You Make Me Real [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Last winter Rui Silva was at UCLA promoting the release of an English language version of his book "You Make Me Real" originally published in Portuguese and featuring a foreword by Jac Holzman and statements by those who knew The Doors and Jim Morrison.

"You Make Me Real" is a compendium of anecdotes, reprints, and remembrances that bear a resemblance to Danny Sugerman's The Doors Illustrated History. As much as I wanted to like this book I found it a mess of bad writing, lack of detail, a jumbled chronology and poorly organized material.

The major problem with "You Make Me Real" is poor writing. At first I wanted to ascribe the poor writing to poor translation as English isn't Silva's first language, but there is a lack of detail and description in the writing that seriously hobbles the book. One of the most egregious examples is the mention of the New Haven incident but no explanation of the events that occurred. Yes, Doors fans know that Jim Morrison became the first rock star arrested onstage in New Haven in 1967, but what about the newer fans or someone just discovering the band? They would need to find that information elsewhere. A lack of explanatory detail is a consistent element throughout the book.

The book also touts remembrances by The Doors and those that surrounded the band including Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, Bill Siddons and Kathy Lisciandro but all are brief and don't reveal anything new to The Doors story, Robby's piece is more of a quote at one sentence long, and Kathy Lisciandro's is a quick paragraph on what a nice guy Jim Morrison was. One piece that shouldn't have been included is The Doors former road manager Vince Treanor's statement, it isn't about The Doors, they're mentioned almost parenthetically to bail Treanor out of jail. The bulk of Treanor's statement is how he recruited teenagers to be free roadies for The Doors with a promise of meeting the band, and in one instance Treanor tries to make a humorous anecdote out of an incident in which he's clearly abusing a kid who wanted nothing more than to help and meet The Doors.

That's not to say that "You Make Me Real" doesn't have some redemptive moments. Some of the reprints nearly save the book, such as Patricia Fournier's essay Jim Morrison, an anthropological perspective, Doug Lubahn's experiences from his book offer a snapshot of The Doors during the recording of Strange Days. There is also some material about the story behind the Jim Morrison Film Festival in 1970, Jim Morrison's trip to Mexico in 1970 and some of the material in the second half of the book. More attention is also paid the post-Morrison era albums Other Voices and Full Circle, but is by no means definitive.

Jim Cherry writes The Doors Examiner.