarkable in being able to both explain how the time and place in which Arthur Lee and Love made this album (late sixties Los Angeles)was essential to its creation but at the same time exploring why it has transcended that time and place to become a timeless work. A very good read.
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The Good Humor Man Saw This Coming
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Kudos to this publisher for this series. This is the first one I've picked up, but will definitely be buying the others if they're as good as this. This is one of my favorite albums, and I can't believe someone wrote a whole book about it! Good job.
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