Marilyn Monroe Book:

		List Price: $18.00		Publisher: Picador Salesrank: 174150 Released: December 27, 2005
		Our Price: $4.49
		Used Price: $1.95
		Media: Paperback

Editorial Review:

The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe Reviews:
Disappointment
2009-12-16 - i purchased this item & was told it was new-it was not,pages had black magic marker on them & cover was dirty & worn-very very dissappointed & definetly would not recommend & have told everyone I know & then some just the same.

Perplexing but Interesting Overview of Marylin's Life and Various Biographies
2009-09-09 - I found this book perplexing. The author attempts a 'scholarly' critique of Marilyn's life by reviewing segments of it using the various, well-known biographies of MM. If you are looking for conclusions--this really doesn't resolve much of anything about the questions of Marilyn's relationships, her life, or her passing. At times it is quite detailed, but the overall feeling I have of this book is comparing what Spoto, Leaming, Wolfe, Summer, Guiles, Mailer, Solotow, or Pepitone or (fill in the blank) ______ said about specific incidents in Marilyn's life. Whereas one author may give an account of an incident, such as the Cal-Neva weekend, another author may have a different version or dismiss it entirely. Also, the psychological evaluations by the author are interesting, but purely her own.

The overall attempt to group and classify this information is admirable, but the book bogs down in too much detail, unresolved, and an unsettling and frustrating sense of jumping back and forth somewhat in time as Marilyn's life and relationships are discussed. A book for the avid Marilyn aficionado, but if you are looking for a well rounded biography of Miss Monroe, there are several other excellent ones to choose from. I rated this 3 stars for the effort involved, but it fell short with the lack of conclusions -- even if, perhaps, that was the point of this book.

I'll be sure to read all those other Marilyn biographies...
2009-04-10 - This book is awful, all she does is rehash what others have said. She is preoccupied with name dropping other (better) Marilyn biographers and it becomes obvious that you are better off reading their versions. Overall, muddled and nearly unreadable. I find it laughable that she is a literature professor- it reads just like a dry and unimaginative thesis.

Norma Jeane WAS Marilyn Monroe
2008-10-25 -

A book about other books may not sound like a desirable, let alone obvious, choice for someone looking for a biography of Marilyn Monroe.

And yet, surprisingly (or not), this may be one of the very best - certainly one of the most comprehensive - books on MM so far.

»Marilyn Monroe«, the icon (as the obnoxious byword goes), is largely a construct.
I think we all know that, more or less.

But just to what extent she - and not just her public persona, but also her own views of herself - was a construct, and what drove her, that is the question.

In this book, Sarah Churchwell dissects the traditional - very deceptive and largely false - dichotomy between »Norma Jeane« (the quasi-orphan, the martyr) and »Marilyn Monroe« (the glamour »icon« and, ultimately, the martyr again), and proves it to be fallacious.
She analyses the views (and ulterior constructs) of each major biographer of the »icon« - and in doing that, by identifying and thus removing, as it were, the lens that each biographer used, she inevitably presents us with flashes of the »real« Norma Jeane/Marilyn.

An icon is, by definition, an IMAGE.
And Norma Jeane/MM, as I understand her, really saw herself largely AS an image - through the eyes of others.
(One may argue that, in the absence of a healthy childhood and early adolescence, she never outgrew the self-imaging through the eyes of the others that is typical of prepubescents and a natural stage of early development. Ironically - only not really - it was precisely this dysfunctional, »iconic« view of herself what attracted the gaze of others and brought her fame.
N.B. At this point, I could include some very a propos ramblings about her function as an embodiment of the Jungian anima... but I know better. ;)

Which is why Norma Jeane/Marilyn knew how to exploit the emerging public image of her. She knew what the public wanted or needed to hear, in order to reinforce her image. (Personally, I think she did this on a more intuitive, almost instinctive level than as a result of some premeditated »strategy«.)
And which is why, for example, the horror stories about her childhood, including the alleged rapes, may not have been entirely true to fact.
Nor is there any evidence of the 14 (fourteen) abortions that not only Norman Mailer attributed to her (and later admitted it was his own invention), but she is claimed to have had spread the rumour herself.

For those who already have a definite opinion on MM, either positive or negative, this - as you can imagine - is probably not the most desirable of books. It does nothing to reinforce any of the stereotypical images of her.

For those who are looking for insight into the »real« Norma Jeane/Marilyn (and yes, it WAS essentially the same person, as Churchwell successfully proves), it's probably the best - certainly the safest - bet.

Sarah Churchwell is not infatuated with the subject of her book, nor has she an ax to grind. This makes her probably the perfect biographer, certainly in the eyes of a reader who is himself/herself reasonably impartial towards the subject.
And for a scholarly book, she uses a refreshingly direct and effective language, which is not the least of her merits as a writer.
(I do have a few quibbles regarding certain assertions or rhetorical questions - one such example is to be found on p. 263 - but that is because I happen to have a strong dislike for generalisation in matters where, in reality, there are no "self-evident" answers, as the questions imply. Such faults, however tiny, could have a potentially debilitating effect on the overall strength of the argument.)


In short, this is a »he said, she said« book - which, by that very virtue, succeeds in presenting credible glimpses of a humanly complex being embedded in the »icon«.

I, for one, have certainly learned more about MM from this book than from all the others combined (with the possible exception of Michelle Morgan's Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed, which is an entirely different kind of work).







A boring book on marilyn
2008-04-20 - Sorry, but I found this book written by an author who used other books written about Marilyn by other authors and "her opinions" on those. If you are confused by that statement, try reading this boring rehashed book of other books on poor Marilyn. Don't bother and waste your money. No lie.......ugh!