It’s puzzling whether it is even morally justifiable to read Kurt Cobain’s journals. Publishers appeared to have marketed the book with a disturbing “suicide chic” campaign. The identity of the harrowed soul is exploited in the telling pages of his private notebooks. The opening entry is a photocopied page of Cobain’s journal, which reads, in Cobain’s childlike handwriting, “Don’t read my journal when I’m gone.” However, the heart-bruising poetry and stories, and the outbursts and obsessive lists are enough to lure in the saint with the best intentions.

I bought the book back in 2002, and I am glad I chose to ignore my self-righteousness and delve into the closeted mind of one of the most notorious musicians in rock history. At times the book proves tedious with Cobain’s selfish, suffocating writing on how doomed the world is, but at other times the odd insights Cobain offers into his life are very moving, though strange. For example, Cobain tells us that when he was a teenager he trapped his legs under concrete on a railway track before waiting for the next train, eager to end his brief life. Or the notebook entry on page 214 of the softback edition, showing a self-degrading sketch of himself below six lines of an Alicia Ostriker poem about a young woman who is envious about what she does not have; the page is clearly a warning signal of Cobain’s emerging personal struggles.

On the cover of the journal, Cobain had scribbled, “If you read, you’ll judge.” Judgement is something that a reader should leave behind while reading Cobain’s journals.

Lauren Smith

Litro

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