Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 04, 2023 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-fiction, author-white, a-reviewed, author-woman, 4-star, usa, zchallenge-2023-52bookclub, z-read-gelesen-2023

This book reads itself. Before I knew it, I was at 92%. The novel is at once terrible and marvellous.

Terrible because it centres on an American 'kept' woman (Lorelei) who surrounds herself with men solely for the purpose of pumping them for money to go shopping, and the things she buys are mainly diamond and gold jewellery, and other accessories and fashion items. She is represented as a 'dumb blonde' (maybe this novel is the source for that terrible type?). The book is sprinkled with her spell This book reads itself. Before I knew it, I was at 92%. The novel is at once terrible and marvellous.

Terrible because it centres on an American 'kept' woman (Lorelei) who surrounds herself with men solely for the purpose of pumping them for money to go shopping, and the things she buys are mainly diamond and gold jewellery, and other accessories and fashion items. She is represented as a 'dumb blonde' (maybe this novel is the source for that terrible type?). The book is sprinkled with her spelling errors (but these are not consistent; some complex words are spelled correctly) which got on my nerves. The book is also full of her naîveté; she breezes through life on a shoestring of trivia and consistently misreads men's ulterior motives. Plus she has no clue about political or any kind of wider knowledge (Australia is a part of England; it only takes one hour to get to Paris but two weeks to get to London). She irritatingly revels in 'being educated' by gentlemen and spends most of her time with them listening to them talk.

Marvellous because it is, after all, written by a woman who, unlike her heroine, is plenty astute and sprinkles the novel with knowing hints to us, the readers, about Lorelei's misprisions and oblivion. And by the half-way mark at the latest I had warmed to the style and to the heroine's pluckiness. She has a friendship with one other woman (Dorothy) whom she constantly berates for being too vulgar, and Lorelei's own conviction of being refined (which she is not 100%) is sweet. And Lorelei has her own knowledge and cleverness. In the course of the novel, she outsmarts an international diplomat, a moralising millionaire, a tight-fisted curmudgeonly aristocrat and his vengeful jealous wife, a couple of spying policemen, a cantankerous old father in a wheelchair, a hawk-eyed old mother and even Dr Freud himself in Vienna. Lorelei and Dorothy's escapades on their picaresque amblings through continental Europe are highly amusing to follow, and it is ultimately the 'vulgar' Dorothy who devises the final fiendish plan to hoodwink all the men and ensure financial and career success. And the two friends' irreverent attitudes and determination to have fun is entirely cheering. Lorelei sees right through men whose interminable mansplaining bores her to tears, and here she is on the virtues of family life:

"And I'm beginning to think that family life is only fit for those who can stand it." (loc.1194)

Marvellous also is the lightning-quick prose, the chatty diary-format style, witty asides, informal address and warm-hearted nature of its heroine.

And finally, terrible again because both the marvellous and the terrible listed above are rooted in reality. Like Jane Austen's heroines, these two women know that their survival depends on the wealth and goodwill of men, and their wit and ambition with a view to keeping those men on side is a necessary tactic. This is the economic and social reality that forms the grass roots of both the frivolity of the novel and of the 'roaring twenties'. It is sobering to remember that in 1925 when the novel was first published, women had only had the vote in the United States for just over four years. Only around 20% of women worked for money, and only 5% of those were married. Marriage, money, men, all these were (and are) fraught mines to be manoeuvred by women.

Anita Loos herself did make money with her writing. This novel was phenomenally successful, and she herself adapted it to a stage musical upon which was based the 1953 film with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. And now I want to re-watch that film which was made at the start of a particularly repressive decade for American women.

Read for the #52bookclub reading challenge, prompt: Set in the roaring twenties. I'm glad I did! ...more

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Jan 14, 2011 Elizabeth marked it as to-read

Anita Loos was an interesting lady. She was one of the most powerful female screenwriters of the 1930s and a big haute couture client. This book sold out completely when it was first published in 1925. Apparently, it captured the materialism of the 20s. Has much changed?

Note: I just read one of the other reviewers notes about Loos and I just wanted to say that I don't much about her beyond the two facts above. She may very well be mean-spirited and scary. Will have to investigate further... ...more

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Feb 06, 2015 Megan rated it really liked it

I can see why this would have been a runaway success when it was first published. It's a very charming book, in its own psychotic way. Lorelai's antics could become grating at time--in the middle of the book I was thinking that if it weren't so short and such a quick read, I might have to abandon it entirely--and I think the later parts benefited from giving her friend Dorothy a stronger voice. But you could (almost) see why all the boys would fall for her. ...more

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