Blonde

Blonde is an intimidating book.  Partly it’s the length.  At 939 pages it’s not the longest book I’ve ever read (I think one of the Harry Potter books is longer, in fact), but it’s been a while since I’ve settled into a proper epic.  Naturally, I ended up devouring the thing and read it in six days.  It’s also intimidating to write about.  There is so much I want to say but I just have no idea where to start.  This book might be a work of genius.  It’s, ostensibly, a fictionalised life of Norma Jeanne Baker and how she became Marilyn Monroe but naturally, it’s much more than that.  The story is also an exploration of American culture in the dying golden age of cinema and the construction of myths about its stars.

I quite like Marilyn Monroe films and so before tackling the book, I knew a bit about her.  To be honest, this was essential.  It’s a bit like Sentimental Education in that Joyce Carol Oates pre-supposes the reader’s knowledge of the subject.  It happens mostly in later chapters.  Once Norma Jeanne Baker becomes Marilyn to the world the level of detail put into the story alters.  This is clearly a literary device.  We know the basics of the tale, Oates seems to being saying, we can read them anywhere, so she plays into this myth.  Marilyn’s later two husbands are referred to as the Ex-Athlete and the Playwright, Joe DiMaggio’s name never appears and Arthur Miller’s features only once long before the pair meet.  While she dates them, Marilyn herself becomes the Blond Actress.  In their overarching stories, these characters don’t have names.  They are blank archetypes of American pop culture- at one point Marilyn comments that in lieu of an American royal family, she and Joe DiMaggio are cast in these roles.  There are moments, especially evident in her marriage to the Playwright, where the Blond Actress slips back into being Norma Jeanne.  These are always moments of vulnerability.  She is not the icon when she is miserable.

The construction of Marilyn’s character is so tricky to write about.  Essentially, she is Norma Jeanne.  To Norma Jeanne, Marilyn is just another role she plays.  She talks about her in the third person, requests that friends and lovers call her Norma and thinks of her as someone else.  At least, that’s how it starts.  Throughout the book the two become confused and overtime Norma Jeanne is eroded away into Marilyn.  Of course, Marilyn isn’t real.  She’s a property of The Studio and Oates reflects this in the writing too.  In the beginning we’re given snippets of Norma Jeanne’s thoughts but as she becomes Marilyn these change.  There is still the odd snatch of what Norma Jeanne thinks here and there, but there’s also a lot of what other people think of her.  As she becomes the icon, she loses the privilege of autonomy.  Yes, some of this is the drugs (there are a lot of drugs involved) but mostly it’s not.  The ay the myth works is that the truth- Norma Jeanne- doesn’t matter, it’s only people’s perception of her that is important in cultivating the icon.

The only issue with Blonde is that despite by and large portraying Norma Jeanne as a victim, it buys into the cult of Marilyn.  It’s impossible to avoid when writing about her, I guess but because it is a fictionalised account, it turns both into characters in a story rather than real women.  It’s really the way it does this to Norma Jeanne I find myself objecting to.  Oates changes the name of her first husband from James Dougherty to Bucky Glazer but keeps the rest of the details the same.  It alters details of her relationship with Charles Chaplin Junior (if she had one at all), and changes the year of his death (in reality he died in 1968, not 1962 as the book suggests).  There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of the book in which Oates asks us to consider the whole thing a work of fiction, but it’s so difficult to do when so much of the story is recognisable fact.  Rather than telling the clear story of Norma Jeanne, Blonde ends up muddying the waters of what we know of Marilyn Monroe.

This is another book I could easily write an essay about.  I’ve enjoyed reading it so much.  This isn’t a surprise.  I love stories of old Hollywood.  What I really like about Blonde, though, is that it’s made me want to re-evaluate my approach to Marilyn Monroe films.  The ones of hers I like best are things like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire and Some Like It Hot.  The comedy roles, essentially.  I’ve seen her more serious roles- Niagara and The Misfits and wasn’t that taken with them.  Now I feel like I’ve fallen into the trap of only liking the things I expect from Marilyn.  The fictional Norma Jeanne at least considered herself a serious actress and her dramatic roles her best and, for no other reason that than I’m going to pay them a revisit.

I’m just about to start on Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernières.  I’m hoping it’s as good as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.