I took Maf the Dog for my beachside reading at Lorne this year. Spruiked as a joyful literary comedy and a work of comic genius, with suitably humorous cover (bright colours, yellow, red and black, photo of a fifties starlet in shorts and heels, cute little dog), it seemed suitable. I had enjoyed Andrew O’Hagan’s bleakly comic account of travelling to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina published in the New York Review of Books some time ago. So I knew he had a way with words, but this sounded quite different. I had some misgivings, a tale told in the first person by a dog did not appeal. I’m not keen on first person narratives by humans let alone canines. Also funny – not usually my thing, but I felt like something less serious, less mentally engaging to read. The reviews were good, I had a generous book voucher to spend, so the book, having been pondered was picked, purchased and packed.
It’s full title is The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe, published by Faber & Faber, 2010.
What a great choice. But not for the reasons outlined. Humorous – well moderately. Light and fluffy, less mentally engaging – certainly not. Around 280 pages of dense, erudite, engaging, historical, philosophical and literary musings. And, despite being reminded constantly, you forget that Maf is a dog! I loved this book and am looking forward to reading it again to properly mine the full complement of gems it contains.
The author’s conceit is to tell the story of Marilyn Monroe’s last few years through the eyes of a little maltese terrier given to her by Frank Sinatra. She calls it Mafia Honey, Maf for short. So starts the riff on Frank’s mafia connections which continues throughout the book. Frank is in fact a major character in the story, reappearing a number of times. Frank – at play (bit part for Sammy Davis Junior) meddling in politics (bit part for Peter Lawford) crossing over into the movie scene (bit part for Natalie Wood). Frank’s final scene toward the end of the book is great. As he rants against the Kennedys for distancing themselves from him once in office, despite his help in getting them there – because of his mafia connections. Not for the last time, the reader wonders if his is a truthful account of Frank’s life as he charms and bullies his way around. He howls in rage protesting the President’s snub when he visits Palm Springs. Frank had built a helipad especially and as he cries; Bing Crosby is a fucking Republican!
But all that comes later. We start with the lineage of the puppy, a bichon maltese. We are forewarned,Nothing is lost on the littlest of dogs who are also prone to digression. Having been bred by connections of the housekeeper of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, we get glimpses of others in the Bloomsbury set like Cyril Connelly, Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf. In the first of a series of unlikely connections, Maf is given the collar of Virginia’s dog before being collected by Natalie Wood’s mother and taken to America.
From the outset the reader is left wondering which bits of the many stories contained within the narrative are true and which are flights of imagination – and whether it matters. This is a central theme throughout. Early on someone says, we are what we imagine we are: reality itself is the supreme fiction. You could google and check all the references but it would distract from this great romp of a read.
The many digressions include asides about famous dogs through history. Real ones like Freud’s chow Jo-Fi and Thomas Mann’s German pointer Bashan. And fictional one’s like Joyce’s shaggy dog in Ulysses, Garryowen and Emma Bovary’s little Italian greyhound Djali.
And one about what different philosophers have had to say about the relationship between humans and dogs, and whether it is so strange to have a dog narrate a book, and have conversations with other dogs throughout. Aristotle thought dogs and humans had much in common while Plutarch envisaged an animal language based around picturing things. Our Maf has firm opinions about the philosophers. He likes Montaigne and thinks Pythagoras is nice but hates Descartes. He is also a big fan of Trotsky (thanks to his breeder) and quotes him liberally; insurrection is an art with its own laws and there’s no place for self- satisfaction at the point of revolution .
Maf observes people talking about films and film-making. Douglas Sirk’s films are all set in a place of menacing contentment. George Cuckor’ had a fine understanding of female self-consiousness, a never-ending insight not only into how women thought,but how they wanted to be thought of. There is a whole chapter on the Actors Studio, the method and its devotees along with a wonderful description of Lee Strasburg whose invocation to success concealed a horrid rage at the idea of failure. There are thoughts about writing and the effort involved in both the doing, and the presentation of how the doing was done. Hemingway is derided as spending his entire life making a hysterical effort to appear effort- free. The language is often poetic. Again on Hemingway, O’Hagan refers to himshaping his grievances into the mannered simplicities of The Old Man And The Sea. There is a great literary party at Alfred Kazin’s which provides a setting for some savage pen portraits of famous people. Maf bites Lillian Hellman. There are thoughts on art. Marilyn, with Maf in tow visits an early Roy Lichtenstein exhibition, where she is told Lightness is the new profundity.
This gives you a small idea of the range of things covered in this delightful book. It is also full of clever aphorisms that you want to highlight to remember and use in conversation. And a whole host of other characters and situations.
But over the whole, sits a vivid and compelling portrait of Marilyn Monroe. The details: Ferragamo shoes,Pucci handbag, yellowish Pucci dresses, Chanel No 5, lipsticks scattered on the tray like gold bullets – Autumn Smoke, Cherries a la Mode, Day Dew. The people she met, acquaintances rather than friends: Carson McCullers, Roddy McDowell, Ella Fitzgerald, Lillian Gish, Shelley Winters, Natalie Wood. Imagined conversations beautifully realised. None better than one with with the newly elected President; addressing each other’s doubts, his sexual and hers intellectual.
Dr Kris, Marilyn’s psychiatrist is presented coldly as doing harm, including, worst of all, admission to the Payne Whitney clinic. Another digression takes in Freud and his contemporaries. Marilyn’s analysis raises memories of her old school friend, Alice Tuttle,who died too young. And leads to consideration of the influence of Marilyn’s parents, especially her father. We are left unsure whether the father is dead or alive.
We get glimpses of lots of different Marilyns. Public Marilyn, a trophy presence at Frank’s nightclub table, impressing his mafia mates, smiling as she steps out of the limousine, flying across America to sing Happy Birthday to a President (Maf didn’t go). This Marilyn going through the motions with a sense of third personhood. Working Marilyn, craving acceptance as a serious actor, seeking out serious roles, attending the Actors Studio, carting around The Brothers Karamazov, behaving badly on George Cuckor’s set. Private Marilyn seeking escape from scrutiny through inadequate disguises – scarves, sunglasses, wigs, taking long solo walks around New York and LA, flying down to Mexico to divorce Arthur, buying things to set up house, things that stay in their boxes. Lonely Marilyn traipsing off to bed with a bottle of champagne and Frank crooning from the turntable. All beautifully observed, sympathetically presented.
She spent her life looking for someone with the imagination to love her we are told. I suspect Andrew O’Hagan thinks he might have been that very person!
I thoroughly recommend this imagining of a life that crosses over from fact to fiction, drawing you into her story, making you want to revisit her films, and leaving you pondering what the real Marilyn was like.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Leave a Reply