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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