User:MerAtticus/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Line 1:

IN A LENGTHY, SINGLE-SPACED, TWO-AND-A-HALF-PAGE TYPEWRITTEN CRITIQUE of the Actor's Studio production of ''Strawhead,'' Norman Mailer's fifth wife, Carol, tasks him with the above observation about this third appropriation of Marilyn Monroe as a focus for his creative endeavors. It is a salient question, something mentioned not only by someone who knew him intimately, but also by critics of the relevant works, ''Marilyn, Of Women and Their Elegance,'' and ''Strawhead''. Mailer's biographers have also noted how beguiled he was with the topic. Robert Merrill calls it "a continuing obsession".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=9}} Barry Leeds introduces his book-length study, ''The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer,'' with a chapter on Mailer and Marilyn, observing in his first sentence that for decades Mailer had been "fascinated with the life and death of Marilyn Monroe",{{sfn|Leeds|2002|p=20}} introducing the similarities between them, and concluding that they were both prisoners of sex. The issue calls for further exploration of both its enduring allure for Mailer and the unsavory aspects of his handling of his Marilyn mania.

{{cquote|What is it about Marilyn Monroe that obsesses you so?|author=Mimi Reisel Gladstein}}

{{dc|dc=I|N A LENGTHY, SINGLE-SPACED, TWO-AND-A-HALF-PAGE TYPEWRITTEN CRITIQUE}} of the Actor's Studio production of ''Strawhead,'' Norman Mailer's fifth wife, Carol, tasks him with the above observation about this third appropriation of Marilyn Monroe as a focus for his creative endeavors. It is a salient question, something mentioned not only by someone who knew him intimately, but also by critics of the relevant works, ''Marilyn, Of Women and Their Elegance,'' and ''Strawhead''. Mailer's biographers have also noted how beguiled he was with the topic. Robert Merrill calls it "a continuing obsession".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=9}} Barry Leeds introduces his book-length study, ''The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer,'' with a chapter on Mailer and Marilyn, observing in his first sentence that for decades Mailer had been "fascinated with the life and death of Marilyn Monroe",{{sfn|Leeds|2002|p=20}} introducing the similarities between them, and concluding that they were both prisoners of sex. The issue calls for further exploration of both its enduring allure for Mailer and the unsavory aspects of his handling of his Marilyn mania.

It is hard to know exactly when this "obsession" began. Mailer claimed on a number of occasions that he had never met Marilyn Monroe. Not so, according to Shelley Winters, quoted in the "Hollywood Politics" chapter of Peter Manso's biography. She contradicts Mailer's claim that he never met Monroe. According to Winters, they met at a rally for Henry Wallace in {{pg|264:THE MAILER REVIEW VOL. 5, NO. 1, FALL 2011. Copyright 2011. The Norman Mailer Society. Published by The Norman Mailer Society.|265 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}} Hollywood in 1948.{{sfn|Manso|1985|p=131}} Both may be right according to their memories. It is possible that in 1948, the woman who would become Marilyn Monroe was still Norma Jeane and displayed little of that incandescent ability to exude sexuality as she projected herself to camera and fans.{{efn|Guiles spells it "Jeane" in ''Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe,'' as does Leaming in ''Marilyn.'' Mailer spells it "Jean".}} The as-yet-unknown Norma Jeane may not have made enough of an impression on Mailer for him to remember it. Years later, once he began writing about her, the official story from him and a number of his biographers is that the only place they ever met was in his imagination.{{efn| This holds true for the make-believe trial he created to forestall the criticism of his second Monroe book. '''When his is''' asked in an imaginary court scene, Mailer answers the Prosecutor's question about whether he had ever met MM, by saying, "No, but I sat behind her once at '''(the)''' Actor's Studio" ("Before" 33).}} Regardless of whether or not they met briefly in the forties or never met, once Mailer had fastened onto Monroe as a topic for his literary delectation, he had a hard time letting go. In addition, his fervor sometimes led to "piling on" and on occasion "late hits" or "low blows," to use football and boxing metaphors for Mailer's literary excesses.

Line 12:

Line 13:

Returning to the subject of the many uses Mailer made of Monroe, ''Marilyn,'' as I argued in an earlier study, is, among other things, an exercise in creating a masturbatory fantasy about a woman who got away ("Norman"). It is also the initial volley in Mailer's campaign to possess his subject inside and out, first in his voice as a biographer and then assuming her voice as memoiorist. From the onset of the first project, Mailer expresses his frustration with the time limitations imposed on hhis fantasy fulfillment. In "An Acknowledgment," Mailer proclaims his discontent with having to meet a publication deadline. {{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=257}} This he was able to remedy in the future by creating his own projects, whereby he will be "master of his own domain." Because of the time checks in this case, he protests that he cannot write a proper biography, which he claims would take at least two years just to amass the materials needed for a suitable job. Therefore, he complains,{{pg|267|268 THE MAILER REVIEW}} rather than the biography he desired to write, he has written a "novel biography." Since he can't do his own original research, he enumerates the other writers whose works he draws on, as well as Norman Rosten's manuscript for the as-yet-unpublished biography, ''Marilyn--An Untold Story.'' In addition, he cites what he calls "interviews in modest depth." {{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=259}} In this case, the Mailer braggadocio, his advertisments of himself, may have been uncharacteristically muted. In ''Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe,'' Fred Lawrence Guiles, whose first biography ''Norma Jean'' is one of two cited by Mailer as the main sources for the facts in his book, returns the compliment, when he credits Mailer's "modest" interview with producing the "most thorough account" of the relationship between Norma Jeane (not yet Marilyn) and André de Dienes, a Hungarian born fashion photographer. A number of the fresh-faced, jeans-clad photographs by Dienes are in the book.

''Marilyn'' was also to serve Mailer as a vita-enhancing publication. Robert Merrill argues for "serious reconsideration" of ''Marilyn'' as he contends that its excellences as a biography have been overlooked {{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=142}} and, though on of Mailer's "minor" works, it still contributes to the overall "imposing output of serious and original works".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=212}} Carl Rollyson considers it a "significant achievement in American letters with which biographers must reckon".{{sfn|Rollyson||p=261}} Jennifer Bailey reads it as an "unmistakable achievement".{{sfn|Bailey||p=140}} And, indeed, when one gets beyond the leeringly salacious element, there is much to admire about the book, both as biography and as a novel. A charming element about it is Mailer's tone, which is wonderfully self-deflating in places. One such instance is when he acknowledges his peevishness about not being invited to meet Marilyn as he was sure that "no one was so well suited to bring out the best in her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} Then, in the next line, he concedes that some failed marriages later, he is better equipped to understand that what he was probably responding to at the time was the same thing that some fifty million other men felt as a result of what he calls "the foundation of her art," which was an ability to "speak to each man as if he were all of male existence available to her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} He admits that not only would he probably have failed her, but that she might well have "damaged" him. In another instance of uncharacteristically revealing candor, he admits, in a discussion of Monroe's purported lack of self-assurance about sex, that "we all reveal our innocence about sex in a candid remark".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=75}} This from the writer who had, on occasion, postitioned himself as a "expert." To a certain extent the tension between the macho writer taking lusty virtual possession of his sub-{{pg|268|269 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}}ject and the self-revelatory hesitations he expresses creates a correspondence between him and Monroe as they both projected a blatant forward sexuality that overlays an undercurrent of vulnerability.

''Marilyn'' was also to serve Mailer as a vita-enhancing publication. Robert Merrill argues for "serious reconsideration" of ''Marilyn'' as he contends that its excellences as a biography have been overlooked {{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=142}} and, though on of Mailer's "minor" works, it still contributes to the overall "imposing output of serious and original works".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=212}} Carl Rollyson considers it a "significant achievement in American letters with which biographers must reckon".{{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=261}} Jennifer Bailey reads it as an "unmistakable achievement".{{sfn|Bailey|1979|p=140}} And, indeed, when one gets beyond the leeringly salacious element, there is much to admire about the book, both as biography and as a novel. A charming element about it is Mailer's tone, which is wonderfully self-deflating in places. One such instance is when he acknowledges his peevishness about not being invited to meet Marilyn as he was sure that "no one was so well suited to bring out the best in her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} Then, in the next line, he concedes that some failed marriages later, he is better equipped to understand that what he was probably responding to at the time was the same thing that some fifty million other men felt as a result of what he calls "the foundation of her art," which was an ability to "speak to each man as if he were all of male existence available to her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} He admits that not only would he probably have failed her, but that she might well have "damaged" him. In another instance of uncharacteristically revealing candor, he admits, in a discussion of Monroe's purported lack of self-assurance about sex, that "we all reveal our innocence about sex in a candid remark".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=75}} This from the writer who had, on occasion, postitioned himself as a "expert." To a certain extent the tension between the macho writer taking lusty virtual possession of his sub-{{pg|268|269 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}}ject and the self-revelatory hesitations he expresses creates a correspondence between him and Monroe as they both projected a blatant forward sexuality that overlays an undercurrent of vulnerability.

=== Notes ===

Line 20:

Line 21:

===Works Cited===

* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first= Marilyn V. |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Bailey |first=Jennifer |date=1979 |title= Norman Mailer: Quick-Change Artist |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Marilyn V. |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Leeds |first=Barry H. |date=2002 |title=The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer |location=Bainbridge Island, WA |publisher=Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press | pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite journal |last= Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |title=Aquarius ON Gemini - I |url= |journal=New York Times |volume=27 |issue= |date=16 July 1973 |type=Print |ref=harv }}

Line 26:

Line 28:

* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title= Mailer |location=New York |publisher= Simon & Schuster |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Merrill |first=Robert |date=1992 |title=Norman Mailer Revisited |location=New York |publisher= Twayne Publishers |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book|last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |page= |type=Print |ref=harv }}

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
-IN A LENGTHY, SINGLE-SPACED, TWO-AND-A-HALF-PAGE TYPEWRITTEN CRITIQUE of the Actor's Studio production of ''Strawhead,'' Norman Mailer's fifth wife, Carol, tasks him with the above observation about this third appropriation of Marilyn Monroe as a focus for his creative endeavors. It is a salient question, something mentioned not only by someone who knew him intimately, but also by critics of the relevant works, ''Marilyn, Of Women and Their Elegance,'' and ''Strawhead''. Mailer's biographers have also noted how beguiled he was with the topic. Robert Merrill calls it "a continuing obsession".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=9}} Barry Leeds introduces his book-length study, ''The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer,'' with a chapter on Mailer and Marilyn, observing in his first sentence that for decades Mailer had been "fascinated with the life and death of Marilyn Monroe",{{sfn|Leeds|2002|p=20}} introducing the similarities between them, and concluding that they were both prisoners of sex. The issue calls for further exploration of both its enduring allure for Mailer and the unsavory aspects of his handling of his Marilyn mania.
+{{cquote|What is it about Marilyn Monroe that obsesses you so?|author=Mimi Reisel Gladstein}}
+{{dc|dc=I|N A LENGTHY, SINGLE-SPACED, TWO-AND-A-HALF-PAGE TYPEWRITTEN CRITIQUE}} of the Actor's Studio production of ''Strawhead,'' Norman Mailer's fifth wife, Carol, tasks him with the above observation about this third appropriation of Marilyn Monroe as a focus for his creative endeavors. It is a salient question, something mentioned not only by someone who knew him intimately, but also by critics of the relevant works, ''Marilyn, Of Women and Their Elegance,'' and ''Strawhead''. Mailer's biographers have also noted how beguiled he was with the topic. Robert Merrill calls it "a continuing obsession".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=9}} Barry Leeds introduces his book-length study, ''The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer,'' with a chapter on Mailer and Marilyn, observing in his first sentence that for decades Mailer had been "fascinated with the life and death of Marilyn Monroe",{{sfn|Leeds|2002|p=20}} introducing the similarities between them, and concluding that they were both prisoners of sex. The issue calls for further exploration of both its enduring allure for Mailer and the unsavory aspects of his handling of his Marilyn mania.
 It is hard to know exactly when this "obsession" began. Mailer claimed on a number of occasions that he had never met Marilyn Monroe. Not so, according to Shelley Winters, quoted in the "Hollywood Politics" chapter of Peter Manso's biography. She contradicts Mailer's claim that he never met Monroe. According to Winters, they met at a rally for Henry Wallace in {{pg|264:THE MAILER REVIEW VOL. 5, NO. 1, FALL 2011. Copyright 2011. The Norman Mailer Society. Published by The Norman Mailer Society.|265 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}} Hollywood in 1948.{{sfn|Manso|1985|p=131}} Both may be right according to their memories. It is possible that in 1948, the woman who would become Marilyn Monroe was still Norma Jeane and displayed little of that incandescent ability to exude sexuality as she projected herself to camera and fans.{{efn|Guiles spells it "Jeane" in ''Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe,'' as does Leaming in ''Marilyn.'' Mailer spells it "Jean".}} The as-yet-unknown Norma Jeane may not have made enough of an impression on Mailer for him to remember it. Years later, once he began writing about her, the official story from him and a number of his biographers is that the only place they ever met was in his imagination.{{efn| This holds true for the make-believe trial he created to forestall the criticism of his second Monroe book. '''When his is''' asked in an imaginary court scene, Mailer answers the Prosecutor's question about whether he had ever met MM, by saying, "No, but I sat behind her once at '''(the)''' Actor's Studio" ("Before" 33).}} Regardless of whether or not they met briefly in the forties or never met, once Mailer had fastened onto Monroe as a topic for his literary delectation, he had a hard time letting go. In addition, his fervor sometimes led to "piling on" and on occasion "late hits" or "low blows," to use football and boxing metaphors for Mailer's literary excesses.
@@ Line 12: / Line 13: @@
 Returning to the subject of the many uses Mailer made of Monroe, ''Marilyn,'' as I argued in an earlier study, is, among other things, an exercise in creating a masturbatory fantasy about a woman who got away ("Norman"). It is also the initial volley in Mailer's campaign to possess his subject inside and out, first in his voice as a biographer and then assuming her voice as memoiorist. From the onset of the first project, Mailer expresses his frustration with the time limitations imposed on hhis fantasy fulfillment. In "An Acknowledgment," Mailer proclaims his discontent with having to meet a publication deadline. {{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=257}} This he was able to remedy in the future by creating his own projects, whereby he will be "master of his own domain." Because of the time checks in this case, he protests that he cannot write a proper biography, which he claims would take at least two years just to amass the materials needed for a suitable job. Therefore, he complains,{{pg|267|268 THE MAILER REVIEW}} rather than the biography he desired to write, he has written a "novel biography." Since he can't do his own original research, he enumerates the other writers whose works he draws on, as well as Norman Rosten's manuscript for the as-yet-unpublished biography, ''Marilyn--An Untold Story.'' In addition, he cites what he calls "interviews in modest depth." {{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=259}} In this case, the Mailer braggadocio, his advertisments of himself, may have been uncharacteristically muted. In ''Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe,'' Fred Lawrence Guiles, whose first biography ''Norma Jean'' is one of two cited by Mailer as the main sources for the facts in his book, returns the compliment, when he credits Mailer's "modest" interview with producing the "most thorough account" of the relationship between Norma Jeane (not yet Marilyn) and André de Dienes, a Hungarian born fashion photographer. A number of the fresh-faced, jeans-clad photographs by Dienes are in the book.
-''Marilyn'' was also to serve Mailer as a vita-enhancing publication. Robert Merrill argues for "serious reconsideration" of ''Marilyn'' as he contends that its excellences as a biography have been overlooked {{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=142}} and, though on of Mailer's "minor" works, it still contributes to the overall "imposing output of serious and original works".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=212}} Carl Rollyson considers it a "significant achievement in American letters with which biographers must reckon".{{sfn|Rollyson||p=261}} Jennifer Bailey reads it as an "unmistakable achievement".{{sfn|Bailey||p=140}} And, indeed, when one gets beyond the leeringly salacious element, there is much to admire about the book, both as biography and as a novel. A charming element about it is Mailer's tone, which is wonderfully self-deflating in places. One such instance is when he acknowledges his peevishness about not being invited to meet Marilyn as he was sure that "no one was so well suited to bring out the best in her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} Then, in the next line, he concedes that some failed marriages later, he is better equipped to understand that what he was probably responding to at the time was the same thing that some fifty million other men felt as a result of what he calls "the foundation of her art," which was an ability to "speak to each man as if he were all of male existence available to her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} He admits that not only would he probably have failed her, but that she might well have "damaged" him. In another instance of uncharacteristically revealing candor, he admits, in a discussion of Monroe's purported lack of self-assurance about sex, that "we all reveal our innocence about sex in a candid remark".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=75}} This from the writer who had, on occasion, postitioned himself as a "expert." To a certain extent the tension between the macho writer taking lusty virtual possession of his sub-{{pg|268|269 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}}ject and the self-revelatory hesitations he expresses creates a correspondence between him and Monroe as they both projected a blatant forward sexuality that overlays an undercurrent of vulnerability.
+''Marilyn'' was also to serve Mailer as a vita-enhancing publication. Robert Merrill argues for "serious reconsideration" of ''Marilyn'' as he contends that its excellences as a biography have been overlooked {{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=142}} and, though on of Mailer's "minor" works, it still contributes to the overall "imposing output of serious and original works".{{sfn|Merrill|1992|p=212}} Carl Rollyson considers it a "significant achievement in American letters with which biographers must reckon".{{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=261}} Jennifer Bailey reads it as an "unmistakable achievement".{{sfn|Bailey|1979|p=140}} And, indeed, when one gets beyond the leeringly salacious element, there is much to admire about the book, both as biography and as a novel. A charming element about it is Mailer's tone, which is wonderfully self-deflating in places. One such instance is when he acknowledges his peevishness about not being invited to meet Marilyn as he was sure that "no one was so well suited to bring out the best in her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} Then, in the next line, he concedes that some failed marriages later, he is better equipped to understand that what he was probably responding to at the time was the same thing that some fifty million other men felt as a result of what he calls "the foundation of her art," which was an ability to "speak to each man as if he were all of male existence available to her".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=20}} He admits that not only would he probably have failed her, but that she might well have "damaged" him. In another instance of uncharacteristically revealing candor, he admits, in a discussion of Monroe's purported lack of self-assurance about sex, that "we all reveal our innocence about sex in a candid remark".{{sfn|Mailer|1973|p=75}} This from the writer who had, on occasion, postitioned himself as a "expert." To a certain extent the tension between the macho writer taking lusty virtual possession of his sub-{{pg|268|269 MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN}}ject and the self-revelatory hesitations he expresses creates a correspondence between him and Monroe as they both projected a blatant forward sexuality that overlays an undercurrent of vulnerability.
 === Notes ===
@@ Line 20: / Line 21: @@
 ===Works Cited===
 {{Refbegin}}
-* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first= Marilyn V. |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |last=Bailey |first=Jennifer |date=1979 |title= Norman Mailer: Quick-Change Artist |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Marilyn V. |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |last=Leeds |first=Barry H. |date=2002 |title=The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer |location=Bainbridge Island, WA |publisher=Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press | pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite journal |last= Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |title=Aquarius ON Gemini - I |url= |journal=New York Times |volume=27 |issue= |date=16 July 1973 |type=Print |ref=harv }}
@@ Line 26: / Line 28: @@
 * {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title= Mailer |location=New York |publisher= Simon & Schuster |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |last=Merrill |first=Robert |date=1992 |title=Norman Mailer Revisited |location=New York |publisher= Twayne Publishers |pages= |type=Print |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book|last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |page= |type=Print |ref=harv }}