Blonde: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Now, what exactly is wrong with some of the reviewers posting borderline incoherent, babbling rants oozing weird hostility and hatred towards Joyce Carol Oates? Personally, I found the novel nothing short of a masterpiece, but even if I hadn't liked it, I can't begin to understand what motivates those rabid, personal attacks...Do these people suffer from some odd psychological, or merely digestive, ailment? Do these reviewers need to get on harsh medication? Excuse the pun, but it is interesting to note how, along JCO's long and distinguished career, she has always attracted these occasional sort of crackpot bully hatred. Why? All those spitful cries suggest angry, sad people foaming in the mouth as they punch the keyboards of their computers. Obviously something in her persona or her work moves them deeply to express those byproducts of bitterness. One would be tempted to suspect maybe JCO is a distant cousin of the Clintons, for this hatred reeks of political intolerance rather than literary taste. Maybe I'm wrong, but the vibe on those comments is downright fascistoid. Why do they keep reading her, I wonder? Or do they, really? Most of those rants sound formulaical, like some sort of mantra that has little to do with the book. So much bigotry, narrow mindedness, envy and bile... Sometimes it seems many of these characters would like to burn JCO in a witchhunt fashion, or Fedex her to Chaltron Heston for a purification of the land. Creepy. Those reviews say more about their writers than about the book itself.

Rating:
Summary: Sheer, pretentious exploitation of Marilyn
Review: Marilyn Monroe doesn't deserve this kind of abuse, all kinds of Oatesian fantasies heaped on her recklessly. Those who are calling this the best novel about the great Marilyn haven't read anything about the movie star; and clearly they know as much about Hollywood as Oates does(not). As to Oates' being a "great writer," much of what she writes here is just messy. There are sentences that are downright impossible to untangle, and I'm not talking about "experimental writing." I'm just talking about good writing. The only humor in this novel is accidental, when Oates, in her rush to finish and go on to her next five books, jumbles up sentences clumsily. The worst part of the book, though, is her pretending to tell some of it in the voice of Norma Jeane, and giving her projected self-hatreds and hangups. The only hope is that this book will put an end to the pillaging that is going on now of Marilyn Monroe's life. Enough is enough, and J.C. Oates has already gone too far. A great book? A trashy book, clumsily written, and entirely pretentious in its exploitations.

Rating:
Summary: nothing to say
Review: joyce carol oates never has anything to say --she dreams up these shallow things and then writes ABOUT THEM like theres no tomorrow --- great writers GOOD WRITERS write abOut things they have lived or imAGINED AND WE GET THIS VICARIOUS THRILL-I.E.LIKE BOOKS BY HENRY MILLER JOYCE VONNEGUT HESSE HAMSUN D H LAWRENCE BUKOWSKI GREAT BOOKS LIKE IN COLD BLOOD --- MS OATES SEEMS TO WRITE CAUSE SHE IS WHAT AFRAID OF LIFE -- LOVES TO HEAR THE SOUND OF HER OWN DUMB VOICE --SHE NEVER STOPS WRITING-- THIS ISNT TALENT ITS JUST THE OBSESSION OF A PEDANT WHO WONT SHUT UP __ IGNORE HER~~ MAYBE SHE AND HER PROMOTORS WILL GO AWAY ~ THO I DOUBT IT--HOW MANY BOOKS HAS SHE WRITTEN ANYWAY HUNDREDS RIGHT ? WAY TOO MANY I TELL YOU -- STOP THIS WOMAN ---ITS EMBARASSING ALREADY ~~

Rating:
Summary: Oates's masterpiece
Review: Oates has written some great novels in the past, but in ambition and skill of execution this tops them all. I'm puzzled by reviewers who have some kind of personal attachment to the historical Marilyn Monroe and do not understand that A NOVELIST, as opposed to a biographer, has unlimited freedom to reinvent and mythologize a cultural icon in the service of an artistic statement about our culture and our century. This Oates has done brilliantly in BLONDE. And not least of its achievements is that (unlike some of her more experimental works), this is a gripping, compelling "great read." Don't deny yourself the pleasure of this enthralling masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: One of Her Greatest Novels Ever
Review: Joyce Carol Oates is a literary master who -- so we think -- has done it all, but BLONDE confirms that her imagination remains as inquisitive, as gazing, as sympathetic, as original as it was when she began pubishing fiction nearly 40 years ago. BLONDE is a masterpiece, quite simply, a piece of writing that reminds us of all the unique artistic possibilities of the novel in these cyber, novel-unfriendly times. BLONDE is literature upon publication; Oates will outlast -- HAS ALREADY OUTLASTED! -- her contemporaries.

Rating:
Summary: The first great novel of the century?
Review: A thrilling, exhausting, dizzying reading experience, BLONDE should not be missed. Ignore all the reviews that worry over its factual details as if it were a biography and not a work of the imagination. Oates, of course, has the richest, most detailed, most terrifyingly thorough imagination around and it's likely that we won't need another novel about Hollywood for a lot of years. BLONDE is certainly shocking, but only because its ugliness seems so truthful. It's also a lot of fun to read, creating, at times, a buzz in your head, a kind of high. It messes with you, this book. There's a line at the end of Russel Banks equally great novel, "Continental Drift", that seems to apply to what Oates has accomplished here: "Go, my book and help destroy the world as it is."

Rating:
Summary: Shameless, boring, exploitive novel
Review: It seems that everyday there's someone trying to edge in on the great movie star's fame. This time it's Joyce Carol Oates with possibly the trashiest, most vulgar novel of the millenium. It's largely told from the POV of Norma Jeane, who became Marilyn Monroe. Oates imagines ugly, lurid details based on nothing more than her heated imagination. Anyone familiar with the real, moving story of Marilyn Monroe will recognize immediately that Oates did skimpy research. It's impossible even to give a hint of what Oates attributes to the most private aspects of the great Marilyn Monroe's life--details about odors and sexual indignities (all heaped on her by Oates). The book is pretentious, too, with quotes from real and invented writers, quotes that make no sense at all--and repetition, pages and pages of sloppy writing, sentences that don't end, as if Oates can't wait to go on to her next novel. She even takes swipes at Brando, one of Marilyn's most devoted friends. She imagines him insulting her with unprintable words; Oates even derides him for becoming fat. This is a shameful, shameless book pretending to be literary. Oates should be ashamed of herself for this ugly violation of Marilyn Monroe. This book is dirty, pretentious, badly written, and heartless.

Rating:
Summary: Blonde: A Novel
Review: In BLONDE, this remarkable, epic new novel by Joyce Carol Oates, we come to understand the larger-than-life personality of Marilyn Monroe vis a vis the elusive, nearly invisible person of Norma Jeane Baker. Oates mediates between the dual consciousnesses of Marilyn/Norma Jeane, and renders a mesmerizing hybrid of public celebrity and private martyr. In the especially engrossing early sections of the book, Oates explores the devastating childhood and abandonment that Norma Jeane endured, and conjures old Hollywood in its lurid and fallen glory. Oates also offers new impressions of the men in Marilyn's life that shaped her vision of herself as a woman: Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and--to a lesser degree--JFK all feature in this book in ways that will surprise even Marilyn aficionados. What makes this book so exceptional is that Oates manages to breathe new, believable life into the technicolor figure that all of have come to know as nothing more than a celluloid fantasy. This book is truly exceptional, and is undoubtedly the crowning achievement of Oates's prolific career. I've read every one of her books, and I think her mastery is uniquely evident in BLONDE.

Rating:
Summary: The best writer in America does it again!
Review: Over the years I've come to think of JCO as the best novelist to emerge in America in the second half of the 20th century, and each new book she publishes at that dazzling speed reafirms this impression. BLONDE is perhaps one of her most ambitious and daring novels since the grand gotiques she wrote in the 80's (Bellefleur, etc...) In this big, great and sprawling cathedral of a novel she deconstructs the myth of Norma Jean as a sad american tragedy, a tale of poisoned hearts and lost souls. This book is a multi-headed beast. At times it feels like a gothic ride into the dark underseam of the age of soap opera age, a noir love story and a choral dramatization of America as a collective teenager, a young and troubled land stranded in the mirages of that strange thing we call pop culture. I was engrossed, fascinated, challenged and often dazzled by this novel. JCO pulls no stops to achieve her goals here. She strikes at the reader like a freight train, right between the eyes. In picking up a somehow sisterly soul in Norma Jean (an invisible woman for an invisible writer), she has crowned her garland of novels on the modern american experience with our age's most defining fairy tale: a story of stardom, of mirages, of empty celebrity and profound sadness and despair. Nobody does this better, with more courage and putting herself on the line than JCO. My hat is off, and my bookshelve is proud for the addition and waiting for the next. Do yourself some good and read this wonderful novel.

Rating:
Summary: Yes! I read this book every summer and will continue to...
Review: This is not only a story for those Marilyn Monroe fans, but also for those who just enjoy a good read. Although I haven't always been keen on Joyce Carol Oates' writing, I must admit that this book had me captivated. Oates managed to caputre something so true and pure in this fictional biography of Monroe - her inner being. Oates may have been dead on or completely off in her depiction of Monroe, but that she gives such a clear depiction of who Norma Jean really was (not Marilyn) on the inside even through a third-person narration style - a lost, whimsical girl who just wanted to please and be loved while dealing with a quiet, creeping insanity and depression. The novel moves smoothly through Norma Jean's life. One can easily guess the other characters even though they are never named (her husbands, actresses that she admired, etc...). It makes one want to go rent the movies after reading the other side of the story. It made a true Marilyn addict out of me.