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A review by jennifer_mangieri
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
4.0
Award-winning novelist Joyce Carol Oates gives us a picture of the life of "Marilyn Monroe", born Norma Jeane Baker, in this novel loosely based on Marilyn's life story. From her early childhood (abusive) to her years growing up in an orphanage & various foster homes, to her early marriage & years as a model & starlet, to her stardom, her lovers, her marriages, to her last years, the novel brings to life Marilyn's insecurity, instability, her yearning to prove or justify herself in some way, the tremendous battles she fought with herself every day, just to get by, let alone cope with stardom.
I've read most of JCO's novels & this is one of my favorites. I love the way Oates uses "soft focus" and "hard focus" moments to depict Marilyn's life - the life of a movie star. One moment impressionistic & the next sharply concentrated on a single incident, the technique Oates uses is like the camera in Marilyn's life - shifting around, showing the best of Marilyn one moment & the worst the next. The camera gave Marilyn some of the best times of her life - and some of the worst - & that's how Oates moves around throughout the book - so you really get a sense of the different sides of Marilyn. "Good" Marilyn was talented, beautiful, loving, friendly, funny, studious, a writer, a perfectionist. "Bad" Marilyn was silly, self-destructive, lacking in personal hygiene, self-absorbed, despairing, wasteful, messy, promiscuous, & uncaring about her own time or that of others. I liked the shifting narrators, & bits of journals, letters & other people's stories scattered throughout, to show the different ways Marilyn was perceived and known. Oates also brings to life the Hollywood era of big studios & McCarthy scare tactics - a world in which female stars, even big stars, had little power. Overall a haunting book that made me want to learn more about the real Norma Jeane.
Why you might not like this book though I did - it's very long. It's very sad. You might get impatient with Marilyn. You might get impatient with just about every character in the book - other than Arthur Miller ("the Playwright"), who is given a sympathetic portrayal. If you don't like shifts in narrator, timeframe, etc., you probably won't like it - it can be a little hard to figure out in that way. And yeah...we all know how it ends.
I've read most of JCO's novels & this is one of my favorites. I love the way Oates uses "soft focus" and "hard focus" moments to depict Marilyn's life - the life of a movie star. One moment impressionistic & the next sharply concentrated on a single incident, the technique Oates uses is like the camera in Marilyn's life - shifting around, showing the best of Marilyn one moment & the worst the next. The camera gave Marilyn some of the best times of her life - and some of the worst - & that's how Oates moves around throughout the book - so you really get a sense of the different sides of Marilyn. "Good" Marilyn was talented, beautiful, loving, friendly, funny, studious, a writer, a perfectionist. "Bad" Marilyn was silly, self-destructive, lacking in personal hygiene, self-absorbed, despairing, wasteful, messy, promiscuous, & uncaring about her own time or that of others. I liked the shifting narrators, & bits of journals, letters & other people's stories scattered throughout, to show the different ways Marilyn was perceived and known. Oates also brings to life the Hollywood era of big studios & McCarthy scare tactics - a world in which female stars, even big stars, had little power. Overall a haunting book that made me want to learn more about the real Norma Jeane.
Why you might not like this book though I did - it's very long. It's very sad. You might get impatient with Marilyn. You might get impatient with just about every character in the book - other than Arthur Miller ("the Playwright"), who is given a sympathetic portrayal. If you don't like shifts in narrator, timeframe, etc., you probably won't like it - it can be a little hard to figure out in that way. And yeah...we all know how it ends.