Rating: 
Summary: An excellent songwriter... who should keep his day job.
Review: I hold Sting in the highest regard, having owned every Police album, every Sting solo effort (minus the most recent and most bland one). Therefore, it was with great anticipation that I dove into his memoirs, hoping to learn more about what makes him tick and where he draws inspiration from. All I learned was that he overcame both his difficult childhood, and apparently his editor.
"Broken Music" focuses largely on Sting's relationship with his parents and first wife, and how they were shaped and overshadowed by his ambition and ego. Unfortunately, the entire style of the book is overshadowed by his ambition and ego as well. The grand poetic metaphors, literary namedropping, and oddball adjectives (who uses the word 'obsidian'?) that make Sting's songs so unique are, frankly, out of place in a heartfelt autobiography. They lend an amatuerish tinge to the book - a feeling that the author has something to prove about his knowledge of history, English, and the world in general. His continual repetition of his favorite words, and his seasick-like wobbling from past to present tense, gets in the way of what might have otherwise been a decent story. Furthermore, the level of astonishing detail he provides about events that happened to him several decades ago leads the reader to wonder how much has been embellished beyond reality.
The story itself, when you can dig it out from under the overbearing wordiness of the author, has as many merits as it has gaping holes. Sting seems to be a fan of foreshadowing, telling us that Stewart Copeland is going to be a major force in his life, or that his marriage with Frances is doomed, or that his highschool sweetheart Deborah is going to die. But then he never connects with the punch. Stewart is introduced as a side character in the last few chapters (Andy Summers is practically a non-entity), the marriage to Frances is just fine at the end of one chapter and then it has magically dissolved and he's suddenly married to Trudie at the start of the next chapter, and Deborah's death is neither explained nor expounded on for any importance.
Overall, I'd have to say that, while not so bad that I couldn't finish it, this book is not likely to be of interest to anyone but Sting's fans. It simply doesn't stand on its own as a work of literature or a good piece of storytelling, and leaves the reader alternately wanting more, or totally confused. Sting, you're a philanthropist, an actor, a songwriter, a musician, a cultural icon... but you are no writer.
Rating: 
Summary: Broken Memory?
Review: I love the music of Sting and was looking forward to hearing about the man who created it and how the music was created. Unfortunately, the readers get some interesting information, but they do not get the whole story.The book begins with Sting and his wife, Trudie, in Brazil taking part of a religious ceremony where some kind of psychedelic plant has been taken. In taking this plant, Sting is taking back into his memories, which leads the reader into Sting's past. As a literary tool, this is interesting. We learn about Sting's troubled childhood as well as his journeyman years as a musician. This was very enlightening and really gave me an idea of who the musician is. However, as a fan since the 80s, I would like to have read more about his time with The Police. This part doesn't come until the last pages of the book and is not particularly enlightening. This part reads as the climax of his career, although I know his career doesn't end there. Although the book talks of Sting's first marriage and the first meeting with Trudie, the book does not go into the end of the first or the beginning of the second. As this fits with the time of The Police, maybe we will get this in another book down the line. Still, I would recommend this book for people who want to understand the man behind the musician and the musician behind the man.
|
