Yes, that is a picture of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. I have no idea if she actually read it, or is just posing, but regardless, it’s pretty cool.
That being said, today is the annual commemoration of Joyce’s aforementioned classic work, and to celebrate, I’m taking part in the Ulysses Meets Twitter project, which aims to re-construct the massive tome as a series of 96 “bursts” written by volunteers. I am one of those volunteers (I have section #74), and you can follow along with the fun here.
Judging from the placement of her fingers, it looks like she got pretty far but fed up, which is why she’s reading the last page.
Ha, that was my thinking as well 😉