T A B L E+T A L K Poetry lovers: What poets would you recommend to a novice reader? Post your thoughts in the Books area of Table Talk. R E V I E W S COMMODIFY YOUR DISSENT: The Business of Culture in the New Gilded Age: Salvos from the Baffler Edited by Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (11/12/97) R E C E N T L Y The Salon interview: Doris Lessing By Dwight Garner (11/11/97) The man who took sex out of the closet By Scott McLemee (11/05/97) Reckless genius By Galway Kinnell (11/03/97) Cents & sensibility By Gary Kamiya (10/31/97) The role model syndrome By Jake Lamar (10/21/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the BOOKS ARCHIVE		THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO paul HIS AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY MAKES A CONVINCING CASE THAT PAUL MCCARTNEY, DERIDED AS A PRETTY-BOY LIGHTWEIGHT, STOOD EQUAL WITH JOHN LENNON IN CREATING SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BELOVED MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY MARK HERTSGAARD | I'm just like everybody else, John Lennon once confessed. I fell for Paul because of his looks, then George came along and knew how to play lead guitar, and Ringo was Ringo, so we all ended up together. Of course, there was a bit more to the founding of the Beatles than that, especially as regards Paul McCartney. From the afternoon in June 1957 when Lennon and McCartney first met as Liverpool teenagers, Paul -- who could actually tune a guitar and remember all the words of songs -- was always John's musical equal and then some. As the years went by, their friendship deepened and their songwriting partnership blossomed to produce some of the most important and beloved music of the 20th century. They loved and fought with each other like brothers, but remained soul mates to the very end, as even Yoko Ono, Paul's replacement at the center of John's world, recognized. In the nightmarish hours immediately after Lennon's murder in 1980, Ono made but two phone calls: one to John's Aunt Mimi, the woman who had raised him, and one to Paul, the partner who, despite their many public and private spats, was still closer to John than blood. Their music, after all, had changed the world. Both Lennon and McCartney took pride in that accomplishment, and each knew he could not have done it without the other. Their collaboration was like a love affair, Lennon once said, but the affair always had an edge to it. "It wasn't resentment, but it was competitive," Lennon recalled. Their affectionate rivalry not only drove Lennon and McCartney to write better and better songs over time, it propelled their astonishing musical evolution -- taking them from the mop-top innocence of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" through the marijuana-scented folk-rock of "Rubber Soul" to the electronic trailblazing of "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and finally to the towering majesty of "Abbey Road." As much as fans and critics liked to speculate over who was the greater genius, it was the Lennon-McCartney partnership that was the real point. "It's like asking what's the most important constituent in a sauce vinaigrette, the oil or the vinegar," Beatles producer George Martin once said. "Both [John and Paul] were fundamentally important: One without the other would have been unthinkable in terms of the Beatles' success." N E X T+P A G E+| The "Good News According to Paul" is not the whole truth - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ILLUSTRATION BY ERIC WHITE