Marilyn & Ulysses

(...) That such a sexual icon could have an intellect? In the comments at earmarks we're also pointed to an interview with Richard Brown on Marilyn reading Joyce: "I wrote to Eve [Arnold] wondering really how posed this photograph was, whether Marilyn herself was a serious reader of Ulysses, whether she had time to read Ulysses, what kind of reading of Ulysses she made. Eve responded very interestingly that it wasn't by any means just a prop that was put there for the photograph. It was a copy of a book that Marilyn had borrowed from a friend and was in the process of reading. But she didn't read it sequentially, beginning at the beginning and going through to the end. She read it in episodes. She dipped into places from time to time where fancy took her to different moments in the book. It occurred to me, thinking about that, that is the way we should all read Ulysses. That is certainly something I tell my students when we begin to read Ulysses in class..."(Fonte)

Photo: Eve Arnold, Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses, Long Island, New York, 1954.