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Norman Mailer

Libra6Poe

Libra6Poe

New Member
I haven't read any of his novels. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know his bestselling ones are Into the Mirror: The Life of Master Spy Robert P. Hanssen, The Naked & the Dead, and The Executioner's Song. But are those his best?

Thanks guys! ;)
 
I've read The Executioner's Song, read it my senior year in high school for my AR assignment, and I was able to read the one book and get all my AR points that I needed and be done with it. But it was a really good book, and it's actually what got me hooked on true crime. I don't know any of his other books though, but I'm sure they're good.
 
I read The Gospel According to the Son. It's written from the perspective of Jesus reflecting on key events throughout the Bible. In it, Mailer has Jesus admitting that he lost his temper when cursing the fig tree, as well as commenting upon the various disciples. This was a really good book. I'll have to check out his other works later.
 
I read The Naked and the Dead years ago and remember as a powerful book. It was also made in to a movie. It would be interesting to go back to it now and see how well it holds up.

Some years later I was required to read The Deer Park for a course. I thought it was bombastic and macho macho.
 
Jossip:
Except for USA Today, the news source for optimists, most papers don’t hold back on who Norman Mailer was when he was alive. (Or if they are holding back, he must have been a real creep.)
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New Yorker:

It is important to acknowledge, though, that he was a singularly bad performer. He entertained and he instructed, but he also irritated, alienated, baffled, and appalled. He told dirty jokes that were not funny, and he tried on outfits and accents that were preposterous—a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, he sometimes dressed like a sea captain and affected a Texas drawl—and he had a few moments, deservedly notorious, of disastrous misjudgment.

Los Angeles Times:

He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his … It’s been said that no other major American author wrote so many bad books.

Slate:

No great writer—and he was, at his best, as great as he said he was—ever wrote quite as much crap.

Boston Globe:

Many of his books, quickly written for money or attention or both, do not stand out at all. Or they do so for the wrong reasons. His 1983 novel, “Ancient Evenings,” remains one of the great debacles in 20th-century literature.

New York Post tribute by Gay Talese:

He was a man who never said no. He never said no to anything. I saw him quoted in some hardcore porno magazine 20 years ago and I thought, ‘God, there’s nobody he won’t talk to’ - there’s Norman Mailer in Hustler magazine, Penthouse magazine, as well as the Paris Review.
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Now I really want to read some of his work. ;)
 
I am surprised to see the negative remarks about him; he must have been as abrasive as they say and rubbed a lot of the right people the wrong way.
However, the two books I read -- Executioner's Song and Harlot's Ghost -- were definitely outstanding. I thought Harlot's Ghost was an excellent espionage novel and I craved the second volume, which he chose never to write. :sad:
 
I really want to read The Fight which is about boxing. I saw a very interesting documentary on him on Sky Arts. He didn't treat his wives too well but then stable, upstanding members of the community rarely make good writers!

Andy.
 
I recently read "The Naked and the Dead". A raw, very realistic war novel, no hero worship there - a little depressing but very readable and very impressive.
 
I strongly recommend TOUGH GUYS DONT DANCE which is like a pulp fiction novel written by a truly great and pompous writer (mailer).
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD is very good too. George Orwell praised it a lot.
Other books by Mailer that i have read:

AN AMERICAN DREAM : its a pretty hilarious novel about this intellectual type who is sick of life and accidentally kills his wife. It has some really great lines and it is the book where Mailer put forth the idea that cancer is caused by repression of natural impulses.

HARLOT's GHOST: Epic 1,100 page novel about life in the CIA. The book has many many brilliant parts. But Mailer's dry writing style does hamper it a little. But I strongly recommend it for the amazing cast of real life characters, some excellent commentary on East-West relations etc.

THE DEER PARK and BARBARY SHORE were pretty tough to get through.

Mailer is someone who is worth reading for some of the great quotes in his novels. I dont think he has ever written a perfect novel though TOUGH GUYS DONT DANCE and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD are very entertaining. Somebody on another forum that I used to post on told me that Mailer is merely a writer who is thought of as a great writer but his books are not really worth reading.
 
I would put in a strong vote for Harlot's Ghost as an excellent book in the espionage genre. It is far far better than most others since then, and very definitely worth reading.

As to writers who are (merely) identified as "great writers", and books which are "worth reading," those seem to be two different categories and two distinct matters of opinion which can be separately arrived at, and which need not coincide for any writer and his books. For myself, I would rather read a book worth reading, rather than a book by a great author, and Harlot's Ghost is definitely that.

PS: I would also vote for Mailer as an (actually) excellent author on the basis of Harlot's Ghost and (Pulitzer Prize-winning) The Executioner's Song.
 
He is an excellent author. No question about it. But a lot of his writing is dry, almost as if he is deliberately trying to make the reader work hard.

Charles Bukowski said this about Mailer: "Somebody puts a book by Norman Mailer on me. Christians and Cannibals. God, he just writes on and on. There's no force, no humor. I don't understand it. Just a pushing out of the word, any word, anything, is this what happens to the famous? Think how lucky we are".
 
Sometimes reading excellent/great writing takes sitzfleisch. What can I say?

Maybe, even frequently?
 
Peder said:
Sometimes reading excellent/great writing takes sitzfleisch. What can I say?

Maybe, even frequently?
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Frequently. ;)


Another vote here for Harlot's Ghost. Blast the man for having the temerity to die before writing the sequel!
 
pontalba said:
Frequently. ;)


Another vote here for Harlot's Ghost. Blast the man for having the temerity to die before writing the sequel!
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That really was a story set up for a sequel, and a sequel I would have given anything to read. Too bad it never happened. :sad:
 
Just finished Of a fire on the moon. It's a jaded romantic's take on the coming age of technology and scientism. Interesting chapters include "'the psychology of astronauts" and "the psychology of machines." The author details the staid, anti-sceptic environment that was NASA in the '60s. From the white shirt and tie engineers sitting behind monitors, to the "just the facts Ma'am" astronauts devoid of a fluctuation of emotion and feeling. This is not a one and done type of reading. There is a lot of technical information as to how the Apollo 11 module worked, as well as the rare stories where there was danger due to the misfiring of thrusters and other trusted pieces of technology. I'm glad I picked this one up at a library book sale.:)
 
Libra6Poe said:
I haven't read any of his novels. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know his bestselling ones are Into the Mirror: The Life of Master Spy Robert P. Hanssen, The Naked & the Dead, and The Executioner's Song. But are those his best?

Thanks guys! ;)
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Start with Armies of The Night and The Naked and The Dead. And don't miss his second two , Barbary Shore and The Deer Park..........
 
I would recommend a book I read after my wife bought it. "A Ticket to the Circus" by Norris Church. It's an interesting perspective of a somewhat complicated writer. Norris Church was married to Mailer for quite awhile. She presents an excellent side story in understanding Norman the man in relation to Norman the writer.
 
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