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MARILYN

Name: MARILYN
Author: Norman Mailer
ISBN: 0446718505

A BIOGRAPHY

by Norman Mailer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1973

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The necessary specifics first (before you flinch at the one with the dollar sign above) — this is a coffee-table-shaped photovisual presentation of Marilyn including some 100 photographs (full page, black and white or color) representing the work of 24 major photographers. That aside, it is also a full length if free-form story of her life as nearly as it can be known — perhaps it never will be — so many inventions, including her own, abound. Marilyn was "every man's love affair with America." Mailer's too even if in the beginning you may be more conscious of him than his subject, or love object: Mailer with his endless "factoids" (a word all his own meaning emanations from the media); Mailer with his ripe persimmon prose ("an avowal of a womb fairly salivating in seed") sometimes turning to high on the hog ("and blows his nose to get the sexual gunk of the night before out of his nostril hairs"); Mailer hypothecating as guru on almost anything from psychoanalysis which he deplores to some of its speculation which he takes advantage of; Mailer as Mailer. But in time Marilyn appropriates the book beyond any question — her shyness and vulnerability, her slovenliness, her undimmable expectancy, her variability, her creativity and artistic taste. And in time, particularly when time runs out, Mailer's writing becomes cleaner, sharper, stronger, catching the desperate downdrift of the last years from success to failures, from Greene to Miller to Sinatra, from nembutals to chloral hydrate — certainly the sad facts need no reiteration here. The dazzling transaction that was Marilyn is all that matters and her immanent allure — so hard to isolate or perpetuate — is as palpable as it ever was.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1973

ISBN: 0446718505

Page Count: 381

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1973

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SELECTED LETTERS OF NORMAN MAILER
by Norman Mailer edited by J. Michael Lennon

- BOOK REVIEW
MIND OF AN OUTLAW
by Norman Mailer ; edited by Phillip Sipiora

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST
by Norman Mailer

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.