"Gentleman Prefer Blondes"

[fiefoe]

Anita Loos is very different from her famously diamond-friendly creation, as immortalized by (who else) Marilyn Monroe:  'I have always considered grown-ups to be figures of fun... and have never been deceived by their hypocrisies. ... A friend,... used to say that my slant on life was that of a child of ten, chortling with excitement over a disaster.'  ''If you were to write such a book today, what would be Your theme?" And without hesitation, I was forced to answer, "Gentlemen Prefer Gentlemen."'

Names dropped in the introduction:

• H. L. Mencken now warned Anita, 'Little girl, you're making fun of sex and that's never been done before in the U.S.A. I suggest you sent it to Harper's Bazaar, where it'll be lost among the ads and won't offend anybody.
• James Joyce, who had begun to lose his eyesight, saved his reading for Lorelei Lee.
  
• Lin Yutang {that scamp} - assured me that Lorelei's prose went quite normally into the vernacular of the Sing Song girls.
  

Without further ado, here's Lorelei Lee:

• I mean I seem to be thinking practically all of the time. I mean it is my favorite recreation and sometimes I sit for hours and do not seem to do anything else but think.
• So now I really almost have to smile because that I have just noticed that I have written clear across two pages onto March 18th, so this will do for today and tomorrow. And it just shows how tempermental I am when I get started.
  
• But I sometimes almost have to smile at my own imagination, because of course I have not got any brother and I have not even thought of the mumps for years. I mean it is no wonder that I can write.
  
• I always seem to want to improve my mind and not waste any time.
  
• I always think a lot of talk is depressing and worries your brains with things you never even think of when you are busy.