21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Book So Far About Monroe - I've been a MM fan for 20 yrs., July 7, 2006
I own, and have read all of, the paperback version of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, by Sarah Churchwell.
I have been a Monroe fan for 20 years now, and I own 60 or more books about her, most of which I have read, including many of the books that Ms. Churchwell discusses in her book. In my estimation, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe is the best book about Monroe yet.
I am glad to see that I am not the only one who rejects the oft - repeated false dichotomy by so many (including biographers) that "Norma Jeane" and "Marilyn Monroe" were two completely different people.
This theory stipulates that "Norma Jeane" was real, while "Marilyn Monroe" was totally unnatural, manufactured, and contrived. Like me, Churchwell doesn't seem to buy that, either.
Churchwell introduces the argument that if we choose to trust the split identity theory, that Marilyn Monroe can be considered the real woman, while "Norma Jeane" can be seen as the elusive, false identity. Churchwell explains her rationale behind that idea in the book.
Churchwell raises an interesting thought in her book, one that demonstrates the hypocrisy of our Western culture:
Many who claim to admire or like Monroe for her naturalness and openness about sexuality (yet while maintaining all the while that Monroe was manufactured and fake!) are the same people who will, many times, turn around in the next moment and then condemn Monroe for having worn a "revealing dress," or for having posed once for a nude calendar, and so forth.
Something which has always disturbed me in books about Monroe by male authors is how sexist some of them are.
I, as a female, get "creeped out" by how biographers (usually males) sexualize almost anything and everything about Marilyn Monroe, even if dealing with a subject that has absolutely nothing, or next to nothing, to do with sex. (Author Norman Mailer, I believe, wins the award for this odd, disgusting, and disturbing habit more than any other.)
Additionally (and as Churchwell documents), some biographers attempt to relate and explain much about Monroe and her life by way of her physical body. Much is made of Monroe's looks, her health problems, and so on.
The unfortunate result is that the widely held and false stereotype of Monroe as a dumb blonde is still upheld. Nobody takes Monroe's thoughts, her mind, seriously:
Monroe's physical body is so fixated upon by authors at the expense of her intellectual life that she is thought of, critiqued, or valued, only in terms of her body and physical appearance, even 40- some- odd years after her death.
From the looks of the other customer reviews here, I am the only one who has actually read the book by Churchwell. One reviewer, Maliejandra, states - incorrectly - that the author attributes Jean Harlow's death to a burst appendix, when Ms. Harlow actually died from uremic poisoning. In matter of fact, in my copy of this book, on page 177, the author *does* say that Harlow died from uremic poisoning.
Ironically, reviewer dionysius2 accuses Ms. Churchwell of using sordid details of Monroe's private life, including childhood sexual abuse, to be sensationalistic, when Ms. Churchwell not only does *not* do such a thing, but she goes out of her way to condemn biographers before her who have done so.
Further, I did not find or see any of this "exhausted postmodern jargon" that dionysius2 claims to have seen in The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. If anything, most of the text is readable with a few scholarly turns of phrase used every so often. If you can read at college level, this book will not pose a problem for you.
Dionysius2 falsely summarizes Marilyn's childhood as having been "without incident." At first glance, Dionysius2 description may appear to be true:
Ms. Churchwell, at much length, points out Monroe's childhood may not have been *as bad* as some biographers have claimed - sometimes, for instance, the number of foster homes Norma Jeane (a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe) was said to have been sent off to gets inflated as time goes by.
However, Ms. Churchwell rightly criticizes the tendency of some male biographers who outright and arrogantly dismiss Monroe's allegations of having been molested and raped when she was a child (and, as an adult, as having almost been raped at a party).
Ms. Churchwell and other biographers do not dispute that Monroe lived in foster homes, that she never knew her real father, that her real mother was placed in and out of hospitals for mental health issues, and that Monroe had to marry at a very young age (16), to avoid being sent back into foster care.
Therefore, far from being "without incident," Monroe's childhood did indeed have its difficulties and traumas at times.
The most bizarre and untrue statement dionysius2 makes in his review is to charge Churchwell with holding "...obvious contempt ... [for] her subject matter" when the direct opposite is true!
Churchwell respects Monroe and spends much of the book defending Monroe from the biographers who really do demonstrate contempt for Monroe in their books, such as Anthony Summers, who wrote "Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe."
Either dionysius2 read an entirely different `Many Lives' book from the one I did, or else mistakenly posted his review for another Monroe biography to the page for Churchwell's.
Reviewer Betty Burks, who seems to hold a very dismal view of Monroe, apparently did not read the book - or not carefully enough - as she claims that, "Norma Baker was a person, while Marilyn was an object." Churchwell disputes *that very notion*; it is one of the major principles in the book. Churhwell also refuted some of Betty's other assertions.
Jerry Saperstein is another who did not actually read the book - the entire book. Saperstein makes many inaccurate and untrue claims in his review, such as "... [the author] cites so-called feminist authors whose politics are clearly fascistic without comment."
As Gloria Steinem is the only "feminist" author who has written a book about Monroe, I would assume Saperstein is referring to Steinem.
First of all, this is not a book about politics. Politics are discussed in the book only in-so-far as they touched Monroe's life. This is not a book intended to critique and dissect the political views of feminists, or the motives behind their written views of Monroe. It's telling that no request for a critique of the male biographers' political views is made by Saperstein.
Saperstein must have skipped over the content in which Ms. Churchwell expends some effort pointing out that Steinem's work on Monroe is faulty in places, or is skewed, precisely because of Steinem's feminist sympathies.
Churchwell maintains that while Steinem's intent is to offer a feminist defense of Monroe, that Steinem, ironically, offers up instead a sexist interpretation of Monroe's problems when Steinem places Monroe's fate in the hands of men.
The implication being that Monroe, who Steinem must assume is a weak, helpless female, could not make her own choices or fight back against males.
I did not find any "political correctness and academic hypocrisy" that Saperstein says "permeates" this book.
I gather Saperstein's unhappiness over the terms "right wing" and "conservative" being in this book comes from the examination of Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller, in light of the HUAC fiasco. I think it goes without saying that most feminists and most people in the entertainment business are liberals, so it's not necessary for Churchwell to describe each and every person she cites from those groups as being such.
HUAC really was a "right wing" entity. Therefore, I do not think that mentioning such a fact in `The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe' makes it a piece of liberal propaganda.
While the author takes pains to insist that you will not find the "real" woman behind Marilyn Monroe in her book, (as so many other books claim), it still somewhat succeeds at doing just that.
Glimpses of the "real" woman behind Monroe are in the book, maybe because Churchwell shed light on much of the inaccurate information about Monroe contained within books that came before.
Churhwell's book does not answer every question or mystery of Monroe's life or death (and it is not intended to), but if you're a true fan of Monroe's and want a book that cuts through the garbage and confusion (and is a very interesting read), by all means, purchase this book.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Everything You Know is Wrong, March 1, 2005
This review is from: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (Hardcover)
She's one of the most famous people of all time. As a result, it is almost impossible not to have an opinion about Marilyn Monroe. Many people have negative reactions to her.
Marilyn Monroe is a mystery. Many biographers claim that Marilyn was only the image and that the woman underneath was really Norma Jean all along. They label Monroe as a narcissist and a liar because she falsified her beauty for her image. However, she was a wonderful comedian.
The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe by Sarah Churchwell attempts to further identify the icon in contrast to previous information written about her. So much of the legend of Marilyn Monroe relies on information made up for publicity and money. Even Monroe's own autobiography titled My Story is largely false. Churchwell said, "Monroe was an object of surveillance: she sought to control her image precisely because it was difficult for others to separate her image from herself." Her book is an effort to better separate fact from fiction concerning Monroe's true personality.
One of the biggest labels that Monroe has been given is that of a whore because of rumors that she frequented the casting couch in order to gain fame. Many contradictions exist when analyzing Monroe's personal life including who she was associated with and why. Her last two public marriages to baseball legend Joe Dimaggio and to playwright Arthur Miller seem to conflict with Monroe's image. People say Monroe was ultimately a gold digger.
Monroe might have had other motives for her marriages other than fame and fortune. Early in her career, she was proposed to by a man named Johnny Hyde. He not only could have immensely aided her career, he was to die soon and would have left his wealth to Monroe. She refused because she was not in love with him. Her marriage to DiMaggio ended for several reasons, some being jealousy and possible abuse. The marriage to Miller ended due to Miller's misconceptions about Monroe. It is true that Monroe could have endeavored in relationships because she thought they could have benefited her in ways other than to find love. Churchwell said of the negative speculations, "If these accounts are accurate, then Monroe's early relationships were as aspirational as they were opportunistic: just because she's a sex symbol doesn't mean she was immune to the cultural stories that affect the rest of us."
There is at least one piece of false information in The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. In it, Churchwell says that Jean Harlow, a predecessor of Monroe, died when her appendix burst. In reality, the star died of uremic poisoning. Although this is only one obviously identifiable mistake, it makes one wonder whether other information was false as well.
Churchwell cites that up to six-hundred books have been written about Monroe. The vast amounts of resources were utilized for this one. A 6 page bibliography shows that the book was well researched. In consequence, in order to fully appreciate Churchwell's book one is almost guaranteed the need to do prior research of the subject, the more the better. The author's writing seems a bit sarcastic and self-important in places, especially when comparing previous biographies about Monroe to this one. Other works are criticized for not using footnotes as if Churchwell is saying, "I'm better than you."
It is obvious that Churchwell loves her subject. Her final chapter called Afterward: My Marilyn is filled with amusing stories and heartfelt emotion. Most of the book is a bit dull because so many facts are presented. This last chapter is one of the most interesting.
Overall, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe is effective. Churchwell said, "Monroe was a real woman who made difficult choices; they may not all have been exemplary; they may not all have been consistent. The inability to categorize or determine her motives is not a sign of her abnormality-it is a sign of her normality. Monroe was not a fictional character..."
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whose Marilyn do you know (or want to know)?, January 11, 2005
This review is from: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (Hardcover)
While there are so many positive things I can say about what Sarah Churchwell's book does for Marilyn Monroe - the person and the 'persona' - the best advice I can give you is to read it yourself.
This book doesn't attempt to ensnare readers by promising some earth-shattering revelation or by tempting you with some hitherto unheard of 'dirt.' I'll fully admit that concept alone had irresistible charm. I've always been somewhat skeptical of the myriad biographies that have been released about such a fascinating 'icon', and the possibility that someone could present a thorough examination of these biographies was intriguing.
Exercising an admirable, objective, distance, while never losing passion for her subject, the author makes this book a joy to read. The book creates an effective `view from above,' and Churchwell takes the time to cite her sources (something sadly neglected by some looking to capitalize on the MM phenomenon). Churchwell tackles an impressive number of biographies overall, but focuses on some of those that have contributed the most to the overall 'idea of Marilyn Monroe'. From the general biographies to the more sensationalist to the fictional interpretations; the reader of "Many Lives" is given a delightfully readable comparison of the books, bringing into stark contrast the sometimes surprisingly different accounts they convey.
By exposing how one short life, Marilyn's, can produce so many different 'lives,' the author then shows that unraveling The Girl becomes much more than just trying to 'get the facts straight'. The book not only serves as an examination of the biographies, but it also makes interesting observations about our perceptions of women, ourselves and about our culture as whole (just to name a few things).
I won't say much more as I think the BEST way to go into this book is with NO impressions of the actual content except those images/impressions of the Marilyn that has made you interested in her in the first place.
Then, sit back and enjoy the questions that Sarah Churchwell is bound to make you ask... yourself.
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