Book Review: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
“kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond bracelet lasts forever!”
Most people will think of Marilyn Monroe in the pink strapless dress singing ‘diamonds are a girls best friend’ when they hear ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’. The film and that scene are iconic. But we’re not here to discuss the cultural impact of Marilyn Monroe, we’re here to discuss the book of the same name. The book is written as a diary told from the view point of Lorelei Lee, a New York socialite and gold digger from Little Rock, Arkansas. Her diary exclusively describes her exploits and her escapades with wealthy gentlemen. She’s a mystery, a delight, a tease- there’s no one like her in literary fiction, not even the enigmatic Holly Golightly.
You’ve gotta admit this young girl knows how to circumnavigate the globe and the wealthy. She comes across as this ditsy dumb blonde. Except she’s anything but! She is followed around New York and Europe by Dorothy, a smart talking sassy lady, who is described as unrefined and lacking in etiquette. But bless Lorelei, Dorothy is the one who is so much smarter. True, Dorothy may not be a ‘lady’, but she sure as hell ain’t dumb. She’s a little rough round the edges, but as opposed to Lorelei, she doesn’t need a rich husband to be happy. As Lorelei notes, Dorothy went all over Europe and only had a gold bracelet to show for it. Lorelei had a little bit more than a gold bracelet.
Our ditsy lady-in-training Lorelei, is a girl who is out to get an education, she’s out to read more, travel more and charm more men than I’ve had hot dinners. Even when she meets actual ‘Lady’s’ in London, she out wits them all, notably Lady Beekman. Lady Beekman is furious, her husband has been seen whipping around corners with our Lorelei because she’s young, pretty and a little too free in offering up complimentary sweet nothings. Lorelei gets Sir Beekman to send her £10 worth of orchids everyday (£500 in todays money) and buys her a diamond tiara worth £7000 (£300,000) so you can imagine that Lady Beekman is none too impressed. Especially as she says that the only gift her husband ever gave her was a wedding ring. Ouch. So what does Lady Beekman do? She calls her lawyers in Paris and sends them after Lorelei and Dorothy. Their mission? Steal back the diamond tiara! Unfortunately for Dorothy and Lorelei, they don’t like the French, or at least- the French language. They describe it as a lot of squealing which both girls find rather irritating. Fortunately for them, however, the French lawyers are absolutely charmed by the girls and take them all over Paris and even shopping- all paid for by Lady Beekman, of course. Wherever the girls go, they never fail to worm men around their little fingers, its quite easy to see how they do it! It's a mixture of attentiveness, flattery and appealing to what the men like most. Lorelei always tries to take the moral high ground and be more genteel: a good girl. And the men fall for it hook line and sinker even if they already have wives!
The clever thing is how Lorelei is able to turn the tables time and time again. Take for example her ultimate fiancé Henry Spoffard, a Presbyterian of strict high morals who whiles away his time censoring films and photographs he deems indecent. Lorelei doesn’t know if she want to marry him in the end as she finds his company very very tiresome- even though he’s filthy rich. So she and Dorothy devices a plan that Dorothy should say a lot of horrible things about her, but things that wouldn’t affect her character. For instance Dorothy would say that bad things would happen to the men Lorelei were engaged to do, like death or the stock market would fall etc. However, when it comes to fruition that Lorelei would like to marry him, purely for the money, she turns to Henry and argues that Henry failed in their scheme to see if Henry really truly loved her. Therefore it’s all his fault. Not hers, because as it turns out, he doesn’t love her. You have to admire Lorelei’s resourcefulness and quick thinking in bagging herself a wealthy husband because a few white lies and crocodile tears later Henry is putty in her hands. I guess playing the victim all your life really works to your advantage if you know how to wield that sword (double entendre intended). Not that I’m victim blaming or shaming here, Lorelei managed to get out of a conviction for shooting a man back in Arkansas, by playing the victim and making the jury see that she’s just a nice sweet girl who things just happen to. The reader never quite truly knows if it was intentional or not because the book is told from Lorelei’s view perspective and obviously the narrator controls the plot and how we perceive their little world. There is also a question as to whether Lorelei really is a nice little girl from Little Rock, Arkansas. I mean take a look at the way she treats her mother in law! She privately makes fun of her, allows her to look bad by getting a bob cut and lies straight to her face. Nothing ever really goes wrong for Lorelei, even when she is exposed for who she really is by Miss Chapman who did some pretty accurate digging on her. In the end it’s the faithful Miss Chapman who gets the boot. But never mind, in the words of Lorelei Lee, everything always turns out for the best.