Posted on 11/10/2007 9:47:43 PM PST by saganite
Heh. That’s pretty much what I’ve read. I was quite impressed with “The Naked and the Dead”. I can see why you might call it cynical, with its obsession with “the shoddy motive” and the downbeat point of view, but I didn’t really see it that way. I do think it’s ironic that the movie based on the book reversed almost every incident and outcome to make it into an upbeat story. There is cause for cynicism!
I’ve always had a soft spot for “Of a Fire on the Moon”. This was serialized in Life magazine, or at least portions of it. Mailer by no means identified himself with the Apollo ethos, but he was impressed by it and gave it due respect. Plus, he assumed that it was going to prevail, and struggled to accommodate himself to it in his writing. Little did he realize that it could or would fade as rapidly as it arose, and this book remains as a record of that ascendant mood.
I was always quite impressed that he faithfully recorded the exact “first words” uttered by Aldrin and Armstrong after their landing. These were on a vinyl record insert in National Geographic, but I couldn’t make all of them out, and Mailer was virtually the only printed source for many years. Even NASA materials edit them down. The first words? ... “OK, engine stop. ACA out of detente. Modes control both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm off. 413 is in.” Then came, “We copy you down, Eagle”.
Fair enough Saganite, keep in mind that everyone’s life is a mix of things to be proud of and things to be ashamed of, Mailer is no exception.
Why focus on a the man’s bad things right after he is passed on? Would you want people doing the same when you pass on?
IMO, Conservatives have more class then to do that sort of thing.
It’s a respect that decent people afford the recently departed, the Dems on the other hand turned the Wellstone funeral/memorial into a huge pep rally for electing Democrats in MN.
Mailer went off to world war II to print fashionable failure template of WWI on his war experiences. He produced “the naked and the dead”.
His work was akin to liberal reporters going to Iraq to impose the liberal viet nam template on their experiences rather than let their experiences speak for themselves.
I was impressed with “armies of the night” when I was in my 20’s. 30 years later the book looks like gibberish.
RIP. I will remember him fondly for that quote. The two books of his I read, The Naked and the Dead and Armies of the Night I found forgettable. The weakness of his writing is that he was so much of his time. And unnecessarily vulgar, too. But he worked hard, didn't he? I liked that he boxed. His moral vision was a little blurry, but he stuck up for some truths at great expense—okay, while punting on others, but I will pray for him.
Requiescat in pace.
I will not miss him, nor his liberally-inspired ‘hero-worship” by the NY “elites” ...
Perhaps now he will find out what the unnamed rich man discovered in the Lazarous story.
It’s been a very long time since I even tried to read any Mailer. The last one I finished was his about the moon launch. It had enough behind the scenes information about the NASA culture and launch event to finish, but his method of making it all secondary to HIM, (ie-Aquarius) was pathetic. Not Armstrong, not NASA, not the moon itself, the only story he really was telling was Mailer. And wasn’t the world lucky NASA was created to provide him a mirror where he could look at himself.
“Ancient Evenings” I tried to read. I made it through about 60 pages before casting it aside. Gibberish from a man who seemed like he was being paid by the word and intended to cash in.
A pre-People magazine “celebrity”. If he hadn’t been such a celebrity he might actually have lived up to the role he imagined for himself. The books might then have been about the stories, instead of just fuel for his ego. I can’t imagine time will be kind to his work or reputation.
There goes his biggest fan
.
He did a real smear job on Marilyn Monroe. He admitted to printing every cockamamie rumor about her to sell books.
No loss.
“One was called SCUM, the Society for Cutting up Men, where they believed all men were incomplete or aborted females.”
I like blasts from the past like this. You know, this ought to be in every history textbook just to show that it’s not just white males that can be so unremittingly bigoted. And as far as Mailer is concerned, I really hate when people who possess such talent are usually morally lost and so their influence is that much a greater negative to society.
I wonder why no mention of this?
Pity.
I made the mistake of picking up “Ancient Evenings” for my first Mailer book. I couldn’t get very far. As someone said above, it was too vulgar. I never picked up another Mailer.
Yup,Jack Abbott sure had a lot to give the world of literature.Of course he had trouble taking “no” for an answer...particularly from waiters.
I had the same reaction and threw the thing in the garbage.
Semper Fi,
True enough.But Mailer,unlike me (and,I assume,unlike you as well) played a pivotal role in securing the release from prison of a guy (Jack Abbott) who had already committed *one* murder and who,just a few weeks after his release,went on to murder again...this time a 22 year old kid who had the temerity to tell Abbott that he couldn't use the bathroom.
True GSC, he also said a bunch of stuff in 2003 or so about the Iraq War being “The last hurrah of the white male”.
I never cared for the man’s writings, nor his opinions, and when Abbot murdered that waiter, Mailer basically said “Oops, I guess I was wrong” that was about all he had to say about it.
That was 25 years ago, and I can still remember that “news” story even though I was quite young at the time, Mailer’s culpability was the first step in my own rejection of Liberalism. Even though I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time, I thought that was one of the most unfair and unjust things that I ever heard.
The more Mailer talked, the more I understood Liberalism.
For me, Mailer and his books and opinions WERE Liberalism encapsulated. He embodied “Them” for me while he thought he was advancing Liberal causes, instead he was planting seeds of liberalism’s repudiation.
The Pulitzer is as meaningless as the Nobel Peace Prize.
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