When you read memoirs written by politicians, media stars, business moguls or sporting heroes, you know that you are being told only what the writer wants you to hear. It is easy to hide embarrassing episodes or less attractive aspects of character either by omission or by selective retelling. (Gerry Adams could run masterclasses in this.) Bono chose a different route: opening himself through a series of conversations with a trusted journalist—not interviews in the conventional sense, but more like two old friends switching off from their daily lives and sitting down to easy introspection over a mellowing wine.
The result is quite enthralling. As in any conversation between friends, some of the result is trivial and mundane, but the overall effect is deeply touching. I was going to use the word profound, but even a reviewer is conscious that the person in question is frontman for an extravagantly successful, decibel-loving pop band, wealthy beyond imagining, one of the half-dozen most recognised people on the planet. People like that are not supposed to do profound.
Yet, again and again, the reader is pulled up short as the words demand to be re-read. Take an example. As a young man, Bono was part of a group—sect would be too strong a word—involved in close study of the Bible. He is asked how he can square the bellicose God of the Old Testament with his ideas on peace and love. It is worth quoting his reply in full:
There is nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery.
The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that’s why they are so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. With Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.
If our Sunday sermons were