Appreciate the shout out! I haven't gotten into Norman Mailer yet so this piece did a lot to fill in the shaky outline of the man in my head. In high school I read Miami and the Siege of Chicago during an embarrassingly long period of obsession/idolization of hippies and other Boomer drug subcultures, but that's about it. I do think the intellectual culture is poorer for its present lack of epic, self-mythologizing characters like Mailer. Who among us has the courage and stamina to commit to such brash unlikeability in public? Certainly not I.
Norman Mailer wrote two great books, The Executioner's Song and Armies of the Night. Plus, arguably, The Fight. Add to that a bunch of other lively writings and lots of pap, pedestrian stuff, and some roll-your-eyes notions and leaps. The great question and curiosity is the marked dropoff between the quality of the best of his nonfiction and the quality of even the best of his fiction, generally and sweepingly. Night and day in some ways. It's interesting to consider why. He somehow lacks guts in fiction that he sometimes found, seemingly naturally, in nonfiction.
Thanks for this. I loved The Executioner’s Song, and I enjoyed Barbary Coast. Mailer is engaging and a good literary companion. Armies of the Night awaits me …
I liked this, especially the part about the book giving way to the the gesture. That's an important observation and as we used to say, "right on," although I am bending the historic phrase away from its origins. I am glad you took the time to re-read Mailer so I don't have to. He was always wordy, bombastic and over the top. Yes, that's his charm, but it is obscured by all the self-agrandizing, macho bullshit that went with it. The pentagon didn't levitate. It's still here and we're the worse for performative protest that didn't get the hard work of structural evolution done when it mattered.
Agree so strongly about the problem of "natural managers of that future air-conditioned vault where the last of human life would still exist." The dehumanizing aspect of modernity is a long-time concern of mine. I don't know if you're familiar with Jackson Lears's *No Place of Grace* (1981), but it's worth some time (even though I think there may be some Freudian stuff I would skim over quickly). Christopher Lasch books offer some of the same analysis. And in a way even Lears and Lasch and the New Left were late to the anti-party given Max Weber on disenchantment and the Iron Cage of bureaucracy.
Sorry for fixating on the one passage. I really enjoyed your take on Mailer. He's not aging so well, as you point out, but I appreciate the nuance in your treatment of him.
Great piece! It is funny how Mailer’s self-absorption, his placement of himself front and center, does end up giving his work from this era that documentary feel you speak of. Nonfiction of the journalistic mode, and the essayistic, and the diaristic, rolled into one. Which weirdly makes him one of the more definitive chroniclers of the era, along the lines of the Maysles brothers or Ross McElwee. Or Whitman, as you mention! That’s a great comparison I’ve never thought of.
Fabulous piece Henry. Very smart, very reflective. Good to see Mailer dealt with without all the cultural floss in the way.
Appreciate the shout out! I haven't gotten into Norman Mailer yet so this piece did a lot to fill in the shaky outline of the man in my head. In high school I read Miami and the Siege of Chicago during an embarrassingly long period of obsession/idolization of hippies and other Boomer drug subcultures, but that's about it. I do think the intellectual culture is poorer for its present lack of epic, self-mythologizing characters like Mailer. Who among us has the courage and stamina to commit to such brash unlikeability in public? Certainly not I.
"...at the expense, perhaps, of the great novel he would never write..."
The Naked and the Dead, his 1948 book, was the great novel. I didn't care for it but it has that reputation.
My favorite writing of his is The Fight. Probably the best boxing book ever written.
Norman Mailer wrote two great books, The Executioner's Song and Armies of the Night. Plus, arguably, The Fight. Add to that a bunch of other lively writings and lots of pap, pedestrian stuff, and some roll-your-eyes notions and leaps. The great question and curiosity is the marked dropoff between the quality of the best of his nonfiction and the quality of even the best of his fiction, generally and sweepingly. Night and day in some ways. It's interesting to consider why. He somehow lacks guts in fiction that he sometimes found, seemingly naturally, in nonfiction.
Thanks for this. I loved The Executioner’s Song, and I enjoyed Barbary Coast. Mailer is engaging and a good literary companion. Armies of the Night awaits me …
I liked this, especially the part about the book giving way to the the gesture. That's an important observation and as we used to say, "right on," although I am bending the historic phrase away from its origins. I am glad you took the time to re-read Mailer so I don't have to. He was always wordy, bombastic and over the top. Yes, that's his charm, but it is obscured by all the self-agrandizing, macho bullshit that went with it. The pentagon didn't levitate. It's still here and we're the worse for performative protest that didn't get the hard work of structural evolution done when it mattered.
Agree so strongly about the problem of "natural managers of that future air-conditioned vault where the last of human life would still exist." The dehumanizing aspect of modernity is a long-time concern of mine. I don't know if you're familiar with Jackson Lears's *No Place of Grace* (1981), but it's worth some time (even though I think there may be some Freudian stuff I would skim over quickly). Christopher Lasch books offer some of the same analysis. And in a way even Lears and Lasch and the New Left were late to the anti-party given Max Weber on disenchantment and the Iron Cage of bureaucracy.
Sorry for fixating on the one passage. I really enjoyed your take on Mailer. He's not aging so well, as you point out, but I appreciate the nuance in your treatment of him.
That Lears book looks very interesting! Lasch has had a big revival among the red scare/compact set.....though I don't hold that against him.
Great piece! It is funny how Mailer’s self-absorption, his placement of himself front and center, does end up giving his work from this era that documentary feel you speak of. Nonfiction of the journalistic mode, and the essayistic, and the diaristic, rolled into one. Which weirdly makes him one of the more definitive chroniclers of the era, along the lines of the Maysles brothers or Ross McElwee. Or Whitman, as you mention! That’s a great comparison I’ve never thought of.
Terrific essay. Gets at my own contradictory feelings about Mailer. Both as a writer and human being.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 This is so damn good.
You've given me the impetus to get over my shameful lack of Roth or Bellow or Mailer in my past reading. And thanks for the shout out!
you have some good times ahead!