Blonde Like Me: The Roots of the Blonde Myth in Our Culture

Natalia Ilyin is that most seductive of writers--she knows how to educate by telling a story. The entire utility of myth is being able to find our human selves in a confusing modern world. You can take the long road by consulting learned academic texts and risk losing yourself completely in the railroad timetable of indexes and exhaustive bibliographies from now until the cows come home, and never, never in spite of all the outlandish post-modernish jargon that permeates the texts of our professional class of cultural explainers, understand how myth, one of the engines of culture, expresses itself through the lives of ordinary people (or is it the other way around? Dr. Freud? Dr. Jung? Are y'all out there somewhere? Never mind. We've got Natalia Ilyin.). Blonde Like Me, a personal meditation on how the myth of blondeness affects women who respond to its demands, is written as a series of connected personal essays, which makes it the perfect vehicle to express in human terms our tendency to conceive and measure perfection, only to struggle in vain to personify its qualities. Ilyin starts close to home, telling tales out of school, mostly on herself, mostly hilarious, and then warms to her point as she informally and lucidly describes the dilemmas and the paradoxes facing a woman as she tries to decide how to express who she wants to be by manipulating her appearance. Ilyin elegantly benchmarks (and circumscribes) the range of her choices by the hair coloring products arrayed on a drugstore shelf, which promise not only allure, but essence of personhood--of identity. But then Ilyin, and this is her genius, expands the ramifications of this deceptively parochial dilemma until she is grappling with, well, pretty much everything. I mean, why not? As a man, reading Blonde Like Me, I feel as if my deepest and most paranoid suspicions are being confirmed at the same time I'm being given a privileged guided tour of the female psyche--an inexplicably authorized tour. Still, as I read I find myself feeling guilty, shooting furtive looks over my shoulder and thinking--am I supposed to be here? Suddenly I know what it must have felt like to crack the code for the enigma machine back in the "good" war. There's the pedestal; there's the woman. She may as well get on the escalator and enjoy the ride. That seems to be where we want her and where she wants to be. So what if the pedestal is an illusion. So is personality; so is perfection. So am I with my GQ Quarterly, my Hemingway first editions, my top-of-the-line car, and my obscene bottom line ledger. Men: if you want to understand the woman latched on to your arm as you charge through the world, or if you want to find a woman to latch on to your arm, buy this book. You will be entertained, educated, and perhaps, if you're lucky, transformed by Natalia Ilyin's subtle wit, charm, erudition, and compassionate insights into our drive to be more than we are. Blonde Like Me may address a dilemma closest to a wo

Natalia Ilyin has written a masterful little book, filled with insights on the blond archetype in our culture, brilliant descriptions of blond subtypes (the "Armpiece Blond" and the Martha Stewart segments are hilarious), and warm memoirs of her own blond childhood to adulthood. As a brunette with a California blond daughter, and an East Coast mother who had a blond childhood but elected to grow out of it, I was intrigued to find every blond I've known (practically) described almost flawlessly in this little book. The value we place on golden hair is obvious in this society. But as we become more diverse, and as people with darker hair and skin become more dominant, the value may change. I recently had a compliment from an African-American woman who admired my summer tan. "But you're not dark enough," she added.It would be interesting to have had a footnote, at least, from the author with some comment about women of color. I wonder, will the value change enough as our races merge so that blond eventually looses some of its mystique."Blond Like Me" is a quick read of interest to both scholars and casual readers. It should be taken seriously by reviewers and social commentators.

I picked up Blonde Like Me because I needed something light to read on a plane. It turned out to be much more than humor and entertainment, although it was that in spades. This story about the meaning of blondeness, and its meticulously researched and scholarly explanation of why so many women (and men) yearn after the golden crown blondness implies, is a metaphor that reveals much deeper stuff about the ways people search to matter in life. Anecdotes from the author's own life that form the core for each chapter reveal a fresh, civilized attitude totally lacking in pretension. As Howard Thurman wrote, we all long for relationships in which we do not need to pretend. I, for one, found that the candor and vulnerability displayed without vulgarity (imagine reading a book these days where you are not obliged to be constantly scraping scatalogical images off your consciousness), and layers of insights through feelings graciously and generously revealed made me feel heartened on my own journey. Although Ms. Ilyin's depth of learning is carried so lightly on waves of truly delicious wit and engaging stories, deeper insights kept surfacing. I felt this was a book that could accompany many different journeys and I subsequently gave it to friends young and old who were experiencing various life challenges. Without exception, each reported back that they found in it something that mirrored their own circumstances. For them, as for me, the book provided a good companion, lighthearted but compassionate, on the road to menschdom.

"I'm not offended by people who think I'm a dumb blonde, because I know two things they don't: I'm not dumb, and I'm not blonde." -- Dolly PartonPeople are just not happy with things as they are. Australopithicus africanus used tools, which means that he willfully and imaginatively altered his environment, and -- even though he was not a true human -- probably did the one thing that we humans do best when not making decorative cuts in our enemies, which is to make decorative cuts in ourselves. People trim, style and color their hair, tattoo their bodies, daub on paint and enhance or minimize sundry parts for the simple reason that they can. As soon as a new way of altering the body comes along, we greet it with glad cries and rejoicing. It's not a fad, it's the human condition. True blondes -- blondes over the age of six -- are as scarce as hen's teeth. But blonde, as Natalia Ilyin discusses in her witty, poignant book "Blonde Like Me," is a state of mind that disregards exterior reality in favor of the inner vision. Beginning with the title, itself a clever play on John Howard Griffin's 1959 "Black Like Me," the book explores the social condition of people who, because of their coloration, are treated differently by their fellows. In Ilyin's case, better, and in Griffin's case, worse, but the kicker is that neither is what they seem. Natalia Ilyin, 6'2" in her stocking feet, armed cap a pie with blonde hair and high heels has "caused minor traffic accidents," as well you might imagine. Blondeness is a metaphor for beauty and allure. Blondeness confers instant sexual power. What do I mean when I say, in cryptic shorthand, "Tonight I have a date with a blonde"? Natalia knows, and if you read "Blonde Like Me," she'll tell you. David Lance Goines

Unlike the author, I'm a currently natural blonde, so I know I'm not her target audience. That hardly matters; any woman could relate to this book. Natalia Ilyin's point isn't really about "going blonde": it's about being female.Ilyin does a lovely job of dividing and defining the different kinds of women we choose to be, and what those types mean in a world where we are always visible. It's postmodern and funny -- wait for the scene where the recently-retired "Armpiece Blonde" meets her male counterpart on a plane -- and the author's tone is resolutely cheerful. Natalia Ilyin is like a good friend who mixes a great martini: a few pages in you'll feel fabulous, you'll be laughing, and you'll have no idea why.