Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History - Softcover

McKinney, Devin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067401636X ISBN 13: 9780674016361

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2004

Synopsis

No one expressed the heart and soul of the Sixties as powerfully as the Beatles did through the words, images, and rhythms of their music. In Magic Circles Devin McKinney uncovers the secret history of a generation and a pivotal moment in twentieth-century culture. He reveals how the Beatles enacted the dream life of their time and shows how they embodied a kaleidoscope of desire and anguish for all who listened--hippies or reactionaries, teenage fans or harried parents, Bob Dylan or Charles Manson. The reader who dares to re-enter the vortex that was the Sixties will appreciate, perhaps for the first time, much of what lay beneath the social trauma of the day.

Delving into concerts and interviews, films and music, outtakes and bootlegs, Devin McKinney brings to bear the insights of history, aesthetics, sociology, psychology, and mythology to account for the depth and resonance of the Beatles' impact. His book is also a uniquely multifaceted appreciation of the group's artistic achievement, exploring their music as both timeless expression and visceral response to their historical moment. Starting in the cellars of Liverpool and Hamburg, and continuing through the triumph of Beatlemania, the groundbreaking studio albums, and the last brutal, sorrowful thrust of the White Album, Magic Circles captures both the dream and the reality of four extraordinary musicians and their substance as artists. At once an entrancing narrative and an analytical montage, the book follows the drama, comedy, mystery, irony, and curious off-ramps of investigation and inquiry that contributed to one of the most amazing odysseys in pop culture.

About this title

About the Author:

Devin McKinney is the author of two books, Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History (Harvard, 2003) and The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda (St. Martin's, 2012).  He contributed to the anthologies Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (Cambridge, 1999) and Screening Violence (Rutgers, 2001), and his writings have appeared in The American Prospect, The Village Voice, the Boston Globe, The Believer, Film Quarterly, Bookforum, The Oxford American, Black Clock, and elsewhere. He works as an archivist at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsyvlania.

Review:

"Indispensable ... inspirational, insanely ambitious."
-- Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

"Brilliant."
-- Jon Savage, The Guardian

"This looks to be the standard-setting meditation on the Beatles by a devoted, visionary fan too young to have known Beatlemania first-hand ...  Nobody has chronicled missing out on the '60s--and yearning for them--more vividly, or demonstrated how international superstars can become part of your personal history even if they were already history when you discovered them. McKinney's analyses and reflections are never sober and reliable--which is the only way they can be so Fab."
-- Milo Miles, Boston Public Radio

"The best book on the Beatles." -- Greil Marcus, The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

"A beautifully written examination of the Beatles' story - which becomes stranger and stranger as the years pass - and their enduring mythology. ... Makes the familiar unfamiliar and allows the necessary element of puzzlement and wonder." -- Jon Savage, "Musicians and Writers Choose Their Favourite Book About Music," The Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 067401636X
• ISBN 13: 9780674016361
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432