So Marilyn Monroe has been dead for more than 50 years, and so the uncomfortable attention in this novel is long past the subject’s personal pain. And while Joyce Carol Oates’s novel can feel a little ghoulish at times (for example, Arthur Miller was still alive when this came out–although he comes across perfectly nice in this book…not so much for Joe Dimaggio), she is not the first, the last, or the worst to do so. In fact, implicit in this novel is the awareness of the novel itself of the kind of invasive ghoulishness of how we look at Marilyn Monroe’s life. She’s a punchline a lot of the time, she’s a tool a lot of the time, and she’s an icon. But this novel seeks to create and narrate depth in her. Her whole persona is breathy and ditsy (even thought most of work suggests that she’s always in on the joke and perpetuating those myths about herself). But the novel suggest not only hidden depths, but calculated presentation of self that is comparable to the dyed hair and makeup and eyebrows we know about her and her career.
Also Robert Mitchum comes across really well here too.
And so the novel is long and spends a lot of times narrating her thoughts, her perspective, and the perspective of those around her. The novel spends a lot of time creating labels for the various men in her lives and putting distance between the reader and the characters. It’s a rewarding novel and better than it had any right to be.
(Photo: https://celestialtimepiece.com/2016/01/03/life-and-biography/)
This novel has been in my to read pile for almost a decade through various moves. I always hesitate to pick it up because I haven’t really been able to get into Joyce Carol Oates and this one especially looks like a huge investment for an author I am conflicted about.
I hear you. She’s not a trustworthy writer at all. I remember a professor saying she didn’t trust her because how could someone who had written 40 books be trusted? And this was 2001…and she’s just kept writing.
I do think this one is worth it and good, and not as big a commitment as it looks. The story flies by and is pretty rewarding. However, I am thinking about reading more of her soon (them, The Man with a Shadow, among others), and I will post about them too.