Andrew Morton: Madonna

By DITA DE BONI

Madonna Louise Ciccone is more a business, a corporation, than a so-called "truly great" artist of popular music, her critics say, gnashing their middle-aged teeth.

This perception, fostered by a white, male-dominated press that simply does not get her at all, is perhaps why someone so disconnected with Madonna and her effect on popular culture could possibly think themselves capable of writing her biography.

It is unclear what Andrew Morton, who established his name as a biographer with the mawkish but fascinating Diana: Her True Story, was trying to achieve with his new book Madonna.

Vacillating from adulation to gutter press-like snipes, the only clear conclusion one can take from the book is that Morton has possibly never had more than a passing acquaintance with his subject's artistic output.

His conclusion?

"She goes where we go, a cultural bloodhound always on the scent of the fresh, the cool and credible. That is part of her excitement and appeal, at once the ambitious all-American girl, the clinical corporate chief, the loyal friend, the uncertain lover, and the restless, life-enhancing force of nature, continually challenging, provoking and enchanting."

Er ... yes. We know. That she is a canny business woman, a rather clingy and insecure girlfriend, and has had several changes of persona throughout her career are things that have been documented ad nauseam already.

Where Morton succeeds is in his detailed - although often monotonous - story of her early days in New York.

From solid middle-class beginnings came a normal woman with an abnormal yearning to make her mark. Her absolute and total hunger for fame, manifested in relentless self-promotion and sometimes hideously selfish behaviour, are all here. The photos of young Madonna - as always - are fascinating, especially two which show a painfully anorexic young woman of 18 posing gleefully for her friend's camera.

There are few who would deny that Madonna's drive is out of proportion to her actual talent. She is a talented songwriter, an engaging entertainer and a fairly capable singer, underscored by enormous self-belief and endless energy.

But if she is, as Morton points out, "indomitable in public, insecure in private" how does that account for her phenomenal popularity and staying power?

Many other stars fit this description, yet few have achieved her stupendous commercial success.

Morton, for all his tales from jilted ex-lovers and acquaintances, doesn't know, and doesn't attempt to explain.

It takes a fan - or a learned critic, perhaps - to be able to add that extra dimension that is missing from Morton's Madonna. To be able to add that she has succeeded because she represents something that young women have always wanted: self-confidence, sex appeal and strength. She is a huge hit also because her tunes are catchy, and because she has an innate understanding of what is visually exciting.

For all his painstaking detail, Morton does not quite get his subject, and it shows. Somewhat unfairly, he will sell his book on the strength of her popularity without ever quite coming to grips with it.

Bantam

$59.95

* Dita De Boni is a Herald features journalist.