The Broken Mirror of Fac-tion

For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold,
as twere, the mirror up to nature,
to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image,
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 2

The Mirror of Fic-tion

He had written a play that won him the Pulitizer Prize in Fiction.

Yet, the broken mirror of reality, bedeviled him and beguiled him.

She had become one of the most famous actresses of the age.

Yet, the broken mirror of reality, bedeviled her and beguiled her.

Make-believe and Playing are simpler than Reality.  And they can serve as a safe haven for the Four Temperaments.

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson 
Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away

“She was a whirling light to me then, all paradox and enticing mystery, street-tough one moment, then lifted by a lyrical and poetic sensitivity that few retain past early adolescence.” — Arthur Miller. 

marilyn_monroe_husbands

I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one’s self. — Arthur Miller

Miller

Arthur Asher Miller, Counselor Idealist, (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (one-act, 1955; revised two-act, 1956), as well as the film The Misfits (1961).

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe. In 2002 he received the Prince of Asturias Award and in 2003 the Jerusalem Prize. [Wikipedia, revised]

Idealists who attempt to make their loved ones live up to their ideals are sooner or later faced with disillusionment in their relationships.  Although many Idealists are reluctant to admit it, such romantic projection — and such disillusionment — are most often a problem in cases where there is a strong sexual attraction. [Please Understand Me II]

“Most marriages, after all, are conspiracies to deny the dark and confirm the light.”  — Arthur Miller

‘The Deepest Paradoxes’

”I was interested, as a student at the University of Michigan, in the way the Bible tells stories,” he says. ”What we take away from the Bible may seem like characters – Abraham and Isaac, Bathsheba and David – but really, they’re psychic situations. That kind of storytelling was always fantastic to me. And it’s the same thing with the Greeks. Look at Oedipus – we don’t know much about him, apart from his situation, but his story bears in itself the deepest paradoxes in the most adept shorthand.”

Miller wrote in his diary that he was “disappointed” with the world’s most adored sex symbol and sometimes felt embarrassed by her in front of his friends.

Monroe discovered his diary and read it while they were in England. She recorded her anguish in a poem in which she appeared to call the playwright a “peaceful monster” after finding the entry during their 1956 summer stay in England.

marilyn reading 2

“Did you ever begin Ulysses? Did you ever finish it? Marilyn Monroe did both. She took great pains to be photographed reading or holding a book — insistence born not out of vain affectation but of a genuine love of literature. Her personal library contained four hundred books, including classics like Dostoyevsky and Milton, and modern staples like Hemingway and Kerouac. While she wasn’t shooting, she was taking literature and history night classes at UCLA.”

Life –
I am of both of your directions
Life
Somehow remaining hanging downward
the most
but strong as a cobweb in the
wind — I exist more with the cold glistening frost.
But my beaded rays have the colors I’ve
seen in a paintings — ah life they
have cheated you
— Marilyn Monroe’s Private Notes

She had been in foster care most of her childhood.  She wasn’t wanted, her mother was too unreliable to take care of her. She never finished high school.  She, Norma Jean Baker, was convinced to marry young for that way her guardians could go to Florida without her.

“Do I look happy? I should — for I was a child nobody wanted. A lonely girl with a dream — who awakened to find that dream come true. I am Marilyn Monroe. Read my Cinderella story.”

As her first husband, James Dougherty, a Guardian, went overseas as a Merchant Marine in World War II, Norma Jeane Baker, worked in a factory.

Guardians can have a lot of fun with their friends, but they are quite serious about their duties and responsibilities. Guardians take pride in being dependable and trustworthy; if there’s a job to be done, they can be counted on to put their shoulder to the wheel. Guardians also believe in law and order, and sometimes worry that respect for authority, even a fundamental sense of right and wrong, is being lost. Perhaps this is why Guardians honor customs and traditions so strongly — they are familiar patterns that help bring stability to our modern, fast-paced world. [Please Understand Me II]

Norma Jean was soon discovered by a photographer, where she became a model, then got small parts in the movies. With her stage name in place, the Performer Artisan, Marilyn (Norma Jeane) finally hit it big with singing “Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend” in the comedy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

James: “Norma Jeane was always a butterfly. She was beautiful all of her life, within and without. During our courtship and marriage, I never stopped loving to be with her, to stare at her, to laugh with and love her. We had a wonderful, joyful marriage. But in the end, it was not enough for Norma Jeane. Like all beautiful butterflies, she had to fly away.”

“My marriage didn’t make me sad, but it didn’t make me happy either. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn’t because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom.” — Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker)

Lee Strasberg commented, “I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of actors and actresses, and there are only two that stand out way above the rest. Number one is Marlon Brando, and the second is Marilyn Monroe.”

JoeDimaggio

Joseph Paul “Joe” DiMaggio, Crafter Artisan, (/dɨˈmɑːʒioʊ/ or /dɨˈmædʒioʊ/; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, nicknamed “Joltin’ Joe” and “The Yankee Clipper”, was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 16, 1941), a record that still stands. [Wikipedia, revised]

Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, both Artisans had a conflict in careers.  Joe, a man’s man, from a hard working traditional Italian culture, where a woman was a traditional homemaker, couldn’t reconcile Marilyn ambition of being an actress.  Their marriage lasted only little over a year.

According to her autobiography, Marilyn Monroe originally did not want to meet DiMaggio, fearing that he was a stereotypical arrogant athlete. They eloped at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954.

“But all was not rosy. Joe was then 39, and Marilyn, 27, and there was a growing disharmony in their temperaments. Joe had been through his baseball career and he was tired of publicity, while Marilyn was thriving on it. Joe was intolerant of tardiness, while Marilyn was always late. In a much repeated story, Marilyn appeared before some 10,000 troops in Korean to entertain and later exclaimed to Joe: ‘You never heard such cheering!’ and Joe replied, ‘Yes, I have.'”

DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer asserts that their marriage was filled with “violence”. One typical forceful incident occurred immediately after the skirt-blowing scene in The Seven Year Itch which was filmed on September 14, 1954, in front of Manhattan’s Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater. Then-20th Century Fox’s East Coast correspondent Bill Kobrin told the Palm Springs Desert Sun that it was Billy Wilder’s idea to turn the shoot into a media circus. The couple then had a “yelling battle” in the theater lobby. A month later, she filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty 274 days after the wedding.

Artisan-Artisan: Artisans have a considerably better time of it mating with other Artisans. Two SPs [Artisans] live primarily in the same world, the world of external, physical reality, speaking the same language of concrete objects, and they also share each other’s childlike love of fun and excitement. Two SPs [Artisans] have so many interests and activities in common — travel, sports, parties, shows, clothes, and so on — that they can come together as playmates in a way not possible with persons of other temperament. The only problem is that, with both partners living and playing so hard — going so fast in the same direction — they can quickly exhaust each other and lose interest. This pattern of two Artisans lighting up the sky brightly and then burning out and falling apart is a familiar one. [Please Understand Me II]

DiMaggio re-entered Monroe’s life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their “just friends” claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying.

According to Maury Allen’s biography, DiMaggio was alarmed at how Monroe had fallen in with people he felt detrimental to her well-being. Val Monette, owner of a military post-exchange supply company, told Allen that DiMaggio left his employ on August 1, 1962 because he had decided to ask Monroe to remarry him. She was found dead on August 5. DiMaggio’s son had spoken to Monroe on the phone the night of her death and claimed that she seemed fine. Her death was deemed a probable suicide, but has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Devastated, DiMaggio claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood’s elite. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered three times a week to her crypt for 20 years. He refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship. He never married again. [Wikipedia, revised]

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio 
A nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you (Woo, woo, woo) 
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson 
Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away 
(Hey, hey, hey…hey, hey, hey)
Mrs Robinson — Simon and Garfunkel

“Paul Simon … explained that the line was meant as a sincere tribute to DiMaggio’s unpretentious heroic stature, in a time when popular culture magnifies and distorts how we perceive our heroes. He further reflected: “In these days of Presidential transgressions and apologies and prime-time interviews about private sexual matters, we grieve for Joe DiMaggio and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence.”

Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop, Some Like it Hot, Misfits are some of the highlighted movies that Marilyn Monroe starred in.  And course, she helped Playboy’s debut issue become  a success, with her nude photos.

candleinthewind
A Candle in the Wind

monroe_flowers

8 thoughts on “The Broken Mirror of Fac-tion”

  1. Well I’m glad that Dimaggio survived the breakup with Marilyn and had a sentimental streak to him. Miller was kind of a jerk expecting Marilyn to read and understand *Ulysses*. Maybe *On The Road* and *The Sun Also Rises* but definitely not Joyce.

  2. Reblogged this on dariancase and commented:
    A great temperament and character blog about Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio from David Keirsey @ Please Understand Me blog.

    Arthur Miller also said about Marilyn:

    “To have survived she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was. Instead she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

  3. Marilyn read long (and often) before Miller came on the scene, she was basically self educated, some of the 400 books plus in her library were contemporary novels, poetry, classics, philosophy, psychoanalysis and even the Russian masters. Very intelligent, warm, funny, friendly, clever, her self worth and shame, how much people used her, hurt her through life all contributed to her dark escape. Miller’s quote is true; “To have survived she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was. Instead she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.” Great blog Dr Keirsey, this really is painful for me to read as Healer Idealist because I feel the sadness. I had a chance to read the book published containing her poems, notes, parts of diary Marilyn wrote, this was my favorite: On love:
    My love sleeps besides me—
    in the faint light…
    but he will look like this when he is dead
    oh unbearable fact inevitable
    yet sooner would I rather his love die
    than/ or him?

  4. For those interested, 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

    Here are a few other books which weren’t included, but Monroe was reported either to have read or owned them. Most on the list are cited in the Unabridged Marilyn.

    391) The Autobiography Of Lincoln Steffens (read during The Fireball)
    392-403) Carl Sandburg’s 12-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln
    404) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Marilyn gave a copy to Joe after their wedding)
    405) Poems Of W.B. Yeats (Marilyn read his poems aloud at Norman Rosten’s house)
    406) Mr Roberts by Joyce Cary
    407) The Thinking Body by Mabel Elsworth Todd
    408) The Actor Prepares by Konstantin Stanislavsky
    409) The Bible
    410) The Biography Of Eleanora Duse, by William Weaver
    411) De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Study Of Human Bone Structure) by Andreas Vesalius
    412) Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
    413) Gertrude Lawrence As Mrs A, by Richard Aldrich
    414) Goodnight Sweet Prince by Gene Fowler
    415) Greek Mythology by Edith Hamilton
    416) How Stanislavsky Directs by Mikhail Gorchakov (posted earlier by Felicia)
    417) I Married Adventure by Olso Johnson
    418) The Importance Of Living by Lin Yutang
    419) Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (read during All About Eve)
    420) Psychology Of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud
    421) The Rains Came by Louis Broomfield
    422) The Rights Of Man by Thomas Paine (read during some Like It Hot)
    423) Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
    424) To The Actor by Michael Chekhov (Marilyn’s acting teacher from 1950-1955)
    425) Captain Newman, M.D. (Novel based on Dr Ralph Greenson’s as an army doctor in Korea. Marilyn was said to be reading this on the week of her death.A film based on the book was released in 1963.)
    426) Songs For Patricia by Norman Rosten (posted by Paju)
    427) A Lost Lady by Willa Cather (Marilyn hoped to film this with her production company. But an earlier adaptation was so disappointing to the author, that she withdrew the film rights.)
    428) Lust For Life by Irving Stone
    429) The Deer Park by Norman Mailer (Hollywood-based novel. Marilyn commented on the book, ‘He’s too impressed by power, in my opinion.’ Mailer tried unsuccessfully to meet Marilyn, and after her death wrote several books on her.)
    430) The Rebel by Albert Camus
    __________

  5. I don’t think Norma Jean wasn’t as book saavy like everyone thinks she is. Remember, she wanted a picture of herself holding a book. If you look at picture closely, she’s looking at the last page/back cover. She was posing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *