Provocative Harpo Marx bio demands some heavy academic lifting

But cinema buffs with a taste for quirky, exotic and highly personalized theorizing on pop culture will find a challenging, if occasionally daunting, read in “The Anatomy of Harpo Marx” (University of California Press, $29.95).

Koestenbuam's lavish, 336-page paperback — packed with thumbnail photos — is essentially a wordy effort to analyze every move the voiceless Harpo Marx made on screen in 13 Marx Brothers comedies. To some, the author's minute attention to obscure detail and a decidedly peculiar psychosexual focus on Harpo's physical attributes might seem more than a little obsessive, odd and off-putting.

Readers with patience to wade through Koestenbaum's far-flung literary and cultural asides (ranging from Dostoevsky to Emily Dickinson and beyond) or his naked tangents on personal childhood memories (including, literally, musing on the shape of his own navel), the biography delivers some pure moments of zestful literary acrobatics.

Ranging nonchronologically through 13 Marx Brothers movies — from 1929's “The Cocoanuts” to 1950's “Love Happy” — the author takes a scattershot approach to assessing the genius of Harpo's work and his prowess as a pioneering physical comedian. Deeply interspersed with this academic analysis are frequent forays into the author's own psyche (having much to do with his sexual preferences, his Jewishness, his odd family history and his endless penchant for wordplay).