The Women Behind the Myths

The New York Times > Books > Critic's Notebook: "In the 1950's, the living Marilyn Monroe seemed part kewpie doll, part vixen. In the feminist 70's and 80's, the dead Marilyn was seen as a victim of patriarchy, while the postfeminist 90's reinvented her as a not-so-dumb blonde who used her power shrewdly. And the glamorous movie star, who once seemed frozen in place in Andy Warhol's 1960's silkscreens, has since been refrozen as a lost soul by Elton John's icky song 'Candle in the Wind,' with its saccharine opener, 'Goodbye, Norma Jeane.' When a life becomes so encrusted in myths that the person behind them can barely be glimpsed, critics start analyzing the myths.

That approach is put to eye-opening use in Sarah Churchwell's astute new overview of the shifting Monroe images, "The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe" (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, $26) and in Lucasta Miller's dazzling, engaging recent book, "The Brontë Myth," just published in paperback (Anchor Books, $15). As Ms. Miller points out, Charlotte and Emily Brontë were first known as the authors of the scandalous "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights," and their reputations have been sifted over endlessly since.

Studies of a person's cultural images have long been common in academic writing. But these recent books are jargon-free and meant for a mainstream audience, much like Janet Malcolm's "Silent Woman," her influential 1993 study of how Sylvia Plath's legend took hold. "