Another thought-provoking post, Mike. You make an important point about how little the facts that Goldman's and Norman's bios state differ — interpretation is almost all. While I also prefer Norman's sympathy toward John to Goldman's animosity toward him, I can hardly stand to read Norman because of his animosity towards Paul. I think Norman's McCartney-bashing goes beyond the John-was-the-genius-in-the-band commonplaces to a level that's rather scary, the way Goldman's treatment of John is scary: it makes me feel as if there's some deep psychological reason why Norman needs Paul to have so few redeeming qualities.

I'm very tired (along with many other fans, I suspect) of the John v. Paul cage match that gets ritualistically reenacted in so many books about the group. More and more it seems to me an evasion of the really interesting questions about them as human beings and artists — especially an evasion of why they were able to create such timeless music together. Even as solo artists in the early 70s, some of their most powerful songs ("Too Many People," "How Do You Sleep," "Dear Friend," "Let Me Roll It") were in part directed at each other. Why that is — what they did for each other artistically — that's the real question, to my mind.

As for the question of whether John attacked Stu, that seems frustratingly in the category of things we're just not going to know for sure. I have no trouble believing that Paul doesn't remember — I think of all the things in my own life that I can't swear to — and that in general neither he nor anyone else close to John wants either to go on record saying something happened they aren't sure did happen, or to believe that John could have done it.

I think the main reason the Beatles story is so fascinating is that it throws into high relief issues of understanding and interpretation that we all wrestle with. How can someone be both deeply compassionate and violent? How can people create beautiful, lasting art and behave selfishly and irresponsibly? How can people be close friends and get to the point of trying to destroy each other? The level of their artistic achievements takes all this to an epic scope.

All of which suggests people will be talking about the Beatles for a long, long time to come.