[lbo-talk] RIP Norman Mailer

Robert Wrubel bobwrubel at yahoo.com
Sat Nov 10 11:41:45 PST 2007


James Jones' three WWII novels (Here to Eternity, Thin Red Line and Some Came Running) are far superior to Mailer's Naked and the Dead, and may be the best novels of the last 60 years. Jones had many of Mailer's personal faults, too, like alcoholism and male chauvanism, but grandiosity wasn't one of them.

In my opinion, Michael Herr's "novel/journal" about Vietnam, *Dispatches*, is the best novel about that war.

BobW

--- "Max B. Sawicky" <sawicky at verizon.net> wrote:


> Mailer's mayoral 'campaign' was my first political
> project.
> I got into it through my English comp professor
> Peter Manso,
> then a Mailer buddy, later not. Manso is a
> character unto
> himself. For my benefit he gave his name on the
> phone once as
> follows: "Manso. Man as in 'yeah man,' so as in
> 'so what.' "
> Little short guy. I haven't kept in touch with him.
> I'd tell you his
> story,
> but I doubt he'll ever be famous enough to be
> noticed on LBO.
>
> I never actually met NM, but I devoured his books in
> college.
> One of my friends then accused me of trying to
> emulate him.
>
> My role in the campaign was mucking around with some
> wonky policy stuff in which as you could imagine the
> candidate (and everyone else) had zero actual
> interest.
> Something relating to NM's idea to build a monorail
> around
> Manhattan, which actually still doesn't seem like a
> bad idea.
>
> The NY Times article was interesting. I never got
> around to
> reading Naked & the Dead, nor Deer Park. It was the
> later stuff
> that engrossed me, especially the essays, An
> American Dream,
> and Why Are We In Vietnam, one portion of which I
> can nearly
> recite from memory, something like:
>
> " . . . bonging the gong, blasting the ass, chewing
> the milch,
> milking the chintz . . . "
>
> I haven't kept up with the later stuff either,
> though I have
> Ancient Evenings and Harlot's Ghost and vague
> intentions
> of reading them some day.
>
> I can't speak on the later fiction, but Mailer's
> politics didn't
> evolve much. He was still serving up the same lines
> he did
> in the 60s, lines which had gotten old.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Dennis Perrin
> Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 9:55 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] RIP Norman Mailer
>
> My tiny tribute:
>
>
<http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2007/11/mailers-ghost.html>
>
> Dennis
>
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