Customer Reviews

Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Greil Marcus's collection of randow essays and pieces is still more cohesive, fascinating, intelligent and amazing that most books written on Elvis Presley. Quite simply, Marcus is one of the best writers operating today. When writing about EP, most cultural critics don't have the musical background, and most biographers (save Peter Guralnick & Dave Marsh) don't have the philosophical insight. Marcus does and he isn't afraid to flex his intellectual muscle and still be funny and accessible. If you could only own 2 books on Elvis Presley, it would be this and Peter Guralnick's "Last Train To Memphis."

I found this book engaging enough. It is not an Elvis biography, more a commentary on pop culture and perception. Marcus is a solid writer and his points are well-founded, especially the chapter in which he deconstructs Goldman's scathing bio 'Elvis'. As another reviewer has suggested, you will need to know some about Elvis' story before you get your head around everything in this book. Having said that, it's not as grave as that reviewer made it out to be. I don't consider myself an Elvis follower by any stretch and I didn't feel out of place understanding what Marcus was conveying. A solid, quick read that even the most casual of Elvis fans will enjoy.

I have a Ph.D., and most of the time I had no idea what Marcus was talking about. Not because of the academic jargon -- there is little or none. Because he kept dropping in names of obscure punk rock groups or fan mags or ezines and expecting me to know all about them, he kept starting discussions in the middle, and most infuriating, he assumed that readers positively worshipped Elvis, so if he alluded to what happened in Tupelo in 1957, or Elvis' relationship with his cousins, we would nod and say "oh, sure." Casual readers, beware -- in order to understand this book, you need to have read at least a dozen biographies of Elvis, watch all of his movies a dozen times, and have every word of every song he ever wrote memorized. I conclude that it's not a cultural obsession at all, to anyone but the author.