Break on Through : The Life and Death of Jim Morrison

Rating:
Summary: Great Rock Biography.
Review: "Break On Through" is one of the great rock bios. It is an exciting, incredibly well-detailed read. The problem I tend to have with a lot of biographies is that the writer doesn't really capture the person's life, instead, the writer simply records what the person did and when blah blah blah. In other words, bad bios tend to be no less than simply boring. "Break On Through" is written with a cinematic energy and a true feel for the essence of the material. James Riordian and Jerry Prochnicky have made a brilliant study of one of the enduring rock legends, Jim Morrison. Riordan is also the writer of the brilliant biography of Oliver Stone and does an equally excellent job here. Jim Morrison is a very complex figure, an artist and captivating poet who will always remain a weird enigma in that no one will ever really be able to explain the REAL Morrison. So, this should be read as another study on an icon. But boy is it rich! It celebrates the excess, the depth, and the poetry behind the Morrison story (and The Doors music). Like the Oliver Stone movie, "The Doors," one of course should not read this as the DEFINITIVE explanation, but as another point of view. "Break On Through" manages to transport the reader back to the era in which it takes place with a revolutionary energy that makes it a book that is hard to put down. But I also loved it because it has detailed observations of the music, lyrics and philosophies. The authors actually take time to even explore exactly what living by the "Dionysian" concept means. It also presents fascinating, interesting events and it works not only as a bio on Morrison, but as a study of the beginnings of a new form of rock music. The book also explores how The Doors and Morrison's stage attitudes and lyrical style produced what would eventually be the Punk movement and bands like The Cult, U2, Creed, Echo And The Bunnymen, even Alice Cooper and many others. It brilliantly portrays the rise of an icon. It is also a great story, that of a brilliant artist who's drive to excess lead to his early demise and how he left the music world an influence that is immortal. Well written and brilliant, "Break On Through" is a must for those who like a good biography, rock fans and of course, Doors fans. Great book.

Rating:
Summary: Morrison's Acclaim
Review: "Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison" was fantastically written and exquisitely explained. James Riordan put out a hundred and ten percent in the writting of this book. His excellent choice of words added to the great research provided by Jerry Prochnicky. As a consistent reader of the Doors, I feel that this is by far the most thorough and conclusive book on the subject of Jim and the band. I have not read a book that even comes close the superb quality that "Break on Through" possesses and do not expect to see one in the future. The highest hat goes off to the finest and most avant-garde writer and researcher of the subject material.

Rating:
Summary: Great Rock Biography.
Review: "Break On Through" is one of the great rock bios. It is an exciting, incredibly well-detailed read. The problem I tend to have with a lot of biographies is that the writer doesn't really capture the person's life, instead, the writer simply records what the person did and when blah blah blah. In other words, bad bios tend to be no less than simply boring. "Break On Through" is written with a cinematic energy and a true feel for the essence of the material. James Riordian and Jerry Prochnicky have made a brilliant study of one of the enduring rock legends, Jim Morrison. Riordan is also the writer of the brilliant biography of Oliver Stone and does an equally excellent job here. Jim Morrison is a very complex figure, an artist and captivating poet who will always remain a weird enigma in that no one will ever really be able to explain the REAL Morrison. So, this should be read as another study on an icon. But boy is it rich! It celebrates the excess, the depth, and the poetry behind the Morrison story (and The Doors music). Like the Oliver Stone movie, "The Doors," one of course should not read this as the DEFINITIVE explanation, but as another point of view. "Break On Through" manages to transport the reader back to the era in which it takes place with a revolutionary energy that makes it a book that is hard to put down. But I also loved it because it has detailed observations of the music, lyrics and philosophies. The authors actually take time to even explore exactly what living by the "Dionysian" concept means. It also presents fascinating, interesting events and it works not only as a bio on Morrison, but as a study of the beginnings of a new form of rock music. The book also explores how The Doors and Morrison's stage attitudes and lyrical style produced what would eventually be the Punk movement and bands like The Cult, U2, Creed, Echo And The Bunnymen, even Alice Cooper and many others. It brilliantly portrays the rise of an icon. It is also a great story, that of a brilliant artist who's drive to excess lead to his early demise and how he left the music world an influence that is immortal. Well written and brilliant, "Break On Through" is a must for those who like a good biography, rock fans and of course, Doors fans. Great book.

Rating:
Summary: Morrison's Acclaim
Review: "Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison" was fantastically written and exquisitely explained. James Riordan put out a hundred and ten percent in the writting of this book. His excellent choice of words added to the great research provided by Jerry Prochnicky. As a consistent reader of the Doors, I feel that this is by far the most thorough and conclusive book on the subject of Jim and the band. I have not read a book that even comes close the superb quality that "Break on Through" possesses and do not expect to see one in the future. The highest hat goes off to the finest and most avant-garde writer and researcher of the subject material.

Rating:
Summary: well researched and thorough
Review: ..I read this book back in 1991 when it came out and reread it sporadically ever since. there is so much information here and a good analysis of Jim Morrison as a poet and a man.
The book is written for true fans of Morrison only. If you want a thorough understanding of who he was and how he became an icon of the era then this is the book for you.
It is a scholarly biography and well researched. I would recommend it to anybody wanting to know Jim Morrison in depth.

Rating:
Summary: No "Bible" or great biography even
Review: After giving distorted, false summaries of Morrison's philosophical influences, particularly of Surrealism (the Kafka summary was totally plagiarized from the back of "The Basic Kafka"), they draw equally distorted, false conclusions about his attitudes and actions that are only a little bit more mature than the amusing and sophmoric Jim Morrison slurpee cup "No One Here Gets Out Alive". These two over confident biographers need to check their resources rather than give the book an "objective, supreme" appearance it neither has nor deserves. Surrealism has nothing to do with metaphysics or "divinity" of any kind, guys-

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!!
Review: An excellent account of the life of Jim Morrison, and the short career of The Doors. If you want the story behind the music, and the man, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but better than most
Review: As an author and Doors fan, I found this book both indispensable and regrettable...indispensable, entirely because of the authors' exhaustive coverage of the events concerning Morrison's death in Paris and the surviving Doors' attempts to continue without him during the early 70s (neither of these subjects were addressed by Doors/Morrison bios written prior to 1991, when this book was originally published), and regrettable because huge portions of the biography are either lifted verbatim from "No One Here Gets Out Alive" or are so poorly edited that easily caught typos and misnomers made it into the published work. A better solution would have been a smaller book focusing on the new information unearthed by the solid reporting of the authors, but even with the above caveats, "Break On Through" is a must-read for the serious Doors fan and interesting casual reading for any rock fan.

Rating:
Summary: The best book written on MoJo
Review: As the other Morrison biographys give facts and tell stories, this one takes it a step further. It goes into deep anylization of what Jim read, what influenced him, and what destroyed him. The reader walks away with a better understanding of Jim Morrison. It truely is the ultimate Morrison biography. Just remember, as with any book on JM and the Doors, to discriminate between the reliable sources and the others.

Rating:
Summary: Jim Morrison, my hero
Review: Break On Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison, written by James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky, is about a man who wants everything, and lives on the edge. Jim Morrison was believed to be a confused person who did not know anything about music when he was alive. After he died, people looked to him as a genius with creative songs about death. He had big dreams for himself when he was a young, and he fulfilled them any way he could. Jim did not have many dreams: he wanted to be a famous person, or a film producer with money. He went to film school at UCLA and quit to join a band. The band name was The Doors. Jim got the name for the band from a quote from William Blake: " If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear as it is, infinite." This book was bout Jim Morrison living for his band and dying knowing he did what he wanted. The only thing missing from this book is why Jim stopped talking to his parents: nobody knows why.
This book was written very well. It started when Jim had an experience with a shaman Indian when he was four years old until his death in 1971. The ideas had great detail, about shaman Indians that had nothing to do with Jim, except when he was young. It was an unusual book to read. People can learn just about all they want to know about him. People will get a feel of how it was to live in the sixties. The book was easy to read because the sentences flowed together, and was not choppy, and the words were easy to understand because there were no words a person would not know.
In the end, the book was nice to read. I have never been captured by a book like this before it felt as though it was really happening. I really enjoyed this book and give it five stars; I am going to buy this book. I would recommend this book to anybody who is inspired to sing and wants to live the dream of being famous. I would also recommend this book to people who want to know how hard it was to be famous in the sixties