But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady

Lorelei Lee #2

by Anita Loos

1928. Loos was an acclaimed American screenwriter, playwright and author. Loos is perhaps best known for her short novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a satirical view of a dumb blonde showgirl from Arkansas out to get a rich husband. It was an overnight bestseller. She wrote a sequel titled But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, which was also successful. These Jazz Age classics are written as the diaries of a flapper who travels to Europe, meets everyone and returns to the United States to marry a millionaire. A fun read.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Humor, American, Novels, Chick Lit, Historical

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

People best know American writer Anita Loos for her novels, especially Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), which she later adapted for film; her many screenplays include The Girl from Missouri (1934).

She authored plays and her blockbuster comic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Loos

Reviews

[Clinton (online intermittently) · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of Dorothy Shaw as written by literary genius Lorelei Lee. Not as good as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes but still charming, and perhaps more ‘riskay’, full of wonderful, dodgy euphemisms such as “learning about Life” & “help a girl from doing wrong” & “help her get from Girlhood into Womanhood.”

source: the Carey Collection

“He asked Dorothy if she had not learned what it meant to be a Christian, since arriving at San Diego? So Dorothy said that, as far as she could gather, it meant everything was O.K. so long as you don't admit you enjoy it.”

And ‘But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes’ also lent itself to making fitting Blackout Poems.



Wikimedia ebook: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...

Excellent Librivox audiobook on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQB2...

[Jean-Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confession: I abandoned Cry, the Beloved Country a third of the way through and picked this up instead. Junk food and trash TV are sometimes all that is needed, especially now that the rains have begun. So Lorelei Lee is now married woman, but she still cannot spell to save her life. In this one she rediscovers the Capital letter as well as the "quotation mark." The book opens with another swing at Washinton, DC, which is always appreciated, and is generally an improvement on the first one. Lorelei's quest for self-improvement continues, but she is also a Wife and a Mother. We can only hope that her "Little Mouse" won't grow up with a cute melancholy. She eavesdrops on the Algonquin Round Table—minus even a hint of Dorothy Parker—and Loos, who lived at the Algonquin and was a Round Table outsider, pretty much skewers them. So Lorelei becomes the Authoress of Dorothy's Life Story, which forms the bulk of the book, and as I've said the resulting novel, set partly in California and not told in diary format, is an improvement on the first one. A slight improvement. And taken as a pair I do think they are structured well.

"And so I gave Henry a subscription to the Book of the Month Club that tells you the book you have to read every month to make your individuality stand out. And it really is remarkable, because it makes 50,000 people read the same book every month."


"And he asked Dorothy if she had not learned what it meant to be a Christian, since arriving at San Diego?

So Dorothy said that, as far as she could gather, it meant everything was O.K. so long as you don't admit you enjoy it."

[Lisajean · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unnecessary sequel that doesn't live up to the charm and humor of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . The book is essentially just a sequence of Dorothy's bon mots related by the clueless Lorelei.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this short sequel less interesting than Blondes as that is the story of Lorelei Lee struggling for survival, despite limited resources beyond those bestowed by nature at birth, and always trying do the best she can for herself as the embodiment of the American Dream. She uses all her assets to make her way in life and become a success -- exposing a long list of hypocrisies, double standards, and false equivalencies along the way. Lorelei will overcome all. Brunettes tells Dorothy's story, and as Lorelei well knows to her chagrin, Dorothy is her opposite and is in a furious race to the bottom, only being attracted to cads, bums, loafers, leeches, parasites, and losers of every stripe and description (as was Anita Loos herself). Bad boys. With a total lack of a sense of human direction, Dorothy will choose the wrong road every time. Everyone knows someone like that, someone who refuses to utilize the sense the Good Lord gave them to be attracted to someone practical, and since that story is on display everywhere, it's less riveting than Lorelei Lee achieving the American Dream. The casting of Monroe and Russell in the movie of Blondes was inspired: it took no imagination to imagine them in every line of dialogue. [3½★]

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is the follow up to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Both are tongue in cheek satire on the expected inter relationship between men and women as portrayed in Hollywood movies. Rich man falls in love with poor, sweet, innocent girl from nowhere.

Except though Loos' women may be innocent, they're not stupid. Men seem to helplessly fall in love, or at least have wolfish objectives, yet the women somehow come out on top. Often this seems to be due to dumb luck, more than anything.

In this book, Lorelei is still writing in her diary, but this time instead of writing about herself and her love life, she writes about her friend Dorothy, whom we met in the first book as a sidekick of Lorelei's.

We learn Dorothy grew up in a carnival, but was "rescued" by a sheriff who had "noble intentions" to make her an honest woman. It turns out the sheriff is not able to carry out his heroic plan due to a blonde secretary that apparently has enough information on him to keep him away from Dorothy.

So Dorothy ends up eventually in New York where she joins Zigfeld Follies and is discovered by a rich man who wants to marry her, however, his mother does not think she is quite their kind. All sorts of shenanigans follow, a la Buster Keaton and Dorothy ends up marrying a sax player who ends up being a lout, so the rich guy pays for her to travel to Paris to get a divorce, only the mother pays for a lawyer to make it so Dorothy has no grounds for divorce.

It's all very silly, but written with such fluid grace and wit that it is easy to zoom through the whole book, rather like riding a toboggan down a snowy hill.

I don't know if I'll read more of Loos. The two books I've read were all fun and games, however, I think I'm satiated with her brand of social satire. But who knows?

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters were hilarious! It went downhill...

[Nikita · Rating 3 out of 5]

While lacking the charm and pointedness of the previous book, this sequel had enough twists and turns to keep one entertained to the end.

[Moira Fogarty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess my taste in fiction runs to blondes. I preferred Anita's first book, detailing the wild life and saucy times of Lorelei Lee, to this meh sequel written by Lorelei about her less fortunate friend Dorothy.

Lorelei is exciting: a shameless scoundrel, she manipulates her way through a harsh world of class barriers and prejudice to come out on top. While not a very sympathetic character, one never really worries about Ms. Lee's future, as she has her priorities straight. She always chooses diamonds, money, moving up in society and cultural enrichment over lesser possessions like virtue, honesty and love.

Dorothy seems not to know quite what she wants, which makes her biography less compelling, and unlike Lorelei who faces down angry wives, rampaging mothers and scurrilous investigators, Dorothy's greatest obstacle to happiness seems to be herself.

Perhaps I disliked this book because I wish I was more fancy-free and mercenary (although not a straight-up gold digger), like Lorelei. Instead, I was horrified to discover that I share several of Dorothy's most maligned traits. Lorelei demands presents; Dorothy GIVES gifts to men. Clearly, Dorothy is being played for a fool. This book disparages my aspirations towards feminist equality as just damned silly behaviour, according to Anita Loos. Huh.

The role of Lorelei was acted by Marilyn Monroe. Dorothy is such a watery, forgettable character that the big screen adaptation of this book in 1955's Gentlemen Marry Brunettes didn't even feature her - the script was completely altered to be about two women, Bonnie & Connie - not a Dorothy in sight.

One interesting thing I learned from this book came from a passing mention on p. 12 of 'Texas Guynan' (sic). I didn't recognize the name, so looked her up and discovered she was a famous prohibition-era saloon keeper and the namesake of Guinan on Star Trek. Poor Texas died in Vancouver, BC of amoebic dysentery in 1933, exactly one month before Prohibition was repealed... learn a new thing every day!

[Heather Putman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a theory that Anita Loos was a nom de plume for Dorothy Parker, or someone otherwise affiliated with the Algonquin Club of New York. Many of these anecdotes seem to be exaggerated private jokes in and amongst the female literati about less-intellectually driven individuals. If read in this context, the book is sharp.

[Emjy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aussi délicieux et efficace que le premier !

[Bookworm Adventures Deluxe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sick of these sequels and reboots

[Lucía ⭐️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

ha sido como si una amiga me contara un chisme jugosísimo

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes focuses on Lorelei’s best friend, Dorothy. Dorothy was a wonderful counterpart to Lorelei in the first book, but she loses something when thrust into the spotlight. The same all-knowing, biting satire pervades this book, but Lorelei’s voice doesn’t click quite as well when telling someone else’s story. Plus, I found the darker events alluded to here harder to overlook than in the first book. It’s still a fun read, but it doesn’t have the same magic as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Recommended.

[Galina · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first book was much better. The story of the brunette even being told by the blond is just another chick-lit, nothing special.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anita Loos once again captured the charm of Lorelei Lee, but as this story centers around her friend Dorothy, I found the character hard to connect with. The book fell a little short for me.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Personally, I did not like this book. I found it to irreverent about marriage, sex, and life in general. It was like Wodehouse, without the plot and the humor.

[Basia Korzeniowska · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good fun once I managed to get over my irritation at the arch bad spelling. Very much of its time, morals and hypocrisy wise.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as "Blondes." I, mean, really, really not as good.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

And I preferred to not finish this book. Did not care to invest my time on the ditzy Lorelei.

[Teaspoon Stories · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just after I’d begun this novel, I saw a story about a “Double Platinum Anniversary” with two couples celebrating 70 years since their joint wedding in Orkney in 1955. They attributed the success of their marriages to spending plenty of time apart from each other (made easier by the fact that the chaps were lighthouse keepers and their wives had worked hospital night shifts).

Their pragmatic approach to matters conjugal would have thrilled Lorelei Lee. Having now acquired her wealthy husband and high-status name (Mrs Lorelei Lee Spofford, no less), Lorelei has already committed by page one to a practical policy of “time apart” from her new spouse: “So that is why I try to do something in Life, and not let everything stop just because I have married the One of my choice.”

And so there we have it, simply set out in Lorelei’s typically disarming logic. Not allowing herself to be tied down by hubby’s “homebody” instincts isn’t about selfishness or having her cake and eating it. It’s about Lorelei not letting herself sink to her husband’s level of dullness. About living her own life (now all the richer with the generous settlement for delivery of Spofford Junior). It’s about asserting her own independence and developing her own full potential. How liberating is that for a woman a hundred years ago!

Lorelei is determined to ascend artistically and intellectually up into the elevated circle of New York “Promanents”. In her company we go behind the scenes in the movie industry and eavesdrop on Dorothy Parker’s waspish lunchtime coterie at the famous Algonquin hotel.

Having met the literati, Lorelei decides that writing a book herself is the best way of becoming literary in her own right. So she begins a study of the life of her best female friend Dorothy Shaw, whose travails she feels will provide a fascinating insight into how a girl’s life (and morals) can go awry. This of course provides us with a saga more insalubrious than Lorelei’s current gilded orbit - but rather more entertaining.

Dorothy’s life has been picaresque to say the least. Her father’s a drunken trapeze artist in pink spangled tights, her step-mother runs a dodgy boarding house in Modesto, and she grows up working a waffle stall at the circus (using glue instead of eggs for the waffle mix). But while Lorelei always has her native savvy to fall back on, Dorothy is a true innocent.

So innocent, in fact, that she doesn’t realise the seismic affect she has on men - including a deputy sherriff, a very self-absorbed travelling actor, a depressive saxophonist and an international polo player, whose lives Dorothy turns upside down pretty much without realising. Oh, and by just following her own instincts and doing the opposite of what she’s told to do, child of nature Dorothy inadvertently even wows top impresario, Mr Ziegfield, and secures her dream job at the Follies.

Sentences that tickled me included such gems as:

- “He was very promanent on the board of directors of the Detention Home, and the main reason that he was interested in the case of the grocer’s wife, was because she was a graduate from there, and the low state of her morals always seemed to intreeg him.”

- “She never listened to such a conglomeration of Religion and poetry spoken by a man who couldn’t keep his hands off a girl.”

- “Dear Mr Ziegfeld, this will introduce Miss — in whom I have no other interest except to assist a little girl who is full of ambition, and helping to support her family.”

- “At a time when a millionaire was clammering for her hand, she had to fall in Love with a saxophone player. I suppose that a saxophone does make a girl feel romantic, unless she has a lot of will-power.”

I have to say, though, that Lorelei’s Krazy Kapitals and unorthodox spelling become a tad wearing once the novelty wears off. Perhaps it’s just that my own spelling’s becoming so shaky in my dotage, I feel I may be easily led in the more creative approaches to spelling tricky words like psychoanalisis, tideldywinks and “quite a co-instance.” With a crafty self consciousness that’s very much Loos’s ironic style, Lorelei even almost gets to meet Percy Gilchrist Saunders, “famous for thinking that spelling ought to sound like what it resembles.”

I realise as I write this that I didn’t really enjoy this book quite as much as I’d hoped. Perhaps the humour was a bit more wry and less belly-ache than in “Prefer Blondes”. Perhaps it has that disappointing sense of being the sequel that you’re desperate should be as brilliant as the original. But isn’t quite as deliciously, outrageously bonkers. In fact, dare I say it, there are even a few slight longueurs where the story wanders away from Dorothy (the murder and funeral of her gay ex-husband, Lester, for example - more surreal than screwball Komic Kapers).

But perhaps I’m being unfair. Perhaps it’s just some of the critical waspishness of Dorothy Parker’s Algonquin lunch circle that’s rubbed off on me!

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

There can’t be sequels whose titles appear to finish a thought set up by the title of the original book, but here is one. The sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is called But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. This is at least an even-handed title for the second book.

The book is once again narrated by Lorelei, the calculating but guileless blonde who navigated her way around the world of rich and eligible men in a bid to find a well-fixed husband. She is married now, but her spelling still has not improved.

A married Lorelei is perhaps of less interest to Anita Loos, so the story focuses instead on Lorelei’s friend, Dorothy. Readers of the first book will remember that Lorelei viewed Dorothy with a mixture of affection and contempt because Dorothy seems to have an eye for penniless lovers, in contrast to the mercenary Lorelei.

This continues into the second novel, where Lorelei’s affectionately disapproving narrative follows the life story of Dorothy. Dorothy manages to navigate her way from life in a carnival to joining the Ziegfeld Follies, and she marries an ineffectual husband along the way, but she never entirely sacrifices her principles, unlike Lorelei who doesn’t really have any.

We would wrong to view Dorothy as any kind of moral exemplar. Indeed Loos has only contempt for moralists. Like Lorelei, Dorothy is a force of nature, moving freely between different men and causing havoc as she goes. The main difference is that her morals are more complicated, rather than purer.

As with the previous book, this work embodies the spirit of the 20s and 30s, a time when extreme wealth and extreme poverty existed hand in glove in America, and where gold-diggers were practically seen as heroines, as a series of 30s movies indicated.

Dorothy is part of the feisty, go-getting drive for self-enrichment that dominated the period. Her activities may well raise an eyebrow, even today, but we can recognise her as a tough and hard-headed survivor, who will do whatever is necessary to prosper. Whatever her faults, she is preferably to the snobbish women who are already occupying a wealthy place in society.

We miss Lorelei’s sexy Machiavellianism, but Dorothy is an interesting enough character on her own, a woman who spends half the book pushing herself forward, and the other half standing in her own way.

Still while this is all very amusing, it is also rather vacuous, and the humour begins to wear thin after a while. Loos writes short books, but they might work better as sketches, since I can only really tolerate Lorelei and Dorothy in very small doses.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly amusing and just as silly as the first book, this is the story of Dorothy "Dot" Shaw, as related by her friend Lorelei with all the naive judgements and misspellings you'd expect. Part of the fun for me is that Lorelei doesn't always seem to know exactly what she is talking about so innuendo slides right past her. Dot's story is interesting and involves carnivals, Detention homes, the Follies, domestic abuse, Paris divorces and the mob. And everywhere there are men trying to take advantage of women, and the women who let them - for a price. Whether that price is a Paris vacation, or a wedding ring, someone is going to pay.

[Ann-Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes had its moments. Overall though, I didn't think it was as entertaining as the first book, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Movie adaptation:

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)



This lighthearted musical has a completely different storyline than the book, including different characters. It's not as great as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), but I think it's still worth the watch for Jane Russell and Jeanne Crain fans.

[Laianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a sequel, this pales in comparison to the original, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I loved Dorothy in the first book, but a lot of her charm comes from her wisecracking buddy-comedy relationship with Lorelei. In the absence of Lorelei herself (until the last few pages, anyway), Dorothy’s story falls a little flat. I loved learning her backstory, and this installment keeps up the laugh-out-loud social commentary, but it’s not the same without her best friend. Four stars for an entertaining story that ends on the perfect note, but deducting one star for the lack of Lorelei and Dorothy together.

[Brennan Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisite exercise in dramatic irony. At times you are being told a story by a character who doesn’t understand the nuance of what she’s saying about a different character who doesn’t understand the nuance of what they’re doing. And then sometimes she knows and they don’t, or vice versa. It’s a delicate tightrope act Anita Loos pulls off, and while this sequel may be less concise and compelling than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it’s no less engaging and exhilarating.

[Allison Mcclung · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book quite a bit until the final chapter. Dorothy is a fun character as a secret romantic who doesn't care much for societal norms, and I think it takes away a lot from her character that she ends up falling into a role expected of her, although perhaps Lorelei's account of the ending is misleading in that regard. I agree with the general consensus that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a better book, although overall I did enjoy reading this book as well.

[Izabella Weiche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as lighthearted and entertaining as its prequel, though I enjoyed it slightly less. Still; a fun and easy read. I laughed and smiled often while reading (as I did with the first) but I wouldn’t recommend the second book as vehemently as I would the first. I love Dorothy as a woman, but not necessarily as the main character of a 3rd person narrative. Mostly, while I still laughed at her voice, I missed Lorelei recounting her own experiences rather than her friend’s.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically unnecessary follow-up to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," this time telling the story of Lorelei's friend Dorothy. The intentional misspellings were even more numerous than in the previous book, to the point of being overdone. The first book provided a look at flapper culture, but this one was just Lorelei droning on about Dorothy, the foolish things she did, and the losers she took up with.

[Justin Song · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little better than the first book. Liked the fact that Lorelei tells the story rather than Dorothy, but expected the sequel to be an extension of Lorelei's story. Dorothy's story is definitely more romantic and intriguing; I liked Dorothy's down to earth attitude more than Lorelei's attempts at sounding sophisticated. Overall more likeable protagonist

[Andy Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably marking too low by comparison with the first book as it is still funny but nowhere near as funny as the original. It is Lorelei's friend Dorothy's turn to step into the spotlight in a potted biography penned by Lorelei herself. From carnival girl to wedded bliss, the nicer companion misses out on a millionaire but meets her love match.