NickDrake.com

[Seran]

I don't think this is a spoiler!

I just finished reading Pink Moon by Gorm Rasmussen. It’s certainly worth getting and provides some different viewpoints on Nick. Given that Rasmussen is a poet this is perhaps not surprising, and it is certainly more emotive and thoughtful than the other biographies. For me personally the fact that Nick was diagnosed with endogenous depression was a surprise as I had the same. What’s interesting here is that it is generally considered to be genetic, so drugs can help, but not cure. The solution is often to change one’s life, perhaps radically, in order to get away from the cause of the trauma. In that lay Nick’s dilemma – which Rasmussen explores as only a poet might. Anyway, I like the way the book is written. Rasmussen clearly feels deeply about Nick and his legacy (not to suggest that other biographers did not of course) and the book is yet another piece of the jigsaw. If I had any reservations they would be that I was expecting more from Rasmussen’s many discussions with Nick’s friends and family and that the overall tone of the book is ultimately rather sad .
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I have stolen a man
but never a thing of value
I roll up the bamboo blind

Suzuki Masajo

[shirl]

Thanks for your thoughts on the book!
I will most probably get it.

[ivyjean]

I'm looking very forward to reading it. I read the first bit (the "peek inside" feature on Amazon) and it really left me wanting more.
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Hoping to find new ways of doing better than my worst

[JoeChrisMorris]

Wish I weren't poor and destitute here in New Jersey - NO JOBS!!

I'll have to pick it up when I'm not penniless. Doubt if my library will get it in anytime soon (though they did have the Trevor Dann & the Joe Boyd books in - go figure!

has anyone read it yet?
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"and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make"

[ivyjean]

[Nossuri]

Amazon doesn't seem to know people can actually collect things, especially things from special people. Look which email I got today:

[ivyjean]

[LostBoy]

I've just finished reading it. It was well written and although there was really not much "new" information in there, it was put in a more personal way than the other books were and drew me in more. The endogenous depression was news to me as well as was Brian Wells owning Nicks Martin guitar. The guitar debate will no doubt, go on, and on but there ye go.

[JoeChrisMorris]

in standard tuning, apparently
_________________
"and in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make"

[LostBoy]

[Chris_Sydney]

I agree wholeheartedly with Seran and LostBoy. Rasmussen's book is by far my favourite one about Nick. As it was primarily written before the big resurgence of interest in Nick in the 1990s, it has makes Gorm's journey to discover the threads and people Nick left behind even more personal. I love that he has preserved the ambiguity of Nick's legacy by offering little speculation and rather focusing on his own relationship with Nick's music, Nick's parents. There's a great sense of poetry in his writing style, with lots of passages that I found particularly evocative. I was very fond of the vignettes where he recreates in third person key moments in Nick's career, all written in a seemingly silent world where Nick does not communicate with others but merely observes. It's a brave choice for a subject who has been both dissected and mythologised so often, but it works.

If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you to check it out. If I fancy myself in the mood to curl up with a book about Nick I know which one I will pull down from my bookshelf now.


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