Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B0046XYBUW | Format: EPUB
Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters Description
Marilyn Monroe's image is so universal that we can't help but believe that we know all there is to know of her. Every word and gesture made headlines and garnered controversy. Her serious gifts as an actor were sometimes eclipsed by her notoriety - and the way the camera fell helplessly in love with her.
But what of the other Marilyn? Beyond the headlines - and the too-familiar stories of heartbreak and desolation - was a woman far more curious, searching, and hopeful than the one the world got to know. Even as Hollywood studios tried to mold and suppress her, Marilyn never lost her insight, her passion, and her humor. To confront the mounting difficulties of her life, she wrote.
Now, for the first time, we can meet this private Marilyn and get to know her in a way we never have before. Fragments is an unprecedented collection of artifacts - notes to herself, letters, even poems.These bits of text - jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel letterhead - reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect her craft. They show a Marilyn Monroe unsparing in her analysis of her own life, but also playful, funny, and impossibly charming. The easy grace and deceptive lightness that made her performances so memorable emerge here, as does the simmering tragedy that made her last appearances so heartbreaking.
The audio includes a bonus pdf with examples of Marilyn's handwritten artifacts which can be viewed when used with a computer.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 1 hour and 44 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Abridged
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: October 12, 2010
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0046XYBUW
Was there a film star as famous as Marilyn Monroe? A star that became even more famous in death then in life. In the end all we know of her is what other people have written, or the photographs that were taken of her. All of it, the writing, the images, it has all been staged to make us think whatever it is the crafter wished us to respond to. All of it until NOW.
With this book Fragments, we have for the first time what Marilyn thought, what she wrote, and how she was. We see her gifts as a person and her craft, not the image, not the notoriety. In the 1950's she came to New York and grew very close to Lee Strasberg, who was the head of the Actor's Studio. Strasberg who we all know as the Meyer Lansky type figure in the second Godfather movie was very enamored of Marilyn as we all were.
The funniest line in the book is when Strasberg who is a stickler for being on time complains to her about being timely for meetings. She says she simply cannot be on time. Strasberg's response was, "Then be early."
When she died in the summer of 1962, she left her belongings to Strasberg who was married to a much younger woman Anna. Years later, Anna went through the boxes that Marilyn had entrusted to Strasberg. Mrs. Strasberg came across a collection of writings on random pieces of paper such as hotel stationery, envelopes, and a series of different notebooks never completed. The writings also included poems, some finished, some unfinished.
Much of the material was written in a disjointed fashion, with scribing and cross outs, sentences started here, and finished somewhere else. Marilyn had her own way of doing things.
I'll start my review by making some personal comments first; I don't usually review books, but since this is about Marilyn Monroe and since I am also a fan of hers, I'll make an exception in this case.
One of the main reasons in purchasing `Fragments' was to read her poetry, sadly, there's not that much in my view, (Very Disappointing) and as a poet myself I would have liked more, (perhaps her complete collection-as yet as I understand it, there is no book that has her complete poetry, 'My Sex is Ice Cream:The Marilyn Monroe Poems' by Nellie McClung, comes to mind, but as I don't know if this has all of Marilyn's poetry, I can't really comment, but if there is a book out there, please let me know) searching the Internet you can found some of Marilyn's poetry which isn't in this book; although I did recognise two of Marilyn's poems within 'Fragments', but overall the book only offered (extended) glimpses. If Marilyn had lived, I think she would have produced a book of poetry, with great success, in my mind.
As for the rest of `Fragments', I am in two minds, at first I was very excited about reading Marilyn's thoughts, as this would give me an insight into her world so I could understand her and not just as an actress, but as a person.
Marilyn was a woman of deep reflection, not just about herself, her doubts, her being and her reason for living, but about her world around her and the people she came into contact with, `Fragments' shows Marilyn's intellect (a dumb blonde she is not); she tried so hard to comprehend her world, to prove to others, she was more than the 1950s icon, which we now associate.
No one really gave her a chance to prove her worth in Hollywood, so Marilyn rebelled to only way she could.
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