Holy moly

Oh what a larger than life woman! While the first half of her life was what I might have expected, it ultimately became bizarre. Definitely an unconventional life. It’s hard to say at what point she lost touch with reality, but she lived in her own world. Exceptionally well written by her daughter, and Marlene’s brilliance was revealed, as well as her foibles. Well narrated, especially as the voice changed between mother (Marlene) and daughter. A very long listen, but kept my attention.

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1 person found this helpful

INCREDIBLE!

A finely crafted biography on Marlene Dietrich! Very engrossing and immersive. Maria Riva’s words paint a vivid picture sentence after sentence, it’s as if you’ve lived her life.

Will re-listen to it again in the future!

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Offputting Biography

At one point in this book, Maria Riva admits to a confidante that "I do not love my mother." In point of fact, it becomes pretty clear that she *despises* the woman as we read.
It's a genuinely odd feeling to read an in-depth profile of someone and not at least respect them as a human being in the end. I'm usually quite good at picking out the admirable - or at a minimum forgivable - features in an individual's persona. To be certain, the daughter does an adequate job presenting the complete woman - elaborating on positive features like an incredible sense of humor, fierce devotion to those things important to her (like her daughter), and a very human desire to be loved, for example - but I was left with a distasteful impression of the "golden-age-of-hollywood" silver screen legend. Riva's matter-of-fact description of Depression-era entitled Hollywood elitism & hedonism is accompanied by an ugly impression of her mother. This book paints a nasty picture.
Riva flat-out calls her mother a racist, an image-obsessed narcissist, and a self-serving bisexual slut. The book turns out to be a depiction of a cartoonishly insecure diva - and despite what I consider a boundless capacity for empathy in myself, I found myself buying in to Riva's portrayal. The author uses personal experience, excerpts from written letters, and voluminous personal entries - her mother was a compulsive diarist - to convince readers that Marlene Dietrich was a nasty drama queen of a woman.

As to presentation: Reader Christa Lewis turns in a distinctly "adequate" performance, too. Her diction, timbre, cadence, and tone are all commendable, but her German & French accents are overdone and a number of pronunciations made me personally cringe (e.g. I know it's actually pretty common to read the word as 'DUN-kee', but it gives me the creeps to hear donkey pronounced like that). The narration is decent but Tantor Audio Inc. could have gotten equally effective results with any professional narrator in their stable.

Altogether, 'Marlene Dietrich: The Life' is a serviceable - if biased - biography. It's much longer than it needs to be but loaded with information for anyone interested in an all-encompassing exposé about an "I'm Ready For My Close-up" movie star. As a 'Plus' selection, I didn’t think the 6/10-star offering was a waste of time.. but save your Credit for something else if they ask for one.

ATTN HYPOTHETICAL EDITOR: The *hours* of discussions of fashion choices, photographic manipulations, and costume design could easily be cut from this narrative. This 33-hour audiobook could be delivered in 12.

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