Marilyn Monroe and Ulysses
Here is the picture featured on the cover of the latest Poets & Writers issue. At first I wasn’t sure if it was really Marilyn Monroe. Why? Well, she’s reading one of the all-time toughest/”greatest” books out there: Ulysses by James Joyce. Turns out she really was reading the book when the photographer took this picture. He was loading film in his camera and she was just chilling with her book. She said that it (the book) was giving her trouble and because it was so hard she only read bits and pieces at a time, but she also liked to read certain parts of it out loud.
It may sound to you like an easy chance to throw a blonde joke in there, but let me tell you something about this book: it ain’t no joke. I had some downtime in a dirty hostel in Rome when I decided it was the perfect time to read Ulysses. So I went into a bookstore and bought myself a a brand-new copy.
Ouch.
I wasn’t sure what I was reading until I went back and read the intro — it at least told me what was happening and what Joyce was “trying to do” with the book. Impressive, that’s for sure, but way over my head.
Has anyone out there read this book, enjoyed it, and “got it?” I’m very wary of anyone who says they have (unless you’re a professor or a genius and in your mid 40s) because this is a super tough book. I tried and I tried hard. I think that anyone who says they get it is just trying to show off the way people do when they claim they’ve read Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust.
Anyway, I just wanted to stick up for Marilyn for being brave enough to try to read this tough book and to let all you folks out there know that the picture isn’t meant to be ironic or funny, it’s just the photographer capturing a side of her that very few people got to see.
Read Ulysses on a Nook Reader:
Image source: Eve Arnold, Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses, Long Island, New York, 1954.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Marylin’s screen persona was a dumb blonde, that doesn’t mean she actually was a dumb blonde.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
She was married to Arthur Miller for goodness sake!
August 4th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Heh, I am an English/Philosophy student and I have not even touched Ulysses. This photo gives me newfound admiration for Marilyn.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
heh. i bet president kennedy got to see this side of her
) lol
August 5th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I am a university drop-out (I left my English degree programme as I was finding all aspects of the course I was doing – particularly the people on it – to be both uninspired and uninspiring) and I just finished it myself. I would not make any claims as to getting it, though I can see some of the ways in which Joyce was trying to reinvent the epic myth and take on the challenge of creating a new template for Irish mythology. I would say that anybody who claims they “get it” absolutely probably hasn’t read it properly. It is a multi-faceted and complex tome with a hundred possible interpretations. I wish you every success in your own reading of it. It’s worth it, however heavy going it can be.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:28 am
‘Getting’ Ulysses? Yawn. I thought we were long past the point where people try to ‘get’ books. Ulysses can be consumed and appreciated on a number of levels, and each has its merits. Some levels may be accessible to just a few people, or people who are now dead. I certainly didn’t ‘get’ the book, although I enjoyed it tremendously. Some parts are extremely easy to read, others are virtually impossible to go through.
However, the whole approach of categorizing books into ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ books is pointless. A book shouldn’t be a secret you have to crack; it should be entertaining and thought-provoking. Which Ulysses definitely is. If you find a book too hard, you’re probably trying to hard. If you find it boring, that’s another story, and may very well be the author’s failure.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
had she been around these days, she’d been texting.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’ve read it in its entirely twice and read parts of it dozens of times over. It’s without a doubt one of the great literary delights of my life. Profoundly moving, hilariously funny, searingly clever and above all deeply human and humanizing – a lesson in looking at people, warts and vices and vanities and all, with love.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Joyce’s “masterpiece” is simply literature’s version of the emperor’s new clothes. No one gets it, but all are afraid to call it for what it is: a terribly written, boring and depressing book.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:55 am
I don’t see how you can not “get it” and still enjoy it tremendously. I didn’t “get it” and it was a major pain in my you know what. Not enjoyable at all.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Marilyn had an IQ of 168. I believe she could have understood at least some of the book.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I am going to start reading this book now that I am out of college and can interpret it on my own without any of the influences of professors, etc. I did start it and I know it will be difficult.
As for those who posted here (just the ones with the long paragraphs), I giggled to myself because each one of you sounded like a pompous ass of English majors. But, then, in some ways, so am I. I was an English major and have read books (Contemporary British Literature with its liminal spaces, metafiction, structuralism idealims comes to mind) that are hard. I would say that Joyce is up there but I look forward to tackling it. And yes, I maybe 60 years old until I finally get it but that’s life, you live and you learn and then you understand.
The cannon of literature, however, is very touchy and if you don’t agree, then you don’t. But, people who claim that great works of literature, like Joyce with his stream of consciousness, aren’t truly great just don’t understand. Perhaps what makes literature great is the idea that something new is formed, a new way of thinking. If that bores you, oh well, I implore you to open your mind. Stop shutting it and let things in. Yet, I am dealing with English majors so that might just be too hard.
As for Marilyn, it is nice to see someone who was such an influence be something more than a ditzy blonde. She may not have understood it but she tried and that, for the most part, is what matters. Ignorance might be bliss but it is also the greatest sin/mistake of mankind. Go Marilyn!
August 8th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I don’t think Joyce’s work is terribly hard to read; understanding what he wanted you to understand is another story I remember a quote from Joyce, something along the lines of “This one will keep them guessing for 100 years” Which really makes me think that he just wrote parts to mess around with us. Ether way, anyone who says it isn’t a good book is a fool. And that’s not subjective at all. Pure fact.
BTW, english major here, so, i donno. I think that gives me some room to talk.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
If you think Ulysses is hard give Finnegan’s Wake a try… But seriously Joyce is a way overrated author. Much as I love to read from Ulysses or Wake out loud they don’t hold a candle to any of the greater works out there. Like Borges for one.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
This discussion reminds of reading the Fiction in The New Yorker. I’ve written about my opinion on it before, but I’m curious how Joyce fans look at stories that come out there. I think most of them are pretentious and cater to people who want to boast to their friends, “Look, I get it! I read The New Yorker!” Except for this week’s story by Joshua Ferris, which was quite good, as is his book.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I don’t want to sound like a pretentious dick or anything but I actually read that when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I was really into Greek mythology and I read it. It sounds like there was something really deep about it, so maybe I didn’t get that but I remember having a pretty good grasp of the plot at least, and that it took me under a week to do it.
Like I said though, there’s likely some kind of deeper literary meaning that I maybe didn’t grasp.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:00 am
People obsess too much over reading whole books in my opinion. If a section is really giving you fits or you just plain don’t like it, then skip it. It’s not like you can never come back to it later if you want. Just because a book is considered a “classic” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some filler or parts that were poorly written.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
the_dude_abides – What exactly did you read? Ulysses takes place over 36 hours in Dublin, Ireland with no connection, as far as I am aware, to Greek mythology. Was the book you read called The Odyssey by any chance?
August 10th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Even Homer’s Odyssey has quite a lot of deeper interpretations to delve into than most could in the fifth or sixth grade. I know that each time I read through it again, I get wholly new glimpses into things both in the world at the time and now. Ulysses I just haven’t had the motivation to start up; maybe I will once the pressure is lessened on consuming texts in my field.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Errr, loking at the pic she does appear to be reading the last chapter which consists of Mollie Bloom’s soliloquy – a famous rather racy bit of the book and the easiest part of the novel to read (Mollie is masturbating and remembering sexual and other incidents in her life in a stream of consciousness – the chapter is a counterpart to her husband’s day long adventures to return to her – the whole being the Ulysses – Penelope story from Greece).
I would love to believe Munroe had read the whole thing, and perhaps she did having had Miller as her husband, but few people have got through the entire book without skipping.
Now if you want a real challenge though try reading Finnigan’s Wake…..
August 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Ulysses’ structure was intentionally based on Homer’s Odyssey.
I believe it takes place over the course of one day — June 16, if I recollect.
Don’t dis Ulysses! Just because any person in particular doesn’t like it or “get” it, others who have and do, some brilliant in their own right, have written informed and erudite volumes extolling it as a profound and cohesive masterpiece.
Just because someone doesn’t like or appreciate say, John Coltrane for instance, takes nothing away for what he accomplished either…There’s plenty more accessible works of art out there to be enjoyed. No shame preferring those. But you don’t have to talk ignorant neither — just “step away from the tome!” : j
August 10th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
She is reading the last page. How cute.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
the_dude_abides – What exactly did you read? Ulysses takes place over 36 hours in Dublin, Ireland with no connection, as far as I am aware, to Greek mythology. Was the book you read called The Odyssey by any chance?
———————————
hahahaha, , when i found this on stumble i thought my focus was meant to be on marilyn monroe but after reading the comments i discovered a comical side to it all.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:59 am
I have attempted Ulysses, I am 17 and although I didn’t understand all of it (make that a lot of it) I really enjoyed it… despite the confusion, didn’t read the intro… maybe that would have helped.
I really like this photograph though, its got a nice sense of honesty in the look on her face. Un-posed and beautiful.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I read it and got it, believe it or not. I’m 20 and halfway through a joint degree in classics and English, so no professor or genius.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:11 am
wasn’t she a brunette?
August 12th, 2008 at 4:56 am
The photo was taken by Eve Arnold, near Arthur Miller’s house on Long Island. Eve Arnold spent a lot of time with Marilyn and got to know her quite well. It was not out of character for Marilyn to read literature, but this was just one aspect of her personality, which at least in its performance aspect could be quite outrageous. Here is an anechdote Eve Arnold tells about Marilyn’s wilder side:
“She was capable of anything. Once I was working with her and she had this interview coming up and we were running late. When the journalist came in, Marilyn was wearing this negligee, it was transparent, and she had a hair brush in her hand. She asked the journalist ‘is it okay if I brush my hair while you’re here ?’, and of course the journalist said she was okay with it. Then she moved to pick up her notepad and next thing she sees, Marilyn is brushing her pubic hair. She asked me ‘you’re not taking pics anymore ?’ and I answered ‘no Marilyn, no’….”
- Eve Arnold
August 13th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I read Ulysses for breakfast and then Bill Brasky and I write a novel 10 times better before lunch!
August 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Bill Brasky is the greatest novelist who ever lived. And frankly, he makes Joyce look like a doddering nincompoop. If you think Ulysses is a complex and multi-faceted work, you need to read Brasky’s epic masterpiece My Father’s Mistress, which recounts the harrowing tale of the author’s bleak childhood growing up in the shadows of Imperial Appalachia. As a youngun Brasky frequently sodomized his father’s lover, not to mention sundry she-goats, chickens and the like (this was Appalachia). Yet this masterwork of human endeavor is a gorgeously told tapestry eliciting the reader’s emotion by the bucket; it’s a book you’ll be unable to put down until you’ve consumed every bit of its five thousand six hundred and fifty three pages. Bill Brasky stands over ten feet tall, his leathery hands are as wide as Lake George, and his intellect breaks every IQ test ever devised. Reading My Father’s Mistress will not only bring you enlightenment, it will cause your testicles to swell to three times their current size. Thank you Bill Brasky! Thank you!!
August 13th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Hmm, maybe I could borrow a copy from the library and try reading it. Sounds like a good challenge for a book lover.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Another Joycean snob with an English Literature degree just stopping by to say please link the authoritative Gabler edition — http://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-Gabler-James-Joyce/dp/0394743121/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218661983&sr=1-3 — if you’re going to lure people into purchasing a copy.
Also, noting that she’s probably reading Molly’s Soliloquy, unless she’s staring at one of the flyleaves, the thought of her voice reciting Molly’s monologue is … let’s just say, weird.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I am a fourth year English major and throughout my whole career as a student, I SWORE I would never touch Ulysses knowing how hard it would be. However, I just studying abroad in Australia and blindly chose a class called “Subversion and Transgression” the main text studied: Ulysses. At first I wanted to shoot myself because it was extremely difficult, my professor said that no one should be discouraged by the book and that if they are to speak with her before they give up. I told her I hated it but she kept checking up on me to make sure I was understanding it; she game me many books to read alongside it to help me with my troubles. I will say now I am glad that I took that class and learned so much from it. Ulysses is not my favorite novel, it probably will never get to that level for me, but it is a masterpiece. The things Joyce does with the novel and how he writes is phenomenal.
Catjuggler if you’ve ever read the book you’d know that the_dude_abides is right. Joyce uses the Greek mythology of Homer as a parody to help create his characters, even though it’s not exact. It truly is a good book.
Everyone should give it a chance.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
sup dudes im fifteen and have read ulysses. I really like this picture i told my mum about it and she said that she hasnt really read it but i think differantly.
November 21st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
hahaha, the_dude_abides…oh man, i want to slap that guy. but it a nice way. like “oh, thanks for making me laugh…here’s a thank-you gift” WHAM.
ps, i feel the same way about Moby Dick that you guys feel about Ulysses…completely overrated, boring as crap. when the hell am i going to need to know all this technical crap about whaling?!?! so boring. i’m sure there was something else there, but i must have missed it through the yawns.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Moby Dick was about slavery.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Which one of your idiotic English profs told you Moby Dick was about slavery?
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:42 am
My sister has idolised Monroe all of her life, I think she’s a decent role-model.
I thought Ulysses was about Odysseus until I read these reviews… I don’t think reading a book you don’t understand is a brilliant idea, despite good reviews. Read books you enjoy.
Also, to the person up above who skips bits out of books- you are barmy.
February 27th, 2009 at 1:19 am
[...] What classic did Marilyn Monroe read — that most of haven’t [...]
March 27th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I knew this about Marilyn from other readings- that she had a real appreciation for literature. I think she got trapped in her Playboy bunny persona- but she was really more complicated.
I read A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man and didn’t care for it too much- I thought it was pretentious and boring. I guess I should give Ulysses a shot…just to be fair.
And don’t skip parts in books- when I first read The Brothers Karamazov, I almost skipped the Grand Inquisitor chapter- the most important part in the book. But I didn’t ♥ . I love that book.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Mmm, modernism.
Deeply impressed by anyone who can get through the work of James Joyce, a writer who intended for his works to be fragmented codes of narrative. I found Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to be pretty inaccessible but this one really took the cake.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Kayleigh, I totally agree. I tried to read Portrait of an Artist and also had a hard time breaking through…
June 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I received U as a Christmas gift (2008) and decided to read it. Today, I’m half way thru and love it more and more for every day. I’m 19 years old, living in Sweden.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
[...] Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses [...]
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:51 am
I enjoyed reading Ulysses as much as Faulkner’s Sanctuary, which translates to not at all.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I read “Ulysses,” and I liked it, but I would have hated it if I hadn’t had someone walk me through it. I liked “Dubliners” too, and most of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” but I think that “Finnegan’s Wake” is the literary version of a practical joke.
I don’t doubt that MM had some smarts–look at Truman Capote’s profile of her in “Music for Chameleons”–but if she were tackling “Paradise Lost” I’d really be impressed.
April 22nd, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I am 38, English is not my native language and don’t have a humanities major and yet, I read the book and “got it”. It is not easy, but it is not THAT hard either. I think people confuse it with Finnegan’s Wake, which is unreadable.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
I am considering starting “Ulysses”……but I am proud to say that I did, actually read “Remembrance of Things Past”……it took me 9 1/2 months, reading about 1 hour a day….it was a tremendous experience!!! I only hope “Ulysses” is that good an experience for me, although I realize the two authors are totally different in style, etc…….
So if you’ve always wanted to tackle Proust, DO IT….you will be richly rewarded…..he’s not that hard to understand, as, I’m afraid, Joyce is!!! (just guessing)…….There are passages in Proust that make you glad you are alive!! and that you can reread over and over again and still enjoy them……hard to describe such a wonderful experience; you just have to read it!! Just like I now have to read “Ulysses”.!!! wish me luck!!
August 16th, 2010 at 2:51 am
I started Ulysses because I wanted to be able to say, as D.H. Lawrence did, that it is unreadable. Much to my surprise, I found it puzzling but very entertaining, and I read the 900 pages in about a week’s time. Then I jumped from the last to the first page again, and I am now in the middle of my second reading. Only now do I see its incredible internal coherence, and I enjoy it much more than the first time. It really /is/ a masterpiece. It’s also a real /novel/. After reading it, you have a complete insight in Bloom and how he relates to his wife, children, father, and society as a whole. As for Proust, I found it boring, and abandoned after twenty pages.
August 16th, 2010 at 4:28 am
I agree with # 34 on Moby Dick being extremely boring. The movie, even with an underpowered Gregory Peck, is far better.
August 17th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
(Still in Ulysses mood) The text accompanying the photo above is not entirely correct. The photographer was Eve Arnold, who made several pictures of Marilyn reading the final pages of Ulysses. The actress was preparing, or had been doing, Molly’s soliloquy for Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, which explains why she had Ulysses in her car and why she was preoccupied with the last episode. Her admiration for the text may, of course, have been genuine. After all, this episode is a hilarious masterpiece in its own right.
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 am
The main problem with Ulysses is that it needs more than one reading. The internal references point forward as well as backward (they are anaphoric as well as cataphoric if you want the jargon) so many of them make no sense the first time round. It’s 700 pages long, so it takes ages to read once, let alone more than once. Also, the external references require encyclopaedic knowledge to understand. My advice is to get a good page by page guide, e.g. The Bloomsday Book by Harry Levin. Ulysses is the greatest 20th century novel in English. It’s worth the effort. btw Marylin was a pretty smart cookie before she wrecked her mind with drugs and her life playing with Sam Giancana, Sinatra and JFK. RIP Norma Jean.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
How unfortunate, it seems whenever the great Joyce is mentioned or brought up on the internet, it causes a stir of overcompensating writers/Lit majors with severely bruised egos to flock to it, for their chance to prove their intellect (something literary analysis actually requires very little of, being centered around heuristic leaps as well as less-than-logical symbolism) and gain acceptance from some perceived online pseudo-literati caste.
Joyce is not difficult to “get.” I was lucky that my dad read passages of Ulysses to me at bedtime as a child. The sheer beauty of his florid prose is perhaps better understood by children than most “scholars.” It’s his words that perfectly flow from one to the next, following the style of the old Irish storytellers at pubs across Dublin. It’s all in the sheer beauty of his style, which some will “get” and some will simply think is rubbish. A lot like how many would write off an old Irishman crouched over the fire, telling his stories, as some old fool. Others would choose to sit and listen to the old codger with a pint.
February 8th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
I agree with CB in post # 52. “Once upon a time and a very good time it was…” Joyce begins A Portrait, a serious literary novel, with “once upon a time.” How glorious. He was a little bit fixated on folklore, especially Irish folklore. Ulysses, even more so than A Portrait, is dense. It requires a broad understanding of world and Irish culture/literature. It revolutionized the idea of what a novel could be, but it takes a little work to unearth the deeper layers of meaning. Hemingway (unadorned prose) is more my bag, but either way there’s a lot there that you don’t “get” the first time. Isn’t that what makes a great novel? That it beguiles, enchants, and/or frustrates people, but most of all, that there’s something you missed on the first read. A great novel is worth reading more than once. Can’t wait til Bloomsday.
March 13th, 2011 at 9:27 am
If you think MM was dumb then keep on thinking that. You’ll be the dumb one. All you have to do is read her biographies and bios of stars who mention her and everyone is in agreement, she was mentally fragile, but she was in no way dumb. In fact she was cunning and was more smarter than people we label as “smart” back then and today.
March 13th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Typo: Smarter. Not more smarter.
June 14th, 2011 at 7:19 am
[...] Photo Source: The Writer’s Coin Share [...]
August 15th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
[...] Read the full article here. Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. ← How to Get Insulted by Authors Free Books for All: Non-Fiction Books → [...]
August 21st, 2011 at 8:45 pm
I’ve read it four times. Extraordinarily funny book Can be read on a number of levels. As difficult as you want it to be.
November 12th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
These two books (Ulysses and Remembrance) are simply not for everyone. I have read Ulysses (an annotated and unabridged version) and I “got it”, I just didn’t really like it. Although some passages are incredibly beautiful, many are very difficult and it felt like studying rather than reading. As for Proust, I’ve read the English translation twice, read it in the original French (took me two years) and visited Proust’s grave and some of the sites in France thought to be his inspirations. So it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. There are so many wonderful things to read out there, my advice would always be (a) don’t read something because you think you “have to” and (b) if you start a work and, at any time, you say to yourself, I’m not enjoying myself, put it down and get something else.
November 26th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
she’s reading an addenum, clearly, or notes about the type set. or she’ s just looking at the inside of the back cover.
January 5th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Umm pretty sure it was a tongue in cheek joke from the photographer Eve Arnold. I.e dumb blond reading the last page of the most difficult book in English literature and hey she’s on the last page!! :+)
June 17th, 2012 at 5:45 am
[...] featured image is of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses. Yes, Ulysses. Tags: ideas of beauty, [...]
August 13th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
[...] een aardige observatie van Hans Aarsman over de beroemde ‘Ulysses’, de foto waarin Marilyn in badpak diep in het onbegrijpelijke meesterwerk van Joyce is verzonken, [...]
August 13th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
[...] een aardige observatie van Hans Aarsman over de beroemde ‘Ulysses’, de foto waarin Marilyn in badpak diep in het onbegrijpelijke meesterwerk van Joyce is verzonken, [...]
November 25th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Marilyn Monroe was an avid reader and there are more photo’s of her reading than an other actress modern or in the past. She was definitely acting when playing the dumb blonde on screen
Below, a list of books owned by Marilyn Monroe , auctioned at Christies-NY, October 28-29, 1999, in individual lots or grouped:
1) Let’s Make Love by Matthew Andrews (novelisation of the movie)
2) How To Travel Incognito by Ludwig Bemelmans
3) To The One I Love Best by Ludwig Bemelmans
4) Thurber Country by James Thurber
5) The Fall by Albert Camus
6) Marilyn Monroe by George Carpozi
7) Camille by Alexander Dumas
8) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
9) The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt-Farmer
10) The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
11) From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
12) The Art Of Loving by Erich Fromm
13) The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran
14) Ulysses by James Joyce
15) Stoned Like A Statue: A Complete Survey Of Drinking Cliches, Primitive, Classical & Modern by Howard Kandel & Don Safran, with an intro by Dean Martin (a man who knew how to drink!)
16) The Last Temptation Of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
17) On The Road by Jack Kerouac
18) Selected Poems by DH Lawrence
19 and 20) Sons And Lovers by DH Lawrence (2 editions)
21) The Portable DH Lawrence
22) Etruscan Places (DH Lawrence?)
23) DH Lawrence: A Basic Study Of His Ideas by Mary Freeman
24) The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
25) The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
26) Death In Venice & Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann
27) Last Essays by Thomas Mann
28) The Thomas Mann Reader
29) Hawaii by James Michener
30) Red Roses For Me by Sean O’Casey
31) I Knock At The Door by Sean O’Casey
32) Selected Plays by Sean O’Casey
33) The Green Crow by Sean O’Casey
34) Golden Boy by Clifford Odets
35) Clash By Night by Clifford Odets
36) The Country Girl by Clifford Odets
37) 6 Plays Of Clifford Odets
38) The Cat With 2 Faces by Gordon Young
39) Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
40) Part Of A Long Story: Eugene O’Neill As A Young Man In Love by Agnes Boulton
41) The Little Engine That Could by Piper Watty (with childish pencil scrawls at end, possibly MM’s)
42) The New Joy Of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer & Marion Rombauer-Becker (with some cut recipes, page markers, a typed diet sheet and manuscript shopping list, apparently in MM’s hand, laid in)
43) Selected Plays Of George Bernard Shaw
44) Ellen Terry And Bernard Shaw – A Correspondence
45) Bernard Shaw & Mrs Patrick Campbell – Their Correspondence
46) The Short Reigh Of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck
47) Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck
48) Set This House On Fire by William Styron
49) Lie Down In Darkness (William Styron?)
50) The Roman Spring Of Mrs Stone by Tennessee Williams
51) Camino Real by Tennessee Williams
52) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (with notes by MM)
53) The Flower In Drama And Glamour by Stark Young (inscribed to MM by Lee Strasberg, Christmas 1955)
American Literature
54) Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
55) The Story Of A Novel by Thomas Wolfe
56) Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
57) A Stone, A Leaf, A Door (Thomas Wolfe?)
58) Thomas Wolfe’s Letters To His Mother, ed. John Skally Terry
59) A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
60) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
61) Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
62) Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
63) Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
64) The American Claimant & Other Stories & Sketches by Mark Twain
65) In Defense of Harriet Shelley & Other Essays (Mark Twain?)
66) The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
67) Roughing It (Mark Twain?)
68) The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
69) A Death In The Family by James Agee
70) The War Lover by John Hersey
71) Don’t Call Me By My Right Name & Other Stories by James Purdy
72) Malcolm by James Purdy
Anthologies
73) The Portable Irish Reader (pub. Viking)
74) The Portable Poe – Edgar Allen Poe
75) The Portable Walt Whitman
76) This Week’s Short Stories (New York, 1953)
77) Bedside Book Of Famous Short Stories
78) Short Novels Of Colette
79) Short Story Masterpieces (New York, 1960)
80) The Passionate Playgoer by George Oppenheimer
81) Fancies And Goodnights by John Collier
82) Evergreen Review, Vol 2, No. 6
83) The Medal & Other Stories by Luigi Pirandello
Art
84) Max Weber (art book – inscribed to MM by ‘Sam’ – Shaw?)
85) Renoir by Albert Skira
86) Max by Giovannetti Pericle
87) The Family Of Man by Carl Sandburg
88-90) Horizon, A Magazine Of The Arts (Nov 1959, Jan 1960, Mar 1960.)
91) Jean Dubuffet by Daniel Cordier
Biography
92) The Summing Up by W. Somerset Maugham
93) Close To Colette by Maurice Goudeket
94) This Demi-Paradise by Margaret Halsey
95) God Protect Me From My Friends by Gavin Maxwell
96) Minister Of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story by Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz and Zwy Aldouby
97) Dance To The Piper by Agnes DeMille
98) Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It by Mae West
99) Act One by Moss Hart
Christian Science
100) Science And Health With Key To The Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
101) Poems, Including Christ And Christmas by Mary Baker Eddy
Classical Works
102) 2 Plays: Peace And Lysistrata by Aristophanes
103) Of The Nature Of Things by Lucretius
104) The Philosophy Of Plato
105) Mythology by Edith Hamilton
106) Theory Of Poetry And Fine Art by Aristotle
107) Metaphysics by Aristotle
108-111) Plutarch’s Lives, Vols 3-6 only (of 6) by William and John Langhorne
Counter-Culture
112) Bound For Glory by Woody Guthrie
113) The Support Of The Mysteries by Paul Breslow
114) Paris Blues by Harold Flender
115) The Shook-Up Generation by Harrison E. Salisbury
Foreign-Language Texts And Translations
116) An Mands Ansigt by Arthur Miller
117) Independent People by Halldor Laxness
118) Mujer by Lina Rolan (inscribed to MM by author)
119) The Havamal, ed. D.E. Martin Clarke
120) Yuan Mei: 18th Century Chinese Poet by Arthur Waley
121) Almanach: Das 73 Jahr by S. Fischer Verlag
French Literature
122) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
123) The Works Of Rabelais
124) The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
125) Cities Of The Plain by Marcel Proust
126) Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
127) The Sweet Cheat Gone by Marcel Proust
128) The Captive by Marcel Proust
129) Nana by Emile Zola
130) Plays by Moliere
Freud
131) The Life And Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones
132) Letters Of Sigmund Freud, ed. Ernest L. Freud
133) Glory Reflected by Martin Freud
134) Moses And Monotheism by Sigmund Freud
135) Conditioned Reflex Therapy by Andrew Salter
Gardening & Pets
136-137) The Wise Garden Encyclopedia, ed. E.L.D. Seymour (2 editions)
138) Landscaping Your Own Home by Alice Dustan
139) Outpost Nurseries – publicity brochure
140) The Forest And The Sea by Marston Bates
141) Pet Turtles by Julien Bronson
142) A Book About Bees by Edwin Way Teale
143) Codfish, Cats & Civilisation by Gary Webster
Humor
144) How To Do It, Or, The Art Of Lively Entertaining by Elsa Maxwell
145) Wake Up, Stupid by Mark Harris
146) Merry Christmas, Happy New Year by Phyllis McGinley
147) The Hero Maker by Akbar Del Piombo & Norman Rubington
148) How To Talk At Gin by Ernie Kovacs
149) VIP Tosses A Party, by Virgil Partch
150) Who Blowed Up The House & Other Ozark Folk Tales, ed. Randolph Vance
151) Snobs by Russell Lynes
Judaica (MM officially converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Miller).
152) The Form of Daily Prayers
153) Sephath Emeth (Speech Of Truth): Order Of Prayers For The Wholes Year In Jewish and English
154) The Holy Scriptures According To The Masoretic Text (inscribed to MM by Paula Strasberg, July 1, 1956)
Literature
155) The Law by Roger Vailland
156) The Building by Peter Martin
157) The Mermaids by Boros
158) They Came To Cordura by Glendon Swarthout
159) The 7th Cross by Anna Seghers
160) A European Education by Romain Gary
161) Strike For A Kingdom by Menna Gallie
162) The Slide Area by Gavin Lambert
163) The Woman Who Was Poor by Leon Bloy
164) Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson
165) The Contenders by John Wain
166) The Best Of All Worlds, Or, What Voltaire Never Knew by Hans Jorgen Lembourn (is this the same guy who later wrote ’40 Days With Marilyn’?)
167) The Story Of Esther Costello by Nicholas Montsarrat
168) Oh Careless Love by Maurice Zolotow (MM biographer)
169) Add A Dash Of Pity by Peter Ustinov
170) An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (filmed as A Place In The Sun – MM admired Elizabeth Taylor’s performance)
171) The Mark Of The Warrior by Paul Scott
172) The Dancing Bear by Edzard Schaper
173) Miracle In The Rain by Ben Hecht (co-author of MM’s autobiography)
174) The Guide by R.K. Narayan
175) Blow Up A Storm by Garson Kanin (later wrote screenplay ‘Moviola’, featurning an MM-based character)
176) Jonathan by Russell O’Neill
177) Fowlers End by Gerald Kersh
178) Hurricane Season by Ralph Winnett
179) The un-Americans by Alvah Bessie (later wrote The Symbol, a novel loosely based on MM’s life)
180) The Devil’s Advocate by Morris L. West
181) On Such A Night by Anthony Quayle
182) Say You Never Saw Me by Arthur Nesbitt
183) All The Naked Heroes by Alan Kapener
184) Jeremy Todd by Hamilton Maule
185) Miss America by Daniel Stren
186) Fever In The Blood by William Pearson
187) Spartacus by Howard Fast
188) Venetian Red by L.M. Pasinetti
189) A Cup Of Tea For Mr Thorgill by Storm Jameson
190) Six O’Clock Casual by Henry W. Cune
191) Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong (the movie ‘Don’t Bother To Knock’ was based on this novel)
192) The Gingko Tree by Sheelagh Burns
193) The Mountain Road by Theodore H. White
194) Three Circles Of Light by Pietro Di Donato
195) The Day The Money Stopped by Brendan Gill
196) The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins (Hollywood-set bestseller, featuring a Jean Harlow-based character, Rina Marlowe. Marilyn’s secretary, Margerie Stengel, recalls that Marilyn was reading a Robbins novel in her New York apartment in 1961.)
197-198) Justine by Lawrence Durrell (2 editions, possibly read during filming of The Misfits)
199) Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell
200) Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
201) The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
202) The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
203) Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog by Dylan Thomas (Marilyn met Thomas in Shelley Winters’ apartment circa 1951)
204) Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place, by Malcolm Lowry
Modern Library
205) The Sound And The Fury/As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
206) God’s Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell
207) Anna Christie/The Emperor Jones/The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill (Marilyn played Anna in a scene performed at the Actor’s Studio in 1956)
208) The Philosophy Of Schopenhauer by Irwin Edman
209) The Philosophy Of Spinoza by Joseph Ratner
210) The Dubliners by James Joyce
211) Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson
212) The Collected Short Stories by Dorothy Parker (Friend of Marilyn’s, lived nearby her Doheny Drive apartment in 1961)
213) Selected Works by Alexander Pope
214) The Red And The Black by Stendhal
215) The Life Of Michelangelo by John Addington
216) Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (Niagara director Henry Hathaway wanted to film this with MM and James Dean. It was eventually made with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey.)
217) Three Famous French Romances (W. Somerset Maugham?)
218) Napoleon by Emil Ludwig
219) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (a second copy?)
220) The Poems And Fairy-Tales by Oscar Wilde
221) Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass/The Hunting Of The Snark, by Lewis Carroll
222) A High Wind In Jamaica by Richard Hughes
223) An Anthology Of American Negro Literature, ed. Sylvestre C. Watkins
Music
224) Beethoven: His Spiritual Development by J.W.N. Sullivan
225) Music For The Millions by David Ewen
226) Schubert by Ralph Bates
227) Men Of Music by Wallace Brockaway and Herbert Weinstock
Plays
228) The Potting Shed by Graham Greene
229) Politics In The American Drama by Caspar Nannes
230) Sons Of Men by Herschel Steinhardt
231) Born Yesterday by Garson Kanin (MM auditioned for the movie, but Judy Holliday got the part)
232) Untitled & Other Radio Drams by Norman Corwin
233) Thirteen By Corwin, by Norman Corwin
234) More By Corwin, by Norman Corwin
235) Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill (a second copy)
236) Best American Plays: Third Series, 1945-1951
237) Theatre ’52 by John Chapman
238) 16 Famous European Plays, by Bennett Cerf and Van H. Cartmell
239) The Complete Plays Of Henry James
240) 20 Best Plays Of The Modern American Theatre, by John Glassner
241) Elizabethan Plays by Hazelton Spencer
242) Critics’ Choice by Jack Gaver
243) Modern American Dramas by Harlan Hatcher
244) The Album Of The Cambridge Garrick Club
European Poetry
245) A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Houseman
246) The Poetry & Prose Of Heinrich Heine by Frederich Ewen
247) The Poetical works Of John Milton, by H.C. Beeching
248) The Poetical Works Of Robert Browning (H.C. Beeching?)
249) Wordsworth by Richard Wilbur
250) The Poetical Works Of Shelley (Richard Wilbur?)
251) The Portable Blake, by William Blake
252) William Shakespeare: Sonnets, ed. Mary Jane Gorton
253) Poems Of Robert Burns, ed. Henry Meikle & William Beattie
254) The Penguin Book Of English Verse, ed. John Hayward
255) Aragon: Poet Of The French Resistance, by Hannah Josephson & Malcolm Cowley
256) Star Crossed by Margaret Tilden
American Poetry
257 and 258) Collected Sonnets by Edna St Vincent Millay (2 editions)
259) Robert Frost’s Poems by Louis Untermeyer (Marilyn befriended Untermeyer during her marriage to Arthur)
260) Poe: Complete Poems by Richard Wilbur (a 2nd copy?)
261) The Life And Times Of Archy And Mehitabel by Don Marquis
262) The Pocketbook Of Modern Verse by Oscar Williams
263) Poems by John Tagliabue
264) Selected Poems by Rafael Alberti
265) Selected Poetry by Robinson Jeffers
266) The American Puritans: Their Prose & Poetry, by Perry Miller
267) Selected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
268) Poet In New York by Federico Garcia Lorca
269) The Vapor Trail by Ivan Lawrence Becker (inscribed to Arthur by the author, there is also a note to MM)
270) Love Poems & Love Letters For All The Year
271) 100 Modern Poems, ed. Selden Rodman
272) The Sweeniad, by Myra Buttle
273) Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse, Vol.70, no. 6
Politics
274) The Wall Between by Anne Braden
275) The Roots Of American Communism by Theodore Draper
276) A View Of The Nation – An Anthology : 1955-1959, ed. Henry Christian
277) A Socialist’s Faith by Norman Thomas
278-279) Rededication To Freedom by Benjamin Ginzburg (2 copies)
280) The Ignorant Armies by E.M. Halliday
281) Commonwealth Vs Sacco & Vanzetti, by Robert P. Weeks
282) Journey To The Beginning by Edgar Snow
283) Das Kapital by Karl Marx
284) Lidice by Eleanor Wheeler
285) The Study Of History by Arnold Toynbee
286) America The Invincible by Emmet John Hughes
287) The Unfinished Country by Max Lerner
288) Red Mirage by John O’Kearney
289) Background & Foreground – The New York Times Magazine: An Anthology, ed. Lester Markel (a friend of MM)
290) The Failure Of Success by Esther Milner
291) A Piece Of My Mind by Edmund Wilson
292) The Truth About The Munich Crisis by Viscount Maugham
293) The Alienation Of Modern Man by Fritz Pappenheim
294) A Train Of Powder by Rebecca West
295) Report From Palermo by Danilo Dolci
296) The Devil In Massachusetts by Marion Starkey
297) American Rights: The Constitution In Action, by Walter Gellhorn
298) Night by Francis Pollini
299) The Right Of The People by William Douglas
300) The Jury Is Still Out by Irwin Davidson and Richard Gehman
301) First Degree by William Kunstler
302) Democracy In America by Alexis De Tocqueville
303) World Underworld by Andrew Varna
Prayer
304) Catechism For Young Children (1936, so may be from Norma Jeane’s childhood)
305) Prayer Changes Things (1952, inscribed to MM – perhaps from Jane Russell?)
306) The Prophet by Kahlil Bibran (a second copy?)
307) The Magic Word L.I.D.G.T.T.F.T.A.T.I.M. by Robert Collier
308) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (a third copy?)
309) His Brother’s Keeper by Milton Gross (3-page extract from Readers’ Digest, Dec 1961)
310) Christliches ergissmeinnicht by K. Ehmann
311) And It Was Told Of A Certain Potter by Walter C. Lanyon (1922, so may be from childhood. Several newspaper poems and prayers tipped in.)
312) Bahai Prayers (inscribed to MM, ‘Marilyn Monroe Maybeline. A gift for my darling Maybeline, with all my love, Charlzetta’ – dated 1961.)
Psychology
313) Man Against Himself by Karl A. Menninger
314) The Tower And The Abyss by Erich Kahler
315) Something To Live By, by Dorothea S. Kopplin
316) Man’s Supreme Inheritance by Alexander F. Matthias
317) The Miracles Of Your Mind by Joseph Murphy
318) The Wisdom Of The Sands by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
319) A Prison, A Paradise by Loran Hurnscot
320) The Magic Of Believing by Claude M. Bristol
321) Peace Of Mind by Joshua Loth Liebman
322) The Use Of The Self by Alexander F. Matthias
323) The Power Within You by Claude M. Bristol
324) The Call Girl by Harold Greenwald
325) Troubled Women by Lucy Freeman (who later wrote ‘Why Norma Jean Killed Marilyn Monroe’)
326) Relax And Live by Joseph A. Kennedy
327) Forever Young, Forever Healthy by Indra Devi
328) The Open Self by Charles Morris
329) Hypnotism Today by Leslie Lecron & Jean Bordeaux
330) The Masks Of God: Primitive Mythology, by Joseph Campbell
331) Some Characteristics Of Today by Rudolph Steiner
Reference
332) Baby & Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (pub. 1958)
333) Flower Arranging For Fun by Hazel Peckinpaugh Dunlop
334) Hugo’s Pocket Dictionary: French-English And English-French
335) Spoken French For Travellers And Tourists, by Charles Kany & Mathurin Dondo
336) Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus, by C.O. Mawson & K.A. Whiting
Religion
337) What Is A Jew? by Morris Kertzer
338) A Partisan Guide To The Jewish Problem, by Milton Steinberg
339) The Tales Of Rabbi Nachman, by Martin Buber
340) The Saviours Of God: Spiritual Exercises, by Nikos Kazantzakis
341) The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran (4th copy?)
342) The Dead Sea Scrolls by Millar Burrows
343) The Secret Books Of The Egyptian Gnostics, by Jean Doresse
344) Jesus by Kahlil Gilbran
345) Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood, by Mary McCarthy
346) Why I Am Not A Christian, by Bertrand Russell
Russian Literature
347) Redemption & Other Plays by Leo Tolstoy
348) The Viking Library Portable Anton Chekhov
349) The House Of The Dead, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
350) Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
351) Best Russian Stories: An Anthology, ed. Thomas Seltzer
352) The Plays Of Anton Chekhov
353) Smoke by Ivan Turgenev
354) The Poems, Prose & Plays Of Alexander Pushkin
355) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (not in the Christies’ catalogue. But friends of MM recall her reading it as a young actress, and she had hopes of playing Grushenka. Her own remarks in interviews make it clear that she had read the novel.)
Science
356) Our Knowledge Of The External World, by Bertrand Russell
357) Common Sense And Nuclear Warfare, by Bertrand Russell
358) Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein
359) Men And Atoms by William Laurence
360) Man Alive by Daniel Colin Munro (inscribed to Renna Campbell from Lorraine?)
361) Doctor Pygmalion by Maxwell Maltz
362) Panorama: A New Review, ed. R.F. Tannenbaum
363) Everyman’s Search by Rebecca Beard
364) Of Stars And Men by Harlow Shapley
365) From Hiroshima To The Moon, by Daniel Lang
366) The Open Mind by J. Robert Oppenheimer
367) Sexual Impotence In The Male, by Leonard Paul Wershub
Scripts And Readings
368) Medea by Jeffers Robinson
369) Antigone by Jean Anouilh
370) Bell, Book And Candle by John Van Druten
371) The Women by Clare Boothe
372) Jean Of Lorraine by Maxwell Anderson
Travel
373) The Sawbwa And His Secretary by C.Y. Lee
374) The Twain Shall Meet by Christopher Rand
375) Kingdom Of The Rocks by Consuelo De Saint-Exupery
376) The Heart Of India by Alexander Campbell
377) Man-Eaters Of India by Jim Corbett
378) Jungle Lore by Jim Corbett
379) My India by Jim Corbett
380) A Time In Rome by Elizabeth Bowen
381) London by Jacques Boussard
382) New York State Vacationlands
383) Russian Journey by William O. Douglas
384) The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer
Women Authors
385) The Portable Dorothy Parker
386) My Antonia by Willa Cather
387) Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather
388) The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (befriended Marilyn when she first moved to New York)
389) The Short Novels Of Colette (A second copy?)
390) The Little Disturbances Of Man by Grace Paley
December 1st, 2012 at 2:48 am
Very interesting article about Marilyn’s poetry which references her reading Ulysses http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/27/marilyn-monroe-fragments-poems/
January 14th, 2013 at 7:50 am
[...] Even Marilyn read some of James Joyce! | Source: The Writer’s Coin [...]
January 27th, 2013 at 9:26 am
[...] (EFE). El llamado “porno para mamás”, ese pseudogénero comercial acuñado por las editoriales y que encarna el fenómeno de Cincuenta sombras de Grey, de E.L. James, tiene su origen en siglo XVIII, llega a su apogeo en el XIX con Madame Bovary y lo culmina Marilyn Monroe leyendo el Ulises de Joyce. [...]
January 27th, 2013 at 11:59 am
[...] en siglo XVIII, llega a su apogeo en el XIX con Madame Bovary y lo culmina Marilyn Monroe leyendo el Ulises de Joyce. (El [...]
January 27th, 2013 at 4:33 pm
[...] El llamado “porno para mamás”, ese pseudogénero comercial acuñado por las editoriales y que encarna el fenómeno de Cincuenta sombras de Grey, de E.L. James, tiene su origen en siglo XVIII, llega a su apogeo en el XIX con Madame Bovary y lo culmina Marilyn Monroe leyendo el Ulises de Joyce. [...]