He knew how to hustle the ‘intellectual’ crowd in NY.
He knew how to keep himself in the news because the news is leftist. Just like Susan Sontag.
He probably never read Marx.
He was a mediocre writer.
Amen to all of that.
Bill Buckley on Norman Mailer: “If only he would lift his gaze from the world’s genitals.”
Decades have passed since I've read anything by Mailer or even thought about him being alive or dead. Except for one book, I didn't much care for Mailer's work.
But, he was a superb writer.
I think Buckley was right on the matter. Mailer could write but he always seemed to choose subjects and themes a bit too far south of the heart. Which is pretty much why I never read more than one of his books, parts of two others, and a few of his shorter stories in a collected work.
Maybe ten years ago, I had a passing acquaintance with Captain J.D. Stallings, one of the officers from the 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team in which Mailer served. Mailer came up on one of those occasions. Captain Stallings said that Mailer had a habit of going missing and when they'd go looking for him, they would always find him hunkered down somewhere . . . writing.