Skip to main content

Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox




Book Review

Author: Lois Banner
Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2012
Pages: 515
Price: Rs499

“A lot of people like to think of me as innocent, so that’s the way I behave to them.  If they saw the demon in me, they would hate me… I’m more than one person, and I act differently each time.  Most of the time I’m not the person I’d like to be – certainly not a dumb blonde like they say I am; a sex freak with big boobs.”  Marilyn Monroe said this to British photographer Jack Cardiff in 1961, one year before she met her tragic end. 

Marilyn lived a life she did not enjoy.  Yet that life was her choice.  Why did she choose that life if she didn’t want it?  Was it a psychological compulsion or helplessness or neurosis...?  Why did she allow so many men to walk through her life as if her life were a public park?  Did the Kennedy brothers who used her, as they did many other women, to sate their lust have anything to do with her untimely death?

Marilyn died in 1962 at the age of 36.  Lois Banner’s biography gives us a fairly vivid portrait of a woman who was indeed a bundle of paradoxes.  Marilyn was a smouldering passion too.

Marilyn spent her childhood in eleven foster homes and an orphanage.  It was at the age of 16, when she married, that she stopped living in a foster home.  Her mother was not in a position to look after her.  She broke down mentally when Marilyn was eight years old.  Her doctors diagnosed her as paranoid schizophrenic.  Marilyn herself suffered from many medical problems.  Dyslexia and stutter were minor problems that she grappled with.  “She was plagued throughout her life by dreams of monsters and witches, horrible dreams that contributed to her constant insomnia,” says Banner.  “She was bipolar and often disassociated from reality.  She endured terrible pain during menstruation because she had endometriosis, a hormonal condition that causes tissue like growths throughout the abdominal cavity.”  Chronic colitis, constipation, drug addiction, alcoholism... Marilyn did suffer much.

She was sexually abused as a child in one of the foster homes.  Banner thinks this left a huge scar in her psyche not only in the form of guilt feeling but also a relentless quest for love and acceptance.  The life in the foster homes must have added to her sense of insecurity.  Marilyn’s attachment to older men may be an indication of her search for a father-figure.  Her willingness to shed her clothes might have been also a way of wrenching attention from men.  But she was aware of the abnormality of her exhibitionism as she discussed it with one of her many psychological counsellors.  

She knew that the men in Hollywood were using her as a sexual toy.  Yet she allowed many men into her life, officially (by marrying) or unofficially.  When she could not get the man she wanted, she took a stranger from the bar or even a cab driver to her bedroom and thus avenged herself.
3 of the many photos in the book


Marilyn had a very strong psychological need for relationships.  Yet none of the relationships lasted much.  She was not much interested even in her mother.

Ralph Greenson, one of her psychiatrists, said about patients like Marilyn, “The more infantile people are, (...) the more deadly, the more self-destructive they are.”  Marilyn was infantile as well as self-destructive.  She had a childlike charm.  She also had demons within her, as she acknowledged herself.  She attempted suicide more than once.

Was her death really suicide?  Banner is not sure just as many earlier writers were not.  Did the Kennedy brothers have a role in her death?  Possible, but there are no conclusive evidences. 

Banner’s biography of Marilyn is well-researched and well-written. Anyone who is interested in reading about the sex queen of the Hollywood of the 1950s, in knowing about the passion and the paradoxes that populated her psyche is welcome to read this book.  The book also offers quite many photographs of Marilyn and the people who mattered to her.

Labels:

Comments

  1. KISLAYA GOPALApril 21, 2013 at 8:46 PM

    This is really very Tragic. I did not know so much about her. Behind success and fame there are hideous facts, we are oblivious to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2013 at 10:28 AM

      This biography made me feel sympathetic toward a person whom I knew earlier as a mere sex symbol.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 22, 2013 at 1:59 PM

      Indeed .. thats how even i knew her until.. i read it in one of the blogs scrolling down some Hollywood classics ..
      Indeed she was more than one person !!
      Well.. so much to learn out of her bitter experiences .. i must say !

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2013 at 4:54 PM

      If she had a little different childhood, if her mother was not a neurotic... how different Marilyn would have been? Anyway, Marilyn was an interesting personality. I loved reading the book.

      Delete
  2. Easwar ArumugamApril 21, 2013 at 10:04 PM

    During her career, Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Today she is still considered the world's most popular icon though her end was tragic. Nice review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2013 at 10:29 AM

      Sometimes success means little. Marilyn's life was one such.

      Delete
  3. BushraApril 21, 2013 at 10:45 PM

    Nice review...got to know so much more about Monroe....

    ReplyDelete
  4. IndraniApril 22, 2013 at 12:47 PM

    Good review, feel like getting a book for myself.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 22, 2013 at 1:56 PM

    Yes, good review !

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownApril 22, 2013 at 4:57 PM

    Previously, I had read about Monroe somewhere but don't remember where; but one thing was clarified to me then that our psyche is a powerful element of our personality, which we cannot always control. It may compel us to do things that may revolt us later on. A person's success is no way a measure of one's sanity. You have to understand your shortcomings, which are quite relative, and try to find solutions for that. If you can't find it, you are going to be living one blazing inferno of life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 22, 2013 at 5:50 PM

      Indeed. Marilyn made a mess of her life precisely because she failed to understand herself better. Whatever success she achieved as a sex symbol turned out to be of no use in the end as far as her personal happiness was concerned.

      Delete
  7. Saru SinghalApril 23, 2013 at 1:53 AM

    Would love to read it, will search for it in the library.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownApril 23, 2013 at 2:34 PM

    I think I will read the book, I have known a great deal about Marilyn Monroe, thanks to the numerous biographies and the documentaries about her.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 23, 2013 at 9:14 PM

      I hope this book will add to your understanding of Marilyn.

      Delete
  9. mandakolathurApril 24, 2013 at 6:07 AM

    It is difficult for me to believe you wrote a "review" sort of thing on a celebrity ... What made you do this, other than enjoying the book ... That only begs the question that you had a reason to read the book ... A psychology course reading assignment :) :) :)

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 24, 2013 at 7:17 AM

      Not an assignment, Raghuram. But you are right, I had a reason. I read a review of this book in the Hindu and was taken up by the "passion" as well as the "paradox" of Marilyn some of which I share!

      Delete
  10. mandakolathurApril 26, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    I wanted to write something truly risque, a take on "which I share". But I desist!

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 26, 2013 at 10:41 AM

      Needn't Raghuram. If I were to write an autobiography, I would have to project the diabolic aspect of me too. But all devils are not satyrs! :)

      Delete
  11. UnknownApril 29, 2013 at 12:16 PM

    good one! www.sehat.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
30 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more

X the variable

X is the most versatile and hence a very precious entity in mathematics. Whenever there is an unknown quantity whose value has to be discovered, the mathematician begins with: Let the unknown quantity be x . This A2Z series presented a few personalities who played certain prominent roles in my life. They are not the only ones who touched my life, however. There are so many others, especially relatives, who left indelible marks on my psyche in many ways. I chose not to bring relatives into this series. Dealing with relatives is one of the most difficult jobs for me. I have failed in that task time and again. Miserably sometimes. When I think of relatives, O V Vijayan’s parable leaps to my mind. Father and little son are on a walk. “Be careful lest you fall,” father warns the boy. “What will happen if I fall?” The boy asks. The father’s answer is: “Relatives will laugh.” One of the harsh truths I have noticed as a teacher is that it is nearly impossible to teach your relatives – nephews
15 comments
Read more

Victor the angel

When Victor visited us in Delhi Victor and I were undergraduate classmates at St Albert’s College, Kochi. I was a student for priesthood then and Victor was just another of the many ordinary lay students. We were majoring in mathematics with physics and statistics as our optionals. Today Victor is a theologian with a doctorate in biblical studies and is a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the Vatican. And I have given up religion for all practical purposes. Victor and I travelled in opposing directions after our graduation. But we have remained friends notwithstanding our religious differences. Victor had very friendly relationships with some of the teachers in college and it became very helpful for me towards the end of my three-year study there when I had quit the pursuit of priesthood. The final exams approached and I needed a convenient accommodation near college. An inexpensive and quiet place was what I wanted during the period of the university exams. “What a
10 comments
Read more