John Lennon

For the past few days, I've been glued to Cynthia Lennon's John, a biography she recently wrote about her ex-husband, the infamous John Lennon. For the first half of the book, I was surprised how great of a boyfriend and husband John was. I had this idea that he was physically and verbally abusive, but that was rarely the case. I have no doubt that John and Cynthia were very much in love (and Cynthia clams to contine to love John even today). John also loved his son Julian, although he wasn't the greatest father. He vowed over and over to change, though rarely did. Overall, however, he was a decent father until he met Yoko. Then he was a complete bastard to Cynthia and Julian, and that's when I lost respect for him.

He had affairs with Yoko while trying to hide it from Cynthia and he even sent her away on a vacation so he could send a spy after her so that the spy could claim that Cynthia was having an affair so that John would have a reason to divorce her, even though he was having an affair with Yoko. (Run on sentance much?) Cynthia was completely logical and kind in the way she dealt with John and the divorce, and he continued to break her heart and Julian's. While he was writing songs like "Imagine," "Power to the People," and "Give Peace a Chance," he was ignoring Julian and Cynthia and pretending they didn't exist while refusing to give them much money while they scarped by. Just as Cynthia was beginning to be friends once again with John, he was shot and was unable to resolve the issues with his wife and child.

Furthermore, Yoko was (and probably still is) a horrible, horrible woman. She used Julian for publicity after John died, when, before John's death, she excluded him from her family and told Cynthia that Julian was a misbehaved child. She was cold to Cynthia and didn't allow her to talk to John much at all. When John died, she refused to give Julian the one guitar of John's that he asked for and instead gave it to Sean (her son by John, Julian's half-brother whom he loved), along with all of John's recording equipment.

For the last 6 years of John's life, he kept a diary and willed it to Julian if anything were to happen to John. Yoko refused to give it to Julian and still has it today. She also refuses to give Julian the money that was willed to him by John, because she is the legal co-signer. In the early 2000s, Cynthia was helping to organize a benefit concert in John's memory and she asked Yoko to give her word that she approved and to be friendly at last. Yoko refused and told the press that Cynthia was only trying to get money from the concert for herself, when, in fact, the concert's proceeds were for various charities. That concert was forced to cancel due to that rumor. And then Yoko organized her own concert in John's memory with the same title, "Come Together" as the concert that Cynthia was helping to organize.

Lastly, as Julian released a great album of which he was very proud, Sean released his own album on the same date which was clearly a conspiracy of Yoko and Sean against Julian. It was disappointing to know that Yoko is, to say the last, a wicked woman, and John's last few decades of his life were lived in hypocrisy: preaching peace, love, and understanding while he abandoned his wife and child.

I have a new-found respect for Cynthia Lennon, as she remained strong throughout the whole ordeal while she was treated poorly from John, his Aunt Mimi, and Yoko. She seems to be a genuinly kind person who, at the end of her book, said that, had she know of her future, she wouldn't have dated John as a young teenager so she could have avoided the many years of pain that have followed her because of her relationship with John Lennon. Throughout the entire section of her divorce with John, I cried, because Cynthia went through so much pain and torment, yet she never ceased to love John, even when she realized she would never take him back. All she wanted was to be on good terms with him so that Julian could know his father. Her love for her son is astounding, and Julian is incredibly lucky to have such a spectacular mother.

--Elie