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But then on a third hand, there are some biographies that
tread the fine line between being good or bad and just end up being interesting,
kind of insightful, fine. This is the kind of experience I had this week whilst
reading Fred Lawrence Guile’s Norma Jean: The Story of Marilyn Monroe.
Told in six parts, each chronicling a significant chunk of
Marilyn’s life and its greatest milestones, the book paints a realistic and identifiable
picture of one of Hollywood’s most iconic screen actresses. It’s both a subjective
and sympathetic exploration of Marilyn’s character, carefully placing just as
much focus on the various people that populated her inner circles as the
enigmatic blonde herself.
When it comes to biographies, I do have a fear that they
could ruin the subject for me; and of course this is solely dependent on the writing,
but it’s still a valid fear. As social creatures with effervescing brains that
are constantly fizzing away, we have the luxury in this modern age to form
relationships and attachments to people that we’ll never meet, even people from
the past. Marilyn is one such love for me and I think what made me take so long
in plucking this off my ‘To-Read’ pile was this fear that it might be a
bland piggyback ride, using the starlet’s own tragic story as the hook and not
putting in any extra work to make the book compelling. I am happy to report
that this was not the case. It’s not the emotive outpouring of a gushing fan,
rather a sophisticated and often sedated exploration into the phenomenon that
was Marilyn Monroe. Underlying the subjective prose is another voice that reads
with something like an emotional stream of consciousness: curious, analytical, and
mesmerised by the subject. I quite enjoyed this book’s tone and found myself
getting through it quite quickly because not only was I fascinated in reading
about a person I admire, but getting a sense of the author’s relationship to
her as well.
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And I think it’s this thought that has tipped my opinion of biographies back to being favourable because it’s a truly unique experience: the equivalent of being in a fan club, or just genuinely striking up conversation with a stranger about something when you realise you have that thing in common.
Norma Jena: The Story of Marilyn Monroe is an interesting
biography that doesn’t necessarily swim with the emotive appreciation of the
subject or the reactions to their dramas, but rather plainly talks about it
with a calm voice that then develops into something more layered and
complicated the more that it talks about the subject.
Author: Fred Lawrence Guiles, 1969
Published: First published in Great Britain by W. H.
Allen & Co. Ltd, 1969. This edition published by Mayflower Books Ltd, 1971.
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