(Oh, hi. I'm back. Life has dealt me a tough hand since I started this blog. I'm back nonetheless.)
I'm finishing up Lois Banner's Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox, and I'm of two different minds about it. My predominant opinion is that it does an elegant job at fusing details of Monroe's life together, yielding a really persuasive persona(lity). It leaps off the page for most of the book, whether the reader is peeking at the included photos or not, and no matter how many of Monroe's movies the reader has seen (this reader hasn't seen enough of them, despite her interest in the filmic and historical persona: hello, Netflix).
Some things bothered me, though, and they mostly center on Banner's own representation of the originality of her research. Maybe I'm too bound by some sort of scholarly modesty, but Banner's way of presenting her own innovations really grated on me: she peppers her text with "I have discovered"(s) and, even worse, generalizes about what "other biographers" do and do not show. Even though I can only, grudgingly admit to having read just the Mailer and the Oates interpretations of Monroe's life, I can't imagine that all biographies have done any one thing as a unified group. A little more care in this would have benefited Banner's scholarly credibility - and I know she has it! I just wish she'd written it in a little more gracefully. On the other hand, I might be selling my own work too short.
