Project Mailer - User contributions [en]

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-18T13:05:51Z

Hobbitonya: /* Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? */

{{Talk header}}
[[/Archive 202504/]]

== Final edits ==
Hello, my article is complete: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Ernest_and_Norman_(Exit_Music)|Ernest and Norman (Exit Music)]]
:{{Reply to|Flowersbloom}} great, thank you. I made some corrections. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, Dr. Lucas. Below is the link to my edited article:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:ASpeed/sandbox
:{{Reply to|ASpeed}} great. Let me know when it’s finished and posted, and I’l have a look. It appears as if you still have a bit of work to do. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. I have completed most of my Remediation Articles, but I still show issues for the one named, "[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman]].

Based on the latest updates, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Battles_for_Regard,_Writerly_and_Otherwise|Battles for Regard, Writerly and Otherwise]] looks good with exception of including a '''category'''.
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} this one is good. I made some corrections before removing the banner, mostly in your sources. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

May you let me know if there is anything I can do on my end to resolve the issues with the first [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|article]]?

[[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 21:47, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} looking very good, but some sources missing page numbers. Please see to those. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

:::Thank you @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] . I will review those and respond when complete. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 22:47, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. Thank you for your feedback. A review of article additions was made for source pages. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 20:22, 11 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{Reply to| ALedezma}} ok, looking good. I made some corrections. There's one final thing to do: no footnotes should appear in the notes section; use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead; I did one to show you how to use the template. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] Changes were done to footnote sources. Thank you! [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I finished my remediation article https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 19:44, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TWietstruk}} good work so far, but there is more to do: placement of footnotes (eliminate spaces around them and punctuation always goes ''before'' the footnote.); proofread for typos; fix all red errors at the bottom (most of these are from errors in sourcing); works cited entries should be bulleted list and eliminate space between entries. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Final edit and no errors with some help from @NRMMGA5108, @JKilchenmann. Please mark me as complete. On to help someone else with the things I've learned
https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 17:52, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I have finished my assigned remediation article: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Jive-Ass_Aficionado:_Why_Are_We_in_Vietnam%3F_and_Hemingway%27s_Moral_Code#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHemingway2003-24
Username ADear.
:{{Reply to|ADear}} thank you. I have marked this as complete. Please be sure you sign your talk page posts correctly. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished remediating my assigned article. Please review it at your earliest convenience. The link is here: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer's_Mythmaking_in_An_American_Dream_and_“The_White_Negro”|Norman Mailer's Mythmaking in An American Dream and “The White Negro”]]—[[User:Erhernandez|Erhernandez]] ([[User talk:Erhernandez|talk]]) 08:52, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Erhernandez}} well done! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. I removed your banner after making a few corrections. Please have a look over it and move on to the next thing. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:06, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::@Grlucas, I have tried correcting the sfn codes in my citations. I was able to get the 2 web citations to link correctly. But for some reason, I cannot get the Mailer 1967 film Wild 90 citation to link to the reference list. Please advise. [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 20:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} OK, all fixed and published. Thanks. Please move on to another remediation. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:46, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.
:{{Reply to|APKnight25}} great work! Please help other editors to complete the volume. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:34, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} great work so far. Your references must use templates, please. Blockquotes must also be done correctly. No spaces or line breaks before or after the {{tl|pg}} template. Footnote placement is also off (punctuation goes before the footnote; no spaces before or after the footnote). I will add the abstract and url. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:30, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe there have been some updates made to the project. I believe I have also updated the works cited section to show correct templates. Please let me know if there is anything further that I need to do. Thank you, Caitlin.
::{{reply to| CVinson}} please sign your talk page posts correctly. Thanks. You still need to do some work on the sources. Use the <code>|author-mask=1</code> in your template for repeated author names. Also, you must eliminate the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” message at the bottom. No spaces or returns before or after the {{tl|pg}} call, as I already mentioned above. No parenthetical citations should be left, either; those should all be remediated to footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:50, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I have updated the sources and updated the in-text citations. I am still having trouble with the "Harv and Sfn no-target errors." I have not been successful in fixing this error and have tried multiple ways to fix it. —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 8:18, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

::::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I see that I still have a red X for my remediation assignment. Is there something else I am still missing? —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{reply to| CVinson}} sorry, I'm just getting back to it. There are quite a few punctuation errors. Some left out and others appear after the {{tl|sfn}}. I'm trying to correct those I see, but you should have a look, too. Page is designated as <code>p=</code> in {{tl|sfn}}, not <code>pg=</code>; and a span of pages needs <code>pp=</code>. Again, I have tried to correct these. I removed the banner, but please have another look through. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:01, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norman Mailer Today'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up my remediation article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer Today|Norman Mailer Today]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 18:20, 3 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Kamyers}} Great work! Please help your fellow editors finish the volume, or pick something to work on in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010|Volume 4]]. Thanks, and well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:00, 4 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of “The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished my remediation of Jennifer Yirinec's article: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”|The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”]] Thank you for your assistance with the article. It is ready for its final review! [[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 10:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} a stellar job. Well done. I removed the banner, so you can move on to another article. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:12, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediations ==
Dr. Lucas, I have begun work on the tributes for volume 5. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Grace Notes|Grace Notes]] by Stephen Borkowski is ready for its final review.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 12:58, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} Well done! Banner removed, url added. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:18, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

==Oohh Normie Final Edits==
Hi Dr. Lucas, I have finished my article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/"Oohh_Normie_—_You're_Sooo_Hemingway":_Mailer_Memories_and_Encounters|Oohh Normie, You're Sooo Hemingway]]. Please let me know if there is anything I need to fix. [[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Tbara4554}} thank you. I made some corrections and removed the banner. You might want to have another look over it. Please move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:53, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harlot's Ghost, Bildungsroman, Masculinity and Hemingway ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Harlot%27s_Ghost,_Bildungsroman,_Masculinity_and_Hemingway

[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 21:22, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} excellent. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:39, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== I am done with this ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Situating_Hemingway:_Mailer,_Style,_Ethics
:Received. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:29, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Review PM Article ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|here]] is my remediated article, ready for review![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 12:21, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} great work. I have removed the banner, so you are good to move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:20, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have finished my remedidation project and I am ready for it to be reviewed. '''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]

Thanks,

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 13:04, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work so far. Please remove wikilinks. Change ' and " to typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. And all red errors at the bottom of the page need to be taken care of. These are likely all from coding errors in your sources. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:24, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have removed the wikilinks, changed to the correct typographic style and updated my sources.
'''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe] Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:55, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

[I forgot to fill out the summary box. I am adding my summary]
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you're getting there! It looks great. You must eliminate all the red errors at the bottom. These appear when there are errors in your citations. Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:15, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

@{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything I can think of and I still have harv and sfn no-target errors and harv and sfn multiple-target errors and cs1 uses editors parameter. Do I not include the editor? [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 16:03, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have managed to get rid of two of the red target errors. I am still working on finding the harv sfn multiple target error. Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 20:37, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything i can think of to remove the last red error flag. I had to turn it in. I don't know that else I can do in this situation. I was given citation that did not follow any of the given formats. [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:45, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} all parenthetical citations must be remediated to {{tl|sfn}}; none of yours are. Get these done, then we can worry about the errors. (Some notes on sources: any generic <code><nowiki>{{citation}}</nowiki></code> will not be correct. I see you have a book review by Marshall that has no source (I tried to find the original and cannot; this is a weird citation; I'll continue to look for it). There's also one that looks like a film that should use the [[w:Template:Cite AV media|<code>Cite AV media</code> template]].) Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:16, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Submission ==

Hello!
Here's my remediated article; [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Devil's_Party:_Reading_and_Wreaking_Vengeance_in_The_Castle_in_the_Forest|The Devil's Party: Reading and Wreaking Vengeance in ''The Castle in the Forest'']].
Thanks! Please let me know if there's anything I can review or correct.
[[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 13:23, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} nice work! Banner removed, so please move on to something else in the volume. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Vol. 4: Rumors of Grace article remediated ==

I believe I have completed remediation of ''[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Rumors_of_Grace:_God-Language_in_Hemingway_and_Mailer|Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer]]'', vol. 4. I was having last-minute trouble with sfn errors for sources without authors, but Justin Kilchenmann helped me out, so I think they are fixed.
:{{Reply to|Sherrilledwards}} You have done a remarkable job—a real Herculean effort! Footnotes should not go in any notes. See those I changed; the others should be changed in the same way. I have done some, but the others have to be fixed, I'm afraid. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}}I believe I have completed these fixes, so the article is again ready for review. [[User:Sherrilledwards|Sherrilledwards]] ([[User talk:Sherrilledwards|talk]]) 15:49, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to| Sherrilledwards}} truly exceptional work—a model remediation! Marked as complete. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:30, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

Hi Dr. Lucas - I have finished remediating the article, [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Inside Norman Mailer|Inside Norman Mailer]]. Please let me know if I need to make any adjustments. Thank you! [[User:Chelsey.brantley|Chelsey.brantley]] ([[User talk:Chelsey.brantley|talk]]) 18:09, 7 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Chelsey.brantley}} good work! Please help with another article from volume 4. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:36, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

I hope I am doing this is right. I have finished remediating my article about Norman Mailer and its in my designated sandbox [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer:_Playboy_Magazine_Heavyweight here.]
If there are any last minute edits, let me know. I got the last of the errors removed yesterday. And I believe we are on the same page with leaving the in-line citations for ''Playboy'' to be as is, since the author didn't put them down in the works cited. [[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:14, 7 April 2025 (EDT)Nina Mizner
:{{Reply to|NrmMGA5108}} looking good! So, the parenthetical citations still in the article, I'm assuming, are there because of those missing sources? Please check your page numbers; some seem to be off. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:04, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I found the page number error and its corrected, and yes all the parenthetical citations should be referencing issues of the ''playboy'' magazine, which were not listed in the works cited. --[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| NrmMGA5108}} it looks great. I removed the banner! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:29, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Remediation From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity? ==

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

I also made additional edits to my short footnotes and noticed that my citations did not link to my references - which has been fixed.

I have tested all of my citations, and they all work.

Here is my article by Alexander Hicks, ''From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity?''

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/From_Here_to_Eternity_and_The_Naked_and_the_Dead:_Premiere_to_Eternity%3F

Have a great day.
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} Please always sign your talk page posts. Several “quoted items” in the article appear as ‘quoted items’; these must be corrected, please. No spaces or returns should surround {{tl|pg}} calls. Multiple page numbers should look like this <code><nowiki>{{sfn|Moretti|1996|pp=11-14}}</nowiki></code>; note the double <code>pp</code>. There seem to be many typos. I corrected some for you, but you must see to the rest. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:16, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

Are these the only additional corrections that need to be made? This is different from what you mentioned before.

I just want to be sure that I have hit everything.

Also can you verify what other typos you are seeing, I have ran through this twice.

If something is spelt a certain way, for example "Soljer", I have left it that way. Since it is mentioned like that in the article.
—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 06:49, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

I have gone through and fixed all of the short footnotes.

I have gone line by line with a ruler to look at any typos, and fixed the words that I found that had a dash in them/needed to be lowercased.

I have also fixed the quotations.

—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 12:31, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} much better. Periods go inside quotations marks; I think I fixed these, but please check. Also, there are no spaces before footnotes; again, I did a find/replace, but you should check. Also, check that all titles of novels are italicized (if it's italicized in the PDF, then it has to be italicized in the remediation, including abbreviations, like ''Naked''); I fixed a couple. Also, no extra spaces; there should only be a single blank space between paragraphs. There are quite a few little details that needed (need?) fixing. I removed the banner, but please check my work. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 12:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon” ==

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

=Remediation of "Cluster Seeds and the Mailer Legacy"=
Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have completed the remediation of [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Cluster_Seeds_and_the_Mailer_Legacy&oldid=18200| my article], and it is ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 11:32, 8 April 2025 (EDT)@ADavis
:{{Reply to| ADavis}} got it. I think I check it yesterday and removed the banner then. Please move on to another piece. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediating Article: Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing Volume 4. ==

Hello Dr. Lucas,

I have completed remediating my article. Here is the link [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|The Mailer Review: Volume 4: Mailer, Hemingway, Boxing (2010)]] [[User:JBrown|JBrown]] ([[User talk:JBrown|talk]]) 13:01, 8 April 2025 (EDT)JBrown
:{{Reply to|JBrown}} a good start, but all parenthetical citations need to be footnotes. Also, check your headers. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norris Church Mailer'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up remediating the article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer|Norris Church Mailer]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 13:42, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Kamyers}} awesome work! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

I hope I am doing this right. Here is the link for my completed Remediation article: [http://The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Encounters_with_Mailer Encounters with Mailer].

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

Patrick Riley
:{{Reply to|Priley1984}} thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:40, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place ==

Link:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_An_Expected_Encounter_in_an_Unexpected_Place

Winnie Verna
:{{Reply to|Wverna}} received, thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:51, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== E.Mosley ==

Good evening, @Grlucas. I have completed my Remediation Articles[[https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/On_Reading_Mailer_Too_Young]]. The article I had was " On Reading Mailer Too Young Volume 4, 2010
:{{Reply to| Essence903m}} thank you. I had to fix and clean-up quite a bit. Your saves also do not include summaries. When you move on to your next article, please be more careful and follow the instructions. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Kynndra Watson ==

Good Evening, @grlucas. i have completed my Remediation articles: Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law and Volume 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D.

Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} thank you, and this is a good start, but there are still many items that need to be cleaned up, like footnote indications (They go after punctuation), citation errors (all the red errors at the bottom need to be seen to), extra spaces and ALL CAPS need to be removed. Please see other completed articles for models. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:18, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/What Would Be the Fun of That?|"What Would Be the Fun of That?"]] by Peter Alson.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:33, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} awesome! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:21, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “Remembering Norris Church” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris Church|“Remembering Norris Church”]] by John Bowers.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 16:17, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} and again, excellent! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:22, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “The Norris I Knew” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/The Norris I Knew|“The Norris I Knew”]] by Christopher Busa.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:04, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} rockin’! 👍🏼 —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Norris Mailer" Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Norris Mailer|"Norris Mailer"]] by Nancy Collins.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} thanks again. You’re tearing it up. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:32, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Rise Above It|"Rise Above It"]] by David Ebershoff—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 11:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} excellent. Many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:15, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Additional Articles ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have remediated [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/A_View_Through_the_Prism&oldid=18744|"A View Through the Prism"], [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/Lip_Liner|"Lip Liner"], and [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Living_Room_Show#|"The Living Room Show"] in Volume 5. They are ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 12:31, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ADavis}} great work. Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:26, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

Dr. Lucas - I sent a Talk Page notification that I had completed the page I remediated on 29 March. The table indicates I haven't done anything yet. I sent it from the Talk Page from the article site. I don't see a response from that notification, but I had received one from you earlier in the process.
I don't understand what happened.

[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 14:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|LogansPop22}} sorry if I missed that. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works|this article]], right? It's looking great, though all the parenthetical citations must be converted to footnotes using {{tl|sfn}} and some of the author names in your notes should use {{tl|harvtxt}}. I added the "citations" section for you. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law ==

@Grlucas, I have made some additional edits to this [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law article] in Volume 5 by correcting most of the citations. There are 2 that still do not work, but I think that is because the sources are incomplete.

[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 21:16, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TPoole}} Looking really good, and this is a complicated one. A couple of things: no spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}; I removed the spaces before {{tl|sfn}}, but you might want to check them; there are some typos, like missing spaces before some parentheses; no footnotes should appear in the notes section: use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead. And all the red errors at the bottom need to be cleared up. Great work so far! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:00, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Red Error-Gone ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}I have deleted all the sfn's and the red error is gone. I don't know why I didn't think about this days ago.

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe|Gladstein-Monroe]]

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 23:07, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} getting closer. A few things: you should use <code>|author-mask=1</code> for repeated author names in your works cited; all parenthetical citations need to be replaced with footnotes using {{tl|sfn}}; must punctuation in your sources need to be removed as the templates do that for you; and you need to use {{tl|harvtxt}} for citations in your endnotes. Also, letters and films have their own templates. I did a couple of these for you as examples. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:14, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris|"Remembering Norris"]] by Margo Howard.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:20, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Norman Mailer: From Orgone Accumulator to Cancer Protection for Schizophrenics ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_From_Orgone_Accumulator_to_Cancer_Protection_for_Schizophrenics

I was unable to find the correct format for the first works cited entry under Mailer. It is a reprint of a magazine article. Thank you. [[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 16:28, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} you are a master remediator! Thank you for going above and beyond. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:44, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

==Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Trust & Sparring with Norman==
Dr. Lucas, these were some of the smaller ones, so I went ahead and knocked them out. They are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Sparring with Norman|Sparring with Norman]], [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Trust|Trust]], and [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls|Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 10:27, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Kamyers}} all excellent—above and beyond! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing'' ==

Hi everyone,
I am currently helping with the article, [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Death,_Art,_and_the_Disturbing:_Hemingway_and_Mailer_and_the_Art_of_Writing Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing]. It still has a good bit to go, if anyone wants to help out.
—[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 5:17 PM, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} thanks! I added the author info. I'm not sure many will see your request; you might want to post it on the forum. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:56, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Thank you for adding the author information and I have posted the request in the forum. Thank you! —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:CVinson|talk]]) 6:53 PM, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Mimi and Mercer ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have corrected the Mimi Gladstein [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Piling On: Norman Mailer’s Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]] and removed all the red errors. I also have finishe the Erin Mercer article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Automatons and the Atomic Abyss: The Naked and the Dead]], except the ''The Naked and the Dead'' in the display title. An error occured.
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 19:26, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work. There should be no footnotes in the endnotes, please. Since this is the only thing to correct, I have removed the banner, but please let me know when you made that final correction. Thanks! (I will respond about your second article shortly.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:59, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} your second article looks good. Could you use the [[w:Template:Cite interview|Template:Cite interview]] for interviews. I did one for you. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:33, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas! I've completed the remediation of [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Through_the_Lens_of_the_Beatniks:_Norman_Mailer_and_Modern_American_Man’s_Quest_for_Self-Realization#CITEREFNaked1992|Through the Lens of the Beatniks]]. I wasn't able to get the letter citations exactly how I thought they should be. If there's anything I'm missing, please let me know! Thanks! [[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 10:09, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} got it! It looks great. I made some format changes, but you did a great job! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 15:58, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I have made the final edit to Mimi and removed the footnotes from the endnotes. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]] [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 15:50, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you removed all the citations. Only '''footnotes''' need to be removed, but citations need to stay. I did the first note for you (now erased, but you can see it in the history) so you could see how it was done. You can also see [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer|this one]]. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:52, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe the book review, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/All_You_Need_is_Glove|All You Need is Glove]] is done and ready for review! [[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} awesome work! Banner removed, and many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:08, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I changed the citations in the article to interview and I tried a few things to get rid of the Harv and Sfn no-target with little luck. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:04, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} this was because your interviews had no dates. Most are from Lennon's book, published in 1988. I added the dates to the citations, but the sfn footnotes need to be fixed to correspond with those. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 16 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} OK, between your fixes and my little tweaks, this one is finished! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:50, 17 April 2025 (EDT)

== Erros fixed ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have fixed all citation errors in both articles and added the harvtxt. Atomic Abyss still has the Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls error.
[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} see above. These still need fixing. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} this one looks great! Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 08:23, 15 April 2025 (EDT)

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

Thanks to some classmates helping with the finishing touches, my second article should be ready. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Advertisements_for_Others:_The_Blurbs_of_Norman_Mailer|Advertisements for Others.]]
--[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 19:24, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to| NrmMGA5108}} received, and thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:15, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-18T13:05:36Z

Hobbitonya: /* Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? */ new section

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-14T23:10:49Z

Hobbitonya: /* Completed? All You Need is Glove */ new section

{{Talk header}}
[[/Archive 202504/]]

== Final edits ==
Hello, my article is complete: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Ernest_and_Norman_(Exit_Music)|Ernest and Norman (Exit Music)]]
:{{Reply to|Flowersbloom}} great, thank you. I made some corrections. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, Dr. Lucas. Below is the link to my edited article:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:ASpeed/sandbox
:{{Reply to|ASpeed}} great. Let me know when it’s finished and posted, and I’l have a look. It appears as if you still have a bit of work to do. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. I have completed most of my Remediation Articles, but I still show issues for the one named, "[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman]].

Based on the latest updates, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Battles_for_Regard,_Writerly_and_Otherwise|Battles for Regard, Writerly and Otherwise]] looks good with exception of including a '''category'''.
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} this one is good. I made some corrections before removing the banner, mostly in your sources. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

May you let me know if there is anything I can do on my end to resolve the issues with the first [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|article]]?

[[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 21:47, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} looking very good, but some sources missing page numbers. Please see to those. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

:::Thank you @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] . I will review those and respond when complete. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 22:47, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. Thank you for your feedback. A review of article additions was made for source pages. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 20:22, 11 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{Reply to| ALedezma}} ok, looking good. I made some corrections. There's one final thing to do: no footnotes should appear in the notes section; use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead; I did one to show you how to use the template. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] Changes were done to footnote sources. Thank you! [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I finished my remediation article https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 19:44, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TWietstruk}} good work so far, but there is more to do: placement of footnotes (eliminate spaces around them and punctuation always goes ''before'' the footnote.); proofread for typos; fix all red errors at the bottom (most of these are from errors in sourcing); works cited entries should be bulleted list and eliminate space between entries. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Final edit and no errors with some help from @NRMMGA5108, @JKilchenmann. Please mark me as complete. On to help someone else with the things I've learned
https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 17:52, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I have finished my assigned remediation article: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Jive-Ass_Aficionado:_Why_Are_We_in_Vietnam%3F_and_Hemingway%27s_Moral_Code#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHemingway2003-24
Username ADear.
:{{Reply to|ADear}} thank you. I have marked this as complete. Please be sure you sign your talk page posts correctly. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished remediating my assigned article. Please review it at your earliest convenience. The link is here: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer's_Mythmaking_in_An_American_Dream_and_“The_White_Negro”|Norman Mailer's Mythmaking in An American Dream and “The White Negro”]]—[[User:Erhernandez|Erhernandez]] ([[User talk:Erhernandez|talk]]) 08:52, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Erhernandez}} well done! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. I removed your banner after making a few corrections. Please have a look over it and move on to the next thing. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:06, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::@Grlucas, I have tried correcting the sfn codes in my citations. I was able to get the 2 web citations to link correctly. But for some reason, I cannot get the Mailer 1967 film Wild 90 citation to link to the reference list. Please advise. [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 20:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} OK, all fixed and published. Thanks. Please move on to another remediation. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:46, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.
:{{Reply to|APKnight25}} great work! Please help other editors to complete the volume. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:34, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} great work so far. Your references must use templates, please. Blockquotes must also be done correctly. No spaces or line breaks before or after the {{tl|pg}} template. Footnote placement is also off (punctuation goes before the footnote; no spaces before or after the footnote). I will add the abstract and url. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:30, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe there have been some updates made to the project. I believe I have also updated the works cited section to show correct templates. Please let me know if there is anything further that I need to do. Thank you, Caitlin.
::{{reply to| CVinson}} please sign your talk page posts correctly. Thanks. You still need to do some work on the sources. Use the <code>|author-mask=1</code> in your template for repeated author names. Also, you must eliminate the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” message at the bottom. No spaces or returns before or after the {{tl|pg}} call, as I already mentioned above. No parenthetical citations should be left, either; those should all be remediated to footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:50, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I have updated the sources and updated the in-text citations. I am still having trouble with the "Harv and Sfn no-target errors." I have not been successful in fixing this error and have tried multiple ways to fix it. —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 8:18, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

::::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I see that I still have a red X for my remediation assignment. Is there something else I am still missing? —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{reply to| CVinson}} sorry, I'm just getting back to it. There are quite a few punctuation errors. Some left out and others appear after the {{tl|sfn}}. I'm trying to correct those I see, but you should have a look, too. Page is designated as <code>p=</code> in {{tl|sfn}}, not <code>pg=</code>; and a span of pages needs <code>pp=</code>. Again, I have tried to correct these. I removed the banner, but please have another look through. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:01, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norman Mailer Today'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up my remediation article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer Today|Norman Mailer Today]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 18:20, 3 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Kamyers}} Great work! Please help your fellow editors finish the volume, or pick something to work on in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010|Volume 4]]. Thanks, and well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:00, 4 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of “The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished my remediation of Jennifer Yirinec's article: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”|The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”]] Thank you for your assistance with the article. It is ready for its final review! [[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 10:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} a stellar job. Well done. I removed the banner, so you can move on to another article. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:12, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediations ==
Dr. Lucas, I have begun work on the tributes for volume 5. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Grace Notes|Grace Notes]] by Stephen Borkowski is ready for its final review.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 12:58, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} Well done! Banner removed, url added. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:18, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

==Oohh Normie Final Edits==
Hi Dr. Lucas, I have finished my article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/"Oohh_Normie_—_You're_Sooo_Hemingway":_Mailer_Memories_and_Encounters|Oohh Normie, You're Sooo Hemingway]]. Please let me know if there is anything I need to fix. [[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Tbara4554}} thank you. I made some corrections and removed the banner. You might want to have another look over it. Please move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:53, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harlot's Ghost, Bildungsroman, Masculinity and Hemingway ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Harlot%27s_Ghost,_Bildungsroman,_Masculinity_and_Hemingway

[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 21:22, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} excellent. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:39, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== I am done with this ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Situating_Hemingway:_Mailer,_Style,_Ethics
:Received. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:29, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Review PM Article ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|here]] is my remediated article, ready for review![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 12:21, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} great work. I have removed the banner, so you are good to move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:20, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have finished my remedidation project and I am ready for it to be reviewed. '''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]

Thanks,

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 13:04, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work so far. Please remove wikilinks. Change ' and " to typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. And all red errors at the bottom of the page need to be taken care of. These are likely all from coding errors in your sources. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:24, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have removed the wikilinks, changed to the correct typographic style and updated my sources.
'''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe] Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:55, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

[I forgot to fill out the summary box. I am adding my summary]
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you're getting there! It looks great. You must eliminate all the red errors at the bottom. These appear when there are errors in your citations. Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:15, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

@{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything I can think of and I still have harv and sfn no-target errors and harv and sfn multiple-target errors and cs1 uses editors parameter. Do I not include the editor? [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 16:03, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have managed to get rid of two of the red target errors. I am still working on finding the harv sfn multiple target error. Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 20:37, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything i can think of to remove the last red error flag. I had to turn it in. I don't know that else I can do in this situation. I was given citation that did not follow any of the given formats. [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:45, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} all parenthetical citations must be remediated to {{tl|sfn}}; none of yours are. Get these done, then we can worry about the errors. (Some notes on sources: any generic <code><nowiki>{{citation}}</nowiki></code> will not be correct. I see you have a book review by Marshall that has no source (I tried to find the original and cannot; this is a weird citation; I'll continue to look for it). There's also one that looks like a film that should use the [[w:Template:Cite AV media|<code>Cite AV media</code> template]].) Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:16, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Submission ==

Hello!
Here's my remediated article; [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Devil's_Party:_Reading_and_Wreaking_Vengeance_in_The_Castle_in_the_Forest|The Devil's Party: Reading and Wreaking Vengeance in ''The Castle in the Forest'']].
Thanks! Please let me know if there's anything I can review or correct.
[[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 13:23, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} nice work! Banner removed, so please move on to something else in the volume. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Vol. 4: Rumors of Grace article remediated ==

I believe I have completed remediation of ''[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Rumors_of_Grace:_God-Language_in_Hemingway_and_Mailer|Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer]]'', vol. 4. I was having last-minute trouble with sfn errors for sources without authors, but Justin Kilchenmann helped me out, so I think they are fixed.
:{{Reply to|Sherrilledwards}} You have done a remarkable job—a real Herculean effort! Footnotes should not go in any notes. See those I changed; the others should be changed in the same way. I have done some, but the others have to be fixed, I'm afraid. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}}I believe I have completed these fixes, so the article is again ready for review. [[User:Sherrilledwards|Sherrilledwards]] ([[User talk:Sherrilledwards|talk]]) 15:49, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to| Sherrilledwards}} truly exceptional work—a model remediation! Marked as complete. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:30, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

Hi Dr. Lucas - I have finished remediating the article, [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Inside Norman Mailer|Inside Norman Mailer]]. Please let me know if I need to make any adjustments. Thank you! [[User:Chelsey.brantley|Chelsey.brantley]] ([[User talk:Chelsey.brantley|talk]]) 18:09, 7 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Chelsey.brantley}} good work! Please help with another article from volume 4. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:36, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

I hope I am doing this is right. I have finished remediating my article about Norman Mailer and its in my designated sandbox [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer:_Playboy_Magazine_Heavyweight here.]
If there are any last minute edits, let me know. I got the last of the errors removed yesterday. And I believe we are on the same page with leaving the in-line citations for ''Playboy'' to be as is, since the author didn't put them down in the works cited. [[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:14, 7 April 2025 (EDT)Nina Mizner
:{{Reply to|NrmMGA5108}} looking good! So, the parenthetical citations still in the article, I'm assuming, are there because of those missing sources? Please check your page numbers; some seem to be off. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:04, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I found the page number error and its corrected, and yes all the parenthetical citations should be referencing issues of the ''playboy'' magazine, which were not listed in the works cited. --[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| NrmMGA5108}} it looks great. I removed the banner! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:29, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Remediation From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity? ==

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

I also made additional edits to my short footnotes and noticed that my citations did not link to my references - which has been fixed.

I have tested all of my citations, and they all work.

Here is my article by Alexander Hicks, ''From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity?''

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/From_Here_to_Eternity_and_The_Naked_and_the_Dead:_Premiere_to_Eternity%3F

Have a great day.
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} Please always sign your talk page posts. Several “quoted items” in the article appear as ‘quoted items’; these must be corrected, please. No spaces or returns should surround {{tl|pg}} calls. Multiple page numbers should look like this <code><nowiki>{{sfn|Moretti|1996|pp=11-14}}</nowiki></code>; note the double <code>pp</code>. There seem to be many typos. I corrected some for you, but you must see to the rest. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:16, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

Are these the only additional corrections that need to be made? This is different from what you mentioned before.

I just want to be sure that I have hit everything.

Also can you verify what other typos you are seeing, I have ran through this twice.

If something is spelt a certain way, for example "Soljer", I have left it that way. Since it is mentioned like that in the article.
—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 06:49, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

I have gone through and fixed all of the short footnotes.

I have gone line by line with a ruler to look at any typos, and fixed the words that I found that had a dash in them/needed to be lowercased.

I have also fixed the quotations.

—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 12:31, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} much better. Periods go inside quotations marks; I think I fixed these, but please check. Also, there are no spaces before footnotes; again, I did a find/replace, but you should check. Also, check that all titles of novels are italicized (if it's italicized in the PDF, then it has to be italicized in the remediation, including abbreviations, like ''Naked''); I fixed a couple. Also, no extra spaces; there should only be a single blank space between paragraphs. There are quite a few little details that needed (need?) fixing. I removed the banner, but please check my work. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 12:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon” ==

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

=Remediation of "Cluster Seeds and the Mailer Legacy"=
Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have completed the remediation of [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Cluster_Seeds_and_the_Mailer_Legacy&oldid=18200| my article], and it is ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 11:32, 8 April 2025 (EDT)@ADavis
:{{Reply to| ADavis}} got it. I think I check it yesterday and removed the banner then. Please move on to another piece. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediating Article: Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing Volume 4. ==

Hello Dr. Lucas,

I have completed remediating my article. Here is the link [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|The Mailer Review: Volume 4: Mailer, Hemingway, Boxing (2010)]] [[User:JBrown|JBrown]] ([[User talk:JBrown|talk]]) 13:01, 8 April 2025 (EDT)JBrown
:{{Reply to|JBrown}} a good start, but all parenthetical citations need to be footnotes. Also, check your headers. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norris Church Mailer'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up remediating the article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer|Norris Church Mailer]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 13:42, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Kamyers}} awesome work! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

I hope I am doing this right. Here is the link for my completed Remediation article: [http://The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Encounters_with_Mailer Encounters with Mailer].

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

Patrick Riley
:{{Reply to|Priley1984}} thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:40, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place ==

Link:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_An_Expected_Encounter_in_an_Unexpected_Place

Winnie Verna
:{{Reply to|Wverna}} received, thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:51, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== E.Mosley ==

Good evening, @Grlucas. I have completed my Remediation Articles[[https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/On_Reading_Mailer_Too_Young]]. The article I had was " On Reading Mailer Too Young Volume 4, 2010
:{{Reply to| Essence903m}} thank you. I had to fix and clean-up quite a bit. Your saves also do not include summaries. When you move on to your next article, please be more careful and follow the instructions. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Kynndra Watson ==

Good Evening, @grlucas. i have completed my Remediation articles: Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law and Volume 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D.

Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} thank you, and this is a good start, but there are still many items that need to be cleaned up, like footnote indications (They go after punctuation), citation errors (all the red errors at the bottom need to be seen to), extra spaces and ALL CAPS need to be removed. Please see other completed articles for models. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:18, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/What Would Be the Fun of That?|"What Would Be the Fun of That?"]] by Peter Alson.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:33, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} awesome! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:21, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “Remembering Norris Church” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris Church|“Remembering Norris Church”]] by John Bowers.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 16:17, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} and again, excellent! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:22, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “The Norris I Knew” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/The Norris I Knew|“The Norris I Knew”]] by Christopher Busa.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:04, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} rockin’! 👍🏼 —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Norris Mailer" Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Norris Mailer|"Norris Mailer"]] by Nancy Collins.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} thanks again. You’re tearing it up. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:32, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Rise Above It|"Rise Above It"]] by David Ebershoff—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 11:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} excellent. Many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:15, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Additional Articles ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have remediated [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/A_View_Through_the_Prism&oldid=18744|"A View Through the Prism"], [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/Lip_Liner|"Lip Liner"], and [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Living_Room_Show#|"The Living Room Show"] in Volume 5. They are ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 12:31, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ADavis}} great work. Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:26, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

Dr. Lucas - I sent a Talk Page notification that I had completed the page I remediated on 29 March. The table indicates I haven't done anything yet. I sent it from the Talk Page from the article site. I don't see a response from that notification, but I had received one from you earlier in the process.
I don't understand what happened.

[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 14:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|LogansPop22}} sorry if I missed that. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works|this article]], right? It's looking great, though all the parenthetical citations must be converted to footnotes using {{tl|sfn}} and some of the author names in your notes should use {{tl|harvtxt}}. I added the "citations" section for you. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law ==

@Grlucas, I have made some additional edits to this [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law article] in Volume 5 by correcting most of the citations. There are 2 that still do not work, but I think that is because the sources are incomplete.

[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 21:16, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TPoole}} Looking really good, and this is a complicated one. A couple of things: no spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}; I removed the spaces before {{tl|sfn}}, but you might want to check them; there are some typos, like missing spaces before some parentheses; no footnotes should appear in the notes section: use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead. And all the red errors at the bottom need to be cleared up. Great work so far! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:00, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Red Error-Gone ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}I have deleted all the sfn's and the red error is gone. I don't know why I didn't think about this days ago.

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe|Gladstein-Monroe]]

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 23:07, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} getting closer. A few things: you should use <code>|author-mask=1</code> for repeated author names in your works cited; all parenthetical citations need to be replaced with footnotes using {{tl|sfn}}; must punctuation in your sources need to be removed as the templates do that for you; and you need to use {{tl|harvtxt}} for citations in your endnotes. Also, letters and films have their own templates. I did a couple of these for you as examples. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:14, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris|"Remembering Norris"]] by Margo Howard.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:20, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Norman Mailer: From Orgone Accumulator to Cancer Protection for Schizophrenics ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_From_Orgone_Accumulator_to_Cancer_Protection_for_Schizophrenics

I was unable to find the correct format for the first works cited entry under Mailer. It is a reprint of a magazine article. Thank you. [[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 16:28, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} you are a master remediator! Thank you for going above and beyond. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:44, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

==Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Trust & Sparring with Norman==
Dr. Lucas, these were some of the smaller ones, so I went ahead and knocked them out. They are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Sparring with Norman|Sparring with Norman]], [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Trust|Trust]], and [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls|Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 10:27, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Kamyers}} all excellent—above and beyond! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing'' ==

Hi everyone,
I am currently helping with the article, [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Death,_Art,_and_the_Disturbing:_Hemingway_and_Mailer_and_the_Art_of_Writing Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing]. It still has a good bit to go, if anyone wants to help out.
—[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 5:17 PM, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} thanks! I added the author info. I'm not sure many will see your request; you might want to post it on the forum. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:56, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Thank you for adding the author information and I have posted the request in the forum. Thank you! —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:CVinson|talk]]) 6:53 PM, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Mimi and Mercer ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have corrected the Mimi Gladstein [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Piling On: Norman Mailer’s Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]] and removed all the red errors. I also have finishe the Erin Mercer article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Automatons and the Atomic Abyss: The Naked and the Dead]], except the ''The Naked and the Dead'' in the display title. An error occured.
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 19:26, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work. There should be no footnotes in the endnotes, please. Since this is the only thing to correct, I have removed the banner, but please let me know when you made that final correction. Thanks! (I will respond about your second article shortly.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:59, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} your second article looks good. Could you use the [[w:Template:Cite interview|Template:Cite interview]] for interviews. I did one for you. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:33, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas! I've completed the remediation of [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Through_the_Lens_of_the_Beatniks:_Norman_Mailer_and_Modern_American_Man’s_Quest_for_Self-Realization#CITEREFNaked1992|Through the Lens of the Beatniks]]. I wasn't able to get the letter citations exactly how I thought they should be. If there's anything I'm missing, please let me know! Thanks! [[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 10:09, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} got it! It looks great. I made some format changes, but you did a great job! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 15:58, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I have made the final edit to Mimi and removed the footnotes from the endnotes. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]] [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 15:50, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you removed all the citations. Only '''footnotes''' need to be removed, but citations need to stay. I did the first note for you (now erased, but you can see it in the history) so you could see how it was done. You can also see [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer|this one]]. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:52, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe the book review, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/All_You_Need_is_Glove|All You Need is Glove]] is done and ready for review! [[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/All You Need is Glove

2025-04-14T23:06:05Z

Hobbitonya: added page numbers

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/All You Need is Glove}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}

{{BookReview
| title = Fighters and Writers
| author = John G. Rodwan, Jr.
| location= Norman, OK
| pub = Mongrel Empire Press
| date = 2010
| pages = 222 pp.
| type = Paperback
| price = 18.00
| note =
| first = Sal
| last = Cetrano
| link =
| url =
}}

Clichés walk a long road. They don’t start out the sorry, threadbare creatures we finally make some out to be, bumbling and clutching at straws, but once were young and thoroughly of their time, cracking wise at parties and stoking dying talk. That boxers and journalists are somehow cut from the same cloth or share some wild atavistic gene has stoked individual imagination and shaped American popular culture, occasionally touching upon history, for better than a century, a long, if not unbroken, line.

In his essentially titled collection of essays, ''Fighters and Writers,'' John Rodwan Jr., a veteran observer of the boxing scene, as well as a respected commentator on jazz and American social change, leads us on such a wide-ranging expedition, through the parallel histories and changing roles of these sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-infamous occupations, as seen from forefronts of masculinity and violence, race and identity, image and reality.

Byron and Keats were boxing fans. Conan Doyle made Sherlock Holmes an amateur pugilist. Jack London led a search for a “Great White Hope.” George Orwell, who would have much to say about violence, was a schoolboy boxer, and Albert Camus a capable amateur. George Bernard Shaw, Dashiell Hammett, Charles Bukowski ... the roster of boxing’s bedazzled is both pedigreed and diverse.

There are, of course, the familiar exploits of those who themselves famously laced up the gloves: Hemingway, A.J.Liebling, Plimpton, and Mailer.{{pg|521|522}}
Scott Fitzgerald, object of platonic passion, manages to bruise a hapless Papa, head and heart, without tossing a punch, and even Oscar Wilde makes an unexpected appearance.

''The Ali Act,'' not surprisingly, is Rodwan’s starting point, an acknowledgment of that magical confluence of a phenomenal boxer and one of the most turbulent eras in American history. Before rap music’s arid syntax of bluster and threat, greed and lust, spastic id and unwarranted ego, Ali gushed flowers, effortless as waterfall, always of the moment, even his harshest invective laced with poetry, and always that wicked motherlove smile.

Principally through the duelling biographical attitudes of several dons of “Ali Studies,” Rodwan conducts the flood of critical opinion surrounding Ali, from opprobrium to adulation. Mark Kram questions Ali’s intelligence and incisive wit. A fatigued Michael Arkush cannot finally see past Ali’s façade, distinguish hero from hype. Mike Marquesee sees the champ as humanist and iconoclast, a deft and instinctive molder of attitudes. Thomas Hauser goes one better: Ali “changed the experience of being black.”

Whether as “emblem of black pride,” “embodiment of rebellion,” or “surest sign of capitalism’s capacity to transform almost anything into a commodity,” Rodwan leads us through the measured schizophrenia of America embracing a separationist Civil Rights hero and pacifist warrior, simple poet and disturbingly complex thinker.
In the end as much a product of self-promoter supreme Gorgeous George as of either Angelo Dundee or Malcolm X, Ali becomes symbolic of a myriad of things to a myriad of observers with different axes to grind, until in danger of becoming “a generic representative of greatness.”

Rodwan helps to sort out this heavyweight welter of sport, politics, celebrity and pop psychology in which so many were able to see exactly what they wanted to see (a McLuhanism comes to mind: “I wouldn‘t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”): prismatic Ali the apparent envy of scribes less facile at persuasive charm, guile and misdirection, without which narrative does not dance, but sags into the canvas.
E. M. Forster used the phrase “the beast and the monk” to describe man’s unsettling duality. (Feel free to insert the author of your choice here.) We are given a prime example of this in ''Seeing Stars,'' where James Toback’s dark film portrait ''Tyson'' is examined. Tyson, as iconic of his time as Ali of a flowery, more dramatic era, was arguably as adept at the concept of {{pg|522|523}} creating and inhabiting roles as Ali, but without what Rodman identifies as the successful fighter or writer’s aspirational ability to adapt and control.

We gawk in ''Tyson'' at a haunted man, strange yet familiar, his remorse and self-loathing convincing beyond craft, bizarrely framed by a filmmaker more arch than artist. The savage mauler of memory sits stonily in mood-lit profile, Hamlet as Elephant Man, and fed doctored reflections.
Veteran fight fans will remember the bashful, wounded boy and respectful student of boxing history that Tyson, under the nurture of Cus D’Amato and Jimmy Jacobs, once was. For a strange, brief time the confident, self proclaimed “master of skullduggery,” Tyson’s eyes now wander past the camera into the dark, onto the blank page of his next incarnation, and you sense the wordless terror at the gaping task of filling it.

Rodwan reminds us that Iron Mike “enjoyed outsmarting others as a criminal,” but we are also reminded of the boy “living in constant fear” of being bullied in the “horrific” streets of Brownsville. At root of the baleful, psyche-shrinking legend, that of the rapacious, baby-eating ''bête noire,'' is the frightened child-man still in the process of growing up. Yet when D’Amato tells him that it was Ali’s personality that made him a great fighter, Tyson does not understand. Ali, Rodwan tells us, perfected the writerly capacity “for ceaseless reinvention.” The contrast here with Tyson is, in the strictest sense of the word, pathetic. It is pure ''schadenfreude,'' with not a penny’s worth of difference between the most depraved ringsider screaming for blood and the armchair moralist deriving satisfaction at the ''auto de fé'' of this tragic soul.

In ''The Cinderella Man Fairytale,'' Rodwan brings to earth the myth of James J.Braddock, “a strong but limited fighter” who succeeded little in life’s basic tests, but rode an inspirational wave as one of the first to tap a boxer’s “special capacity to become emblematic figures of their time.” Rodwan echoes the familiar—and cinematic—notion that certain eras in history cry out for heroes, searching for the genuine and admirable in the contrasting personalities of the prosaic stevedore Braddock and the flashy but lackadaisical Max Baer, who presaged the media-milkers to come more than the laconic Louis, who was soon to stand colossus-like astride a rare, exhilarating confluence of fistic spectacle and world history.

Although Braddock biographer Jeremy Shaap’s assertion that “great champions usually are fashioned by adversity” serves as stirring paean to all who fashioned lives beneath the Great Depression’s boot, Rodwan reels this {{pg|523|524}} in as “far too simplistic.” Both in fiction and the ring, the buffered version “Hard times don’t create heroes; they reveal them” is probably nearer the truth. “''The Cinderella Man'' Fairytale,” sets the stage for later champions whose adversities will be measured on wholly different scales.

Although a bit disjointed—the essays are neither closely connected nor presented as such—Rodwan is steadily engaging. Some of Rodwan’s personal essays, as much of life’s soft parade, are trivial. In ''Weight Loss: A Love Story,'' Rodwan weds logic to romance through the scrupulous gleaning of the proper foods for his hypoglycemic wife, while providing quixotic inspiration through his own gut-busting exertions. We get the practical appreciation of a fighter’s heart in a slightly-saggy everyman’s body. Boxing, the author maintains, being a sport where a fighter’s inattention to his weight can have fell consequence, gave him “a perspective on size, one that I found changed as my body did.” The equation between self-image and exercise as a habit, then, defines the price of admission to the boxer’s world.
Rodwan’s peregrinations are wide: from weight loss to Melville’s use of what Liebling termed “labyrinthine digressions” in ''Moby-Dick;'' what book dedications apparent and lesser known (''Fighters and Writers'' is dedicated to Jose Torres, whom only death could KO)reveal about the headwaters of creation; the “tribal” fractiousness of state boxing commissions in ''There Are No Easy Answers'' to the futility of “health and safety” measures in a sport bent on focused destruction in—whatelse— ''Health & Safety;''the habits of jaguars or James Bond girls, or the use of repetition in the bodies of authors’ work.

Wander as he might, Rodwan is an effective gate-keeper, no musing too far from his unifying thesis: that boxing is a significant window on both the human condition and pivotal historic events.

''A First Class Sport'' is a breath of fresh air along Rodman’s promenade. The phrase was coined by everybody’s favorite tough-guy president, Teddy Roosevelt, who as New York’s police commissioner, when cops still rode horses, staunchly averred that “the establishment of a boxing club in a tough neighborhood always tended to do away with knifing and gun-fighting among the young fellows who would otherwise have been in murderous gangs.” First as governor, then as president, he would occasionally don the gloves, not leery of making a bad impression.

Trainer and boxing commentator Teddy Atlas traces his long career to “boxing in an old laundry room in a rough project.” Boxing programs, he insists, give kids “care, direction, instruction, discipline, accountability and {{pg|524|525}} dreams.” Katherine Dunn maintains that women as well as men stand to benefit from the sport’s contributions to an “individual’s reflexes, stamina and strength.” Linked as it is to the survival instinct, she sees “the aggressiveness of boxing as a positive good.”

A twelve-year-old Cassius Clay’s first trainer is a policeman in a neighborhood gym, where the pumped-up boy has come to report a stolen bicycle. Larry Holmes, who before following Ali as heavyweight champion had been a petty criminal and drug dealer, boxes first as a boy in PAL-organized bouts in Pennsylvania. Few writers could more eloquently express than the stolid ex-champion why he found himself through boxing, or the sport’s broader significance: “People express themselves differently. Painters paint, writers write, dancers dance. I discovered I needed physical contact to let what was in me come out.”

The mantra is repeated, old hand after old hand: how boxing helps young men “overcome long odds, just to be strong and functional.” Where else might young men hone these qualities today? It is a sobering thought.

It is perhaps useful to view writers of Rodwan’s age—and, if we’re fortunate, scholarship—as a bridge between journalistic generations, as the grand, insipid machinations explored in “Is Martin Amos Serious?”, a cautionary tale of polysyllabic bitch-slapping between effete critic and self-appointed social visionary in the post-Vietnam era, might seem truly other-worldly to a masculinity cut of the Hemingway-Miller-Mailer model or the Runyunesque romanticism of just-plain, tabloid-reading guys and dolls.

In so many Depression era movies—think ''His Girl Friday'' or ''Kid Dynamite''—there is a hairy vitality in which words are punches, clever dialogue the bob and weave. A choice put-down is comparable to a jab, a prolonged exchange—often between man and woman—a promoter’s dream of well-matched battlers. Reporters are scoop-driven individualists, resourceful and combative, or cigar-chomping cynics, sparring with snappy gangster patter. Writers romanticized, or were romanticized by, action in barroom, alley or ring, in corrida or on safari.

Over the years, muscular exercises in ribald badinage such as Pat and Mike and ''The Philadelphia Story'' established a salutary pugilism between clever men and women, toothsome adversaries, bent on loosing kindred angels from first row to balcony. Violence was mostly theatrical, and the theater had walls.

No more.{{pg|525|526}}

The journalist, however intrepid or self-possessed, confronting what Amis calls “a world of perfect terror and perfect boredom,” is faced with the same dilemma as the other-directed, would-be reader. He is caught in a world where the numbing possibility of extreme, sudden violence is all around, while incidents of personal involvement with violence and tests of imminent physical danger become ever fewer, an inexpressible irony no poultice of gadgetry and spattered crimson image can mollify.

There is no stylistic shortcut for the writer who would wear Hemingway’s hat. How to convey, in Mailer’s words, “not only the fear of getting hurt, which is profound in more men than will admit to it, but . . . the opposite panic, equally unadmitted, of hurting others” without having drunk of both fountains? Charlatan! Fop! Poseur!

If, then, few of us face real violence on an imminent basis in a sanitized, secularized, keep-everybody-alive, everybody’s-a-star world, what then are “life-and-death” or “fight-or-flight” but desiccated phrases in lives passively and dutifully led? Boxing has all but disappeared from the public eye today. “Mixed martial arts,” with its gladiatorial setting, heightened ceiling of violence and ignominious possibility of “submission,” has at least temporarily cornered the attention of erstwhile boxing fans. Motion pictures, replete with superheroes who neither sweat nor bleed, facile special effects and editing friendly to the goldfish attention span of a generation raised on television, have largely replaced the novel as the preferred vehicle of narrative expression. Newspapers are an endangered species, with a surfeit of commentators clinging jealously to odd perches in the blogosphere, desperate to attract attention.

Were Hemingway to rise from the dead, would anybody notice?

There is in Rodwan the suggestion that today’s writer, self-appointed priest in a vanishing church of print, wears uneasily a burden of responsibility to taste life at its extremes, the better to proffer menus to the meek. The parallel between fighter and writer becomes more the whimsical conceit of the writer, anxious of the masculinity of his chosen bread and butter, sublimating with virtuosity what cannot be shown in action.

Rodwan offers the familiar premise: it is boxing’s skill, honed in solitude through training and discipline, together with an inner strength that separates champion from journeyman, contender from “opponent.” “Fighters,” he avers, “are athletes, not brutes.” What, then, of those who presume to explain them?{{pg|526|527}}

Although he likens the “artful evisceration” of critics trying to “outshine Amis’s authorial flair” to “a degraded version of Ali’s style of taunting his opponents,” it is clear that the tenuous metaphor between boxing and violence has come under considerable strain, with ad hominem and hyperbole increasingly the arsenal of the infuriated and morally outraged, where pointed plain speaking once sufficed. Fathers who did not dance have sons who play air guitar. While the spectacle of boxing has, to be sure, changed little, the nature of violence, as Amis insists in his “The Second Plane,” has.

“The Fighting Life” looks at the use of boxing in the fiction of two literary giants, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer. In “The Human Stain,” Roth’s Coleman Silk, a light-skinned black who succeeds in convincing the world, including a wife, that he is a nappy-haired, sallow-skinned Jew, flowers a lifelong self-image based on boxing metaphors: “the pleasures and uses of concealment” . . . “taking the measure of every last situation,” “heeding the internal voice that counsels.” These dovetail nicely with “the boxer’s tough guy code” often espoused by Mailer: disguising intentions, never letting your thoughts be known or your guard down, self-knowledge as power, all to be found in Mailer’s ''tour de force'' of baroque violence, ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' and epic ''The Fight.''

Silk’s personal struggle for identity is mirrored in and magnified by the national catharsis of Joe Louis’s symbolic slaying of Nazism’s vaunted ''übermensch''—poor, kindly Max Schmeling, a man who would later befriend Louis, even pay for his burial—as fully conflating Max Baer’s “situational” Jewishness to democracy as Mailer later does blackness to boxing.

As Rodman’s many-voiced analysis of this episode infers, the lippy Ali and the laconic Louis each jogged people free of preconceptions, but did it in different ways. To some extent each was a helpless fulcrum for forces playing out about them. Louis, by and large, had only to go with history’s flow, Fate having provided no lesser dragon than Hitler for him to slay. Before even entering the ring for Louis-Schmeling II, Louis was a champion on multiple levels. He was not, as Jack Johnson had been, the black fighting the white; he was the American fighting the German.

The wind that blew at Louis’s back was comparable in intensity to the evil inexorably rising in Europe, a conception eagerly reinforced by patriotic journalists, awash in the infinite possibilities of good versus evil, light versus dark, slavery versus liberation. Silk, a classics professor, tells his students that “all of European literature springs from a fight,” referring to ''The Iliad’s''{{pg|527|528}} “barroom brawl between Achilles and Agamemnon.” He finds integrity in the inner consistency of his life of misdirection and disguise, just as “Mailer forged a fighter’s persona for himself” which even caustic critics unwittingly bolstered to the writer’s ongoing advantage.

You can almost hear Mailer chuckling when, in ''The Spooky Art,'' he refers to his being provided “a false legend of much machismo.” Yet, as one who had the pleasure of sharing a ring with the man, I can tell you it is true: when style failed, Norman would just block a punch or three with his face, bearing down, relentless, clubbing like a Kodiak bear. Those jealous of his galling facility with language, as with Amis’s detractors, will conveniently question the manhood behind the words. In the case of Norman Mailer, there was nothing false about it.

In “George and Me,” a duly reverential Rodwan echoes the view of countless readers first enthralled by ''Animal Farm'' of a saintly, prescient Orwell against a charge leveled at him, long after his death, that he had raped a woman. It is an interesting story, one I’d not heard before, and I’ll not give up the ending.

Particulars aside, we are served a meaty example—feel free to fill in your own—of how “accomplished writers may have led less than exemplary lives.” Long after high ideals emphasized in the writing “have come to be associated with the man,” to what degree can a writer’s persona be separated from his work? Should a single incident forever jaundice a gift of vision?

Recognizing that pernicious streak in man that delights in finding inconsistencies in those we hate—or grudgingly admire—Rodwan asks, “Was Orwell, decency’s advocate, merely a fraud?” The author, plainly troubled that the reputation of one synonymous with clarity and justice might be vitiated by even the rumor of a single incongruous ugliness, finds himself poring over Orwell’s collected work for any clues about his attitudes toward women. In the end,he bemoans “the inevitability of failure in reaching complete truth.”

Incidents of “justifiable violence” in the writer’s life, including a bloody involvement in the Spanish Civil War, moral crucible for a virtual squadron of writers and artists, ironically seem to buttress both sides of the dark possibility. Again citing Amis’s critics, he revisits the thin line between certain pacifists and an admiration for totalitarianism, finding there the same sort of narrowmindedness that would sully a career so esteemed as Orwell’s for the questionable goal of striking a vein of inconsistency in a mountain of verity.{{pg|528|529}}

The title essay in ''Fighters and Writers'' offers a last hurrah to all working stiffs blessed to have just enough Mickey Spillane in the blood to hear their romantic inner drummer over the clatter of the morning commute. It opens with a banner on the wall of Gleason’s Gym—from Virgil: “Now, whoever has courage and a strong and collected spirit in his breast let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put his hands up.”

That ordinary men (let alone those blessed with a touch of imagination and the price of a pencil) should find in the spectacle of humans fighting “something akin to their own efforts,” gives nuance to every action so illumined. “To write about boxing,” says Joyce Carol Oates, as heavyweight a mind as ever weighed in on the subject, “is to write about oneself—however elliptically, and unintentionally.” What dark parentheses the writer may insert in either life or work speak of something other than pure perception, and therein lie all tales. Misogyny, racial hatred, brutality, deception, intolerance: all inhabit niches of boxing’s dark side as surely as courage, tenacity, resourcefulness and skill do the light. When heroes have faults, we share their pain; when they are assholes, we look twice in the mirror.

“Boxers are liars,” quotes Rodman of Jose Torres. So, too, then are lovers. In either case, it keeps you alive.

Boxing is about violence, the ability to inflict and withstand, impulses old as man from instincts even older. On one side of what we might call the Oates/Mailer Scale is the myth-nipping conviction that boxing is not a sport, has nothing playful about it, consumes the excellence it displays, damages the body, brain and spirit, and presents a stylized image of man’s collectivized aggression, while in the white corner stand endless protean metaphors for dialectics in manhood, sex, race, personal identity and, yes, even literary style. Writers, at best imperious directors of the play of their imaginings, see fighters in “straightforward pursuits of victory under the unmediated imposition of their wills.”

For all, ugliness and beauty blur in the beholder’s fevered eye. In arenas of dreams, you pays your money and you takes your chance.

In covering Sonny Liston’s 1962 knock-out of Floyd Patterson, Mailer describes boxing as “a murderous and sensitive religion that mocks the effort of understanding to approach it.” We may be thankful that the likes of John Rodwan still make the effort. ''Fighters and Writers'' is superbly referenced grist for the ringside scholar’s mill.{{pg|529|530}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:All You Need is Glove}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T22:49:55Z

Hobbitonya: fixed something I messed up trying to help lol (thought the |ref={{harvid|“Made in Japan”|1952 }} was a mistake

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{{byline|last=Mitchell |first=Matthew S Hinton |abstract=With ''Advertisements for Myself'', Norman Mailer established an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.. }}

WITH ''ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF'', NORMAN MAILER ESTABLISHED an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.
Although the 1990s were the peak years for his blurb-writing (he wrote thirty-six of them), Mailer was already punching up endorsements in the first full-year of his literary career. Fast on the heels of ''The Naked and the Dead'', he found fascination with a book authored by a thirty-eight-year-old Japanese businessman: a nightclub owner who was “Hawaiian-born, U.S.- educated, and a veteran of the Japanese army” named Hanama Tasaki.{{sfn|"Made in Japan"|1952}} Tasaki made his debut with ''Long the Imperial Way''—a war novel—and Mailer generously wrote the following one hundred and seventy two words:
<blockquote> I hope ''Long the Imperial Way'' finds a large audience, and to Americans this picture of Japanese life should prove fascinating. Even more important, the experience of military life seen through a Japanese filter is the possible way to grasp the swindle of modern war: the patriotism, the battle waged in the name of peace, the exploitation of soldiers by their officers—the sad song {{pg|453|454}} is here with all its verses. For undoubtedly the Japanese were more miserable, more subjected, more oppressed than soldiers of any other nation, and the brutalities and excesses they committed became comprehensible here to the Western mind. Or at least it is to be hoped that they do become comprehensible or we shall be in a pretty pass when not only the Russians but the Americans as well begin to commit the extra-curricular butcheries of war, and American soldiers and Russian soldiers will strike out in blind frustration and in desperation, swindled even in the moment of their death by the slogans which have already betrayed them.</blockquote>

The paragraph he wrote in support of James Jones’s ''From Here to Eternity'', one of his earliest blurbs, presages his relationship with the fellow war novelist—one of great camaraderie and, later, some disagreement. Mailer had received the work through Scribner’s editor, Burroughs Mitchell. Sick in bed in his Vermont home during the fall of 1950, with the galleys of ''Eternity'' to keep him company, Mailer had this to offer:

<blockquote> It’s a big fist of a book with powerful virtues and serious faults, but if the very good is mixed with the sometimes bad, those qual- ities are inseparable from the author. Jones writes with a wry compassionate anger which is individual and borrows from no writer I know. I think his book is one of the best of the ‘war novels’, and in certain facets perhaps the best.</blockquote>
In a letter to Jones in 1955, Mailer properly framed his contribution, saying, “I remember when I read ''Eternity.'' I was sick with the grippe at the time and I just got sicker. Because deep inside me I knew that no matter how I didn’t want to like it, and how I leaped with pleasure at its faults, it was still just too fucking good . . .” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999}}
Mailer suffered, surely, but also felt that Jones was “talking” to him, as good writers did through their books, especially a “major work” like ''Eternity.'' Later, after the deterioration of their friendship, Jones and Mailer would meet for the last time in Elaine’s, a bar in the Upper East Side. An uninformed Mailer suggested that the two “fight it out,” to which Jones replied, “I’m sick, I’ve got a bum heart” {{sfn|Jones|1951}} {{pg|454|455}}
Norman felt bad about having made this challenge, and relayed the story to Kaylie Jones when the two met at a cocktail party at Jean Stein’s in the late 1980s. Eager to heal old wounds, he offered his friendship to the then twenty-something author. Gloria Jones, rigid and quiet next her daughter through- out the exchange, finally spoke. “You can make it up to her right now,” she said, “give her a quote for her new book about Russia.” Mailer seemed to easily acquiesce, and Gloria added, “If you give her a quote for her novel . . . I swear, Norman, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give you a blow job.” They all laughed, and Norman wrote the blurb for ''Quite the Other Way'',{{sfn|Jones|1990}} celebrating Kaylie’s “great honesty about a tricky and charged subject . . . a portrait of life in Moscow . . .”

The Joneses were not the only major authors to receive blurbs from Mailer. Mailer promoted ''The Naked Lunch'' {{sfn|Burroughs|1962}} as “a book of great beauty, great difficulty, and maniacally exquisite insight,” referring to Burroughs as “the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Mailer would go on public record in a Boston obscenity trial with his thoughts, along with Allen Ginsberg, to appeal the banning of the book. {{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=216}}

Not long after meeting James Baldwin in Paris in 1956—Jean Malaquais introduced the two at his apartment—Mailer “kindly” provided a blurb for the just-finished ''Giovanni’s Room''. {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=144}}{{sfn|Baldwin|1965}} There to decompress after writing for ''The Village Voice'', the patriarch of hipsterdom was quitting Benzedrine and Seconal, and composed a simple review of Baldwin’s work, saying he “has become one of the few writers of our time . . . [he has written] a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction.”

Novelist and screenwriter Don Carpenter has had his share of Mailer praise as well, initially receiving a blurb for his first work in 1966, ''Hard Rain Falling'', {{sfn|Carpenter|1966}} which read, “Don Carpenter has written a remarkably cool, knowledgeable, sly, subtle, wry, painful novel about some intelligent and violent men and their little trip through life, prison, and the pains of reformation . . . the best novel I’ve ever read about contemporary show biz.”

Over twenty years later, Norman was doing his “church work” as president of the PEN American Center{{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=149}} and coping with the death of his mother, Fanny Mailer, but perhaps found solace in Carpenter’s ''The Class of ’49 ''. {{sfn|Carpenter|1985}} In an eloquent endorsement, he wrote: “I never knew what they meant when they said so-and-so writes like an angel, but now I do. Don Carpenter
{{pg|455|456}}
gives us a superb prose, light, fast as the speed of reading, quick in its turns, luminous, tender, humorous, sad, full of wise woe and comic optimism.”

As for Larry L. King, he would comment on ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' in a 1981 letter, saying he “love[ed] the penetration in that one.” Five years later, he reserved his less suggestive admiration for King’s ''None But a Blockhead'': “King’s strengths are his wit and his integrity . . . He rings an American bell. His writing is, I dare say, intoxicating.” {{sfn|King|1986}}

As with many novelists, Norman understood the infinite value of poets and their craft. He “accept[ed] the hazard of mentioning [his] own poetry” in a blurb for Florida poet Ed Skellings, {{sfn|Skellings|1976}} and included the refrain: “I want my poems / to be like bones / and shine silver in the sun.” Poet Norman Ros- ten, who referred to Mailer as “Norm I” (Rosten himself was “Norm II”), would also receive acclaim from his longtime friend. ''Over and Out'', {{sfn|Rosten|1972}} however, was not a poetry collection, but a “remarkable novel filled with poetic skills and startling tender sorrows which are blown away with the lightest diffusion of wit . . . the prevailing mood while reading it is pleasure, then more pleasure.” Rosten initiated Mailer’s literary life, helping him to carry the manuscript for ''The Naked and Dead'' on the subway to meet Ted Amussen. Once, he had even attempted to arrange a meeting between Norm I and Marilyn Monroe, who frequented the kitchen of his Connecticut home in the late 1950s. Mailer, who lived within a mere five miles, would tease Ros- ten about this, often accusing him of “favoring [Arthur] Miller” {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=253}} During the 1980s, both “Norms” would regularly eat lunch together in New York—it seems that they always stayed in touch.

But Mailer’s interests were never solely literary. Like any sane person, one of Norman’s favorite pastimes was sex. Yet with one book, he proudly announced a bit of ignorance. One Fall evening in 1956, Mailer had tried to prompt a fight between his then-wife Adele and Leslie Aldridge Westoff (then married to John Aldridge) at a party in their Connecticut farmhouse. Over forty years later, Leslie co-authored ''Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You''{{sfn|Westoff|1999}} and contacted him for a blurb, saying “[Y]ou, Norman, have always been known for your witty, provocative, brilliant, and sexy comments
. . . so if you could just say one sentence . . . I will be forever grateful . . .” {{sfn|Greenstein|2000}} She knew how to stroke his ego, and Mailer’s response matched her praise in kind: “Working on my own stuff, I haven’t had a moment to look into ''Passionate Sex'', but how can others fail to buy it? If the author delivers one-tenth of what is promised in the title, the book will be the bargain of the{{pg|456|457}} year.” He allowed no editing of this blurb—no cuts whatsoever—and amended in an interview, “Why assume that endorsements are holy? I thought it was time to have a little fun with the solemnity of sexual promise. And indeed I did remain true to the endangered principle that information in an information age must strive to be as accurate as possible”. {{sfn|Greenstein|2000|p=40}} Whether he knew it or not, Norman’s comment would be telling of the very origin of the blurb itself, which first came to us on the cover of humorist Gelett Burgess’s ''Are You a Bromide?'' To promote his 1906 publication, Burgess had included the photo of a buxom woman with the fictional name of “Belinda Blurb,” followed by a brief, and nonsensical, text. This satirical look at self-praise caught on, and the word soon found a more serious home amongst promoters and advertisers. {{sfn|Corey|1997|p=35-6}} With his remarks, Norman had once again cut publicity down to its original chaff.

Mailer’s attention to sex was matched only by his early interest in fighting and its various styles. During the winter of 1956-57, Mailer was visited in his Connecticut home by Lyle Stuart, the publisher who would encourage him to begin writing about race in America, sending his statements to Faulkner and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Stuart was aware of Mailer’s interest in combat, and during this trip encouraged him to take jiu-jitsu classes in New York. Norman took to it immediately, and when he discovered that Stu- art was publishing a book by his own jiu-jitsu professor, he matched the fifteen-hundred-dollar advance, and profited from the investment by well over twenty-two thousand dollars.{{sfn|Mills|1982|p=184}} He even wrote a blurb, touting Kiyose Nakae’s 1958 ''Jiu-Jitsu Complete''{{sfn|Nakae|1958}} as “coherent and practical in its every detail.”

An affinity for boxing took Mailer from spectator to promoter to inside the ring. In the same above letter to King, he quipped, “I have to laugh when I think of all the dedication and abstention I’ve put into a sport where on my greatest days I rise within sight of being a mediocre amateur-gentlemen- boxer.” Norman would extol Larry Fink’s 1997 collection of boxing photo- graphs, proclaiming them to be “very good at capturing the dignity, the dread, the sense of doom and the desire to bring doom upon others that is the subtext of every fight . . . and every boxing gym.” He took to early spar- ring with Adele Morales’ father, Al, who always had a place to practice or a bag to swing at, and had associated with the likes of Roger Donoghue, Mo- hammed Ali, and very closely with light-heavyweight champ Jose Torres, whom Mailer financed for the 1965 title. Both men took great pains with {{pg|457|458}} each other as they traded punches and pages in the summer of 1972, Torres— who rented a nearby house in Jamaica, Vermont—was teaching Mailer the ropes, Mailer teaching Torres the pen. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=189}} By the end of it, Tor- res completed his book on Ali, the well-known ''Sting Like a Bee''. {{sfn|Torres|1971}} Mailer’s blurb would prove a quick jab of friendship: “Fantastic . . . Goddamit.”

Just as he was no stranger to taking a swing, Mailer would have a deep interest in the concepts of God, the devil, and the everlasting fight between the two—a fight taking place in the ring of one’s very soul. Myron Kaufmann, a Jewish classmate from Harvard, was present when Bea Silverman (Mailer’s girlfriend at the time) turned to the other women eating dinner at Dunster House and asked “Do you girls fuck?” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=34}} For Kaufmann, author of the 1957 bestseller ''Remember Me to God'', {{sfn|Kaufmann|1957}} Norman would state his “extraordinary honesty” in saying that the book would “cause a noticeable shift in the consciousness of the American Jew and the American Protestant” and would credit it for awakening him to hints of anti-Semitism at Harvard, though he “never felt ghettoized” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=24}}.

Sandra Harmon, who booked Mailer for his infamous appearance with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show, received his nod of approval for her novel, ''A Girl Like Me''. {{sfn|Harmon|1975}} The blurb, written soon after his return from Africa in 1975, took up the entire back cover. “We are entering a literature where all the lives which used to be silent now speak,” the comments began,
<blockquote> Now, in its way, ''A Girl Like Me'' is the most startling manifestation of this phenomenon. For no matter who else would write a book, how could we expect a novel as unendurably honest as this to come from that female Jewish world which is triangulated be- tween Brooklyn, Miami and Los Angeles, that secretive, plotting, self-calculating and wholly materialistic world, especially when its heroine is beautiful, sexually centered, victim and exploiter, as calculating and ambitious as the rest, and yet divinely, incomprehensibly honest. . . . </blockquote>

It seems appropriate that Harmon’s book made it to Mailer’s reading pile. It was around this time that he met Norris Church at a party thrown by long- time friends, Francis and Ecey Gwaltney. Opposite those “lives which used to be silent,” he filled his life, and his reading hours, with people of great fame. It is no secret that Norman was obsessed by the iconic Marilyn Monroe
{{pg|458|459}} (evidenced by his much disputed biography, Marilyn). The same year his name appeared on Harmon’s novel, it appeared on Robert Slatzer’s ''The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe'', hailing it as good enough to re-open the investigation on the starlet’s suspicious death:
<blockquote> [I]n fact I would say on the basis of hard evidence he has col- lected it would now be more difficult to prove she took her own life than that she was killed. It is already boring to say, ‘in light of Watergate . . .’ but in the light of Watergate, Dallas, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Malcolm X and Chappaquidick, I do not know how anyone could read the end of this book and think that a Coroner’s Inquest on the death of Marilyn Monroe can or should be avoided. The trouble is that public opinion must first call for it. . . . </blockquote>

In an interesting sidenote, biographer Carl Rollyson twice requested Mailer’s endorsement for his own book on Monroe: “He replied quite courteously, saying he hoped he would have time to read it—although he had stacks of books from friends who hoped he would write blurbs for them”. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=371}}

Another iconic starlet, socialite, actress, and model—Edie Sedgwick— once auditioned for Mailer’s stage adaptation of ''The Deer Park'', though he thought she “wasn’t very good . . . she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.” This quotation comes to us from the ''Edie: An American Biography'', {{sfn|Stein|1982}} by Jean Stein and longtime friend George Plimpton, which bore a blurb by Mailer: “[she] was the spirit of the Sixties . . . While it is not a novel (although it reads like one) I still will say: ''This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for''.” In 1985, he would comment: “''Savage Grace'' has to be the best oral history to come out since Edie.” {{sfn|Robins|1985}} Norman Mailer managed not only to get his name in Edie’s biography, but also on its cover, as well as mention it on an- other biography altogether—about ''Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous Family'', the doomed Baekelands.

One cannot mention Mailer’s association with fame and doom without also invoking the Kennedy name. In the late 1980s, he would mirror his comments on Marilyn Monroe with Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, {{sfn|Garrison|1988}} detailing the JFK shooting as “a conspiracy.” Of Summers’ Conspiracy: The {{pg|459|460}} ''Definitive Book on the JFK'' Assassination he would say, “I began it again as soon as I finished.” However, none of these was as lauded as ''Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption''. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} At 82, Mailer was still going strong—the University of Texas had just purchased his archive for $2.5 million—and he was more than willing to contribute this blurb for Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s book:
<blockquote> Books about famous American families usually land with a pious splat, or look to excavate a mud hole, but this one is a beauty. The Kennedys have had more achievements and more God-size disasters than most of us can ever know, but not one of the Kennedys has been a good writer. That verdict can now be al- tered . . . given as far as he chooses to go, he certainly tells it like it is. Three cheers. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} </blockquote>
Such a prominent and sprawling family name brings to mind Mailer’s own blood, specifically Cy Rembar, whose work, ''The End of Obscenity,'' {{sfn|Rembar|1968}} came only a few years after Norman’s testimony in favor of ''The Naked Lunch.'' Rembar’s work was supported by his cousin as “a quiet and essentially modest account of a legal revolution,” and would be bookended in 1996 by Mailer’s approval of Peter Alson’s ''Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie'' as
<blockquote> [T]ough, vulnerable, poignant . . . Alson’s achievement is to limn the spiritual pain of a well-educated Yuppie who is not on his uppers. This he does as no one has before. So, his confessional becomes one of those few books which captures a generation. Since I am Peter Alson’s uncle, I will probably be accused of nepotism, but to hell with that—I would stand by the first para- graph if he were your nephew. Literature is thicker than blood.{{sfn|Alson|1996}} </blockquote>
In his contributions to covers, Mailer even took the time to contemplate the minutiae of modern life. There is joyous disgust in his blurb for Fenichell’s ''Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century'', {{sfn|Fenichell|1999|}} “At last! For anyone who hates plastics and loves good writing, this is the book to satisfy your anger, your passion, and your instinctive judgment, and all at once.” And one cannot ignore ''Vittorio’s Dog Book'', {{sfn|Fiorucci|2002}} a collection of drawings that inspired the novelist to admit, “Dogs have souls. The only question, in my mind, is {{pg|460|461}} whether theirs are more noble than ours. And I say this despite having seen a great deal of execrable behavior in the canine species.”

Few subjects have escaped Norman Mailer’s interest, and even fewer observations his keen eye. The collection of his blurbs is a collection of reflective vignettes, and serves as a testament to his relationship with the spooky art, his munificence toward fellow conjurers, and his role as a quick-change artist; a Renaissance man; a broker of the literary marketplace. When considering the endorsement of fellow authors, it is perhaps best to heed Mailer’s advice, included in a 1974 letter to Richard Goodwin for his work ''The 'American Condition'':

<blockquote> If your publishers wish to cut [the blurb], that’s all right with me, but I’d like them to show the rare courtesy of indicating how and where they’re going to make the cuts . . . it creates good will and the opposite causes a quiet rancor to build in people who begin as your champion . . . don’t [take] the blurb and pull out of it ‘a great book.’ {{sfn|Goodwin|1974}} </blockquote>

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite book |last=Alson |first=Peter |date=1996 |title= Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie |url= |location=New York |publisher=Crown Publishers, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Baldwin |first=James |date= 1965|title= Giovanni’s Room |url= |location= New York |publisher= |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Burroughs |first=William |date= 1962|title= Naked Lunch |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press|pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date=1985 |title= The Class of ’’49: A Novel and Two Short Stories |url= |location= New York |publisher=North Point Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date= 1966|title= Hard Rain Falling |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Corey |first=Dale |date=1997 |title=Inventing English: The Imaginative Origins of Everyday Expressions. |url= |location= New York |publisher=Berkley Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fenichell |first=Stephen |date=1999 |title=Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper business |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fiorucci |first=Vittorio |date=2002 |title=Vittorio’s Dog Book |url= |location= |publisher=Scarlet Claw Publishing, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Garrison |first=Jim |date=1988 |title=On the Trail of the Assassins |url= |location=New York |publisher=Sheridan Square Pub |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Richard |date=1974 |title=The American Condition |url= |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= Greenstein |first= Jennifer |date=April 2000 |title= Advertisement for Himself |url= |magazine= Brill’s Content |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Harmon |first=Sandra |date=1975 |title=A Girl Like Me |url= |location=New York |publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |date=1951 |title=From Here to Eternity |url= |location=New York |publisher= Charles Scribner’s Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie | date=2009 |title=Lies My Mother Never Told Me |url= |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |author-mask= 1 |date=1990 |title=Quite the OtherWay |url= |location=New York |publisher=Fawcett |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite interview |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |author-mask= 1 |subject-link= |date=11 June 2009 |title=Telephone Interview |url= |work= |interviewer-last= |interviewer-first= |interviewer-link= |location= |publisher= |access-date=}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Myron |date=1957 |title=Remember Me to God |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=J. P. Lippincott |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Larry |date=1986 |title=None But a Blockhead |url= |location=New York |publisher=Viking Adult |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lawford |first=Christopher Kennedy |date=2005 |title=Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J.Michael. |date=2000 |title=Norman Mailer: Works and Days |url= |location=Shavertown, PA |publisher=Sligo Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= |first= |date=4 August 1952 |title=Made in Japan |url= |magazine=Time Magazine |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|"Made in Japan"|1952 }}}}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title=Mailer: His Life and Times |url= |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mills |first=Hiliary |date=1982 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nakae |first=Kiyose |date=1958 |title=Jiu-Jitsu Complete |url= |location=New York |publisher=Wehman Bros |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= |first= |title=Norman Mailer |url= |journal=1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium |volume= |issue= |date=1999 |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|“Norman Mailer”|1999 }}}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman |last= Mailer|recipient= Richard Goodwin |subject= Letter to Richard Goodwin |date= 4 March 1974|ref=harv}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman| last= Mailer |author-mask= 1|recipient= Larry L. King | subject=Letter to Larry L. King | date=11 May 1981 | publisher=The Daily Beast|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Rembar |first=Charles |date=1968 |title=The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Reuter |first=Madalynne |date=8 February 1985 |title=1,000 Writers toMeet in New York at PEN International Congress |url= |magazine=Publisher’s Weekly |pages=23-24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Robins |first=Natalie |last=Aronson |first=Steven |date=1985 |title=Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rosten |first=Norman |date=1972 |title=Over and Out |url= |location=New York |publisher=George Braziller |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Skellings |first=Edmund |date=1976 |title=Heart Attacks |url= |location=Gainesville |publisher=UP of Florida |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Slatzer |first=Robert F. |date=1975 |title=The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=New York |publisher=Pinnacle |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Stein |first=Jean |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1982 |title=Edie: An American Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Summers |first=Anthony |date=1989 |title=Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the J.F.K. Assassination |url= |location=St. Paul |publisher=Paragon House Publishing |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Tasaki |first=Hanama |date=1950 |title=Long the Imperial Way |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Torres |first=Jose |date=1971 |title=Sting Like a Bee: The Mohammad Ali Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Curtis Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Westoff |first=Leslie Aldridge |last=Stein |first=Daniel S. |date=1999 |title=Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You |url= |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |pages= |ref=harv }}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T22:34:42Z

Hobbitonya: Added author mask to two of the Kaylie Jones citations

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{byline|last=Mitchell |first=Matthew S Hinton |abstract=With ''Advertisements for Myself'', Norman Mailer established an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.. }}

WITH ''ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF'', NORMAN MAILER ESTABLISHED an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.
Although the 1990s were the peak years for his blurb-writing (he wrote thirty-six of them), Mailer was already punching up endorsements in the first full-year of his literary career. Fast on the heels of ''The Naked and the Dead'', he found fascination with a book authored by a thirty-eight-year-old Japanese businessman: a nightclub owner who was “Hawaiian-born, U.S.- educated, and a veteran of the Japanese army” named Hanama Tasaki.{{sfn|"Made in Japan"|1952}} Tasaki made his debut with ''Long the Imperial Way''—a war novel—and Mailer generously wrote the following one hundred and seventy two words:
<blockquote> I hope ''Long the Imperial Way'' finds a large audience, and to Americans this picture of Japanese life should prove fascinating. Even more important, the experience of military life seen through a Japanese filter is the possible way to grasp the swindle of modern war: the patriotism, the battle waged in the name of peace, the exploitation of soldiers by their officers—the sad song {{pg|453|454}} is here with all its verses. For undoubtedly the Japanese were more miserable, more subjected, more oppressed than soldiers of any other nation, and the brutalities and excesses they committed became comprehensible here to the Western mind. Or at least it is to be hoped that they do become comprehensible or we shall be in a pretty pass when not only the Russians but the Americans as well begin to commit the extra-curricular butcheries of war, and American soldiers and Russian soldiers will strike out in blind frustration and in desperation, swindled even in the moment of their death by the slogans which have already betrayed them.</blockquote>

The paragraph he wrote in support of James Jones’s ''From Here to Eternity'', one of his earliest blurbs, presages his relationship with the fellow war novelist—one of great camaraderie and, later, some disagreement. Mailer had received the work through Scribner’s editor, Burroughs Mitchell. Sick in bed in his Vermont home during the fall of 1950, with the galleys of ''Eternity'' to keep him company, Mailer had this to offer:

<blockquote> It’s a big fist of a book with powerful virtues and serious faults, but if the very good is mixed with the sometimes bad, those qual- ities are inseparable from the author. Jones writes with a wry compassionate anger which is individual and borrows from no writer I know. I think his book is one of the best of the ‘war novels’, and in certain facets perhaps the best.</blockquote>
In a letter to Jones in 1955, Mailer properly framed his contribution, saying, “I remember when I read ''Eternity.'' I was sick with the grippe at the time and I just got sicker. Because deep inside me I knew that no matter how I didn’t want to like it, and how I leaped with pleasure at its faults, it was still just too fucking good . . .” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999}}
Mailer suffered, surely, but also felt that Jones was “talking” to him, as good writers did through their books, especially a “major work” like ''Eternity.'' Later, after the deterioration of their friendship, Jones and Mailer would meet for the last time in Elaine’s, a bar in the Upper East Side. An uninformed Mailer suggested that the two “fight it out,” to which Jones replied, “I’m sick, I’ve got a bum heart” {{sfn|Jones|1951}} {{pg|454|455}}
Norman felt bad about having made this challenge, and relayed the story to Kaylie Jones when the two met at a cocktail party at Jean Stein’s in the late 1980s. Eager to heal old wounds, he offered his friendship to the then twenty-something author. Gloria Jones, rigid and quiet next her daughter through- out the exchange, finally spoke. “You can make it up to her right now,” she said, “give her a quote for her new book about Russia.” Mailer seemed to easily acquiesce, and Gloria added, “If you give her a quote for her novel . . . I swear, Norman, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give you a blow job.” They all laughed, and Norman wrote the blurb for ''Quite the Other Way'',{{sfn|Jones|1990}} celebrating Kaylie’s “great honesty about a tricky and charged subject . . . a portrait of life in Moscow . . .”

The Joneses were not the only major authors to receive blurbs from Mailer. Mailer promoted ''The Naked Lunch'' {{sfn|Burroughs|1962}} as “a book of great beauty, great difficulty, and maniacally exquisite insight,” referring to Burroughs as “the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Mailer would go on public record in a Boston obscenity trial with his thoughts, along with Allen Ginsberg, to appeal the banning of the book. {{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=216}}

Not long after meeting James Baldwin in Paris in 1956—Jean Malaquais introduced the two at his apartment—Mailer “kindly” provided a blurb for the just-finished ''Giovanni’s Room''. {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=144}}{{sfn|Baldwin|1965}} There to decompress after writing for ''The Village Voice'', the patriarch of hipsterdom was quitting Benzedrine and Seconal, and composed a simple review of Baldwin’s work, saying he “has become one of the few writers of our time . . . [he has written] a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction.”

Novelist and screenwriter Don Carpenter has had his share of Mailer praise as well, initially receiving a blurb for his first work in 1966, ''Hard Rain Falling'', {{sfn|Carpenter|1966}} which read, “Don Carpenter has written a remarkably cool, knowledgeable, sly, subtle, wry, painful novel about some intelligent and violent men and their little trip through life, prison, and the pains of reformation . . . the best novel I’ve ever read about contemporary show biz.”

Over twenty years later, Norman was doing his “church work” as president of the PEN American Center{{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=149}} and coping with the death of his mother, Fanny Mailer, but perhaps found solace in Carpenter’s ''The Class of ’49 ''. {{sfn|Carpenter|1985}} In an eloquent endorsement, he wrote: “I never knew what they meant when they said so-and-so writes like an angel, but now I do. Don Carpenter
{{pg|455|456}}
gives us a superb prose, light, fast as the speed of reading, quick in its turns, luminous, tender, humorous, sad, full of wise woe and comic optimism.”

As for Larry L. King, he would comment on ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' in a 1981 letter, saying he “love[ed] the penetration in that one.” Five years later, he reserved his less suggestive admiration for King’s ''None But a Blockhead'': “King’s strengths are his wit and his integrity . . . He rings an American bell. His writing is, I dare say, intoxicating.” {{sfn|King|1986}}

As with many novelists, Norman understood the infinite value of poets and their craft. He “accept[ed] the hazard of mentioning [his] own poetry” in a blurb for Florida poet Ed Skellings, {{sfn|Skellings|1976}} and included the refrain: “I want my poems / to be like bones / and shine silver in the sun.” Poet Norman Ros- ten, who referred to Mailer as “Norm I” (Rosten himself was “Norm II”), would also receive acclaim from his longtime friend. ''Over and Out'', {{sfn|Rosten|1972}} however, was not a poetry collection, but a “remarkable novel filled with poetic skills and startling tender sorrows which are blown away with the lightest diffusion of wit . . . the prevailing mood while reading it is pleasure, then more pleasure.” Rosten initiated Mailer’s literary life, helping him to carry the manuscript for ''The Naked and Dead'' on the subway to meet Ted Amussen. Once, he had even attempted to arrange a meeting between Norm I and Marilyn Monroe, who frequented the kitchen of his Connecticut home in the late 1950s. Mailer, who lived within a mere five miles, would tease Ros- ten about this, often accusing him of “favoring [Arthur] Miller” {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=253}} During the 1980s, both “Norms” would regularly eat lunch together in New York—it seems that they always stayed in touch.

But Mailer’s interests were never solely literary. Like any sane person, one of Norman’s favorite pastimes was sex. Yet with one book, he proudly announced a bit of ignorance. One Fall evening in 1956, Mailer had tried to prompt a fight between his then-wife Adele and Leslie Aldridge Westoff (then married to John Aldridge) at a party in their Connecticut farmhouse. Over forty years later, Leslie co-authored ''Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You''{{sfn|Westoff|1999}} and contacted him for a blurb, saying “[Y]ou, Norman, have always been known for your witty, provocative, brilliant, and sexy comments
. . . so if you could just say one sentence . . . I will be forever grateful . . .” {{sfn|Greenstein|2000}} She knew how to stroke his ego, and Mailer’s response matched her praise in kind: “Working on my own stuff, I haven’t had a moment to look into ''Passionate Sex'', but how can others fail to buy it? If the author delivers one-tenth of what is promised in the title, the book will be the bargain of the{{pg|456|457}} year.” He allowed no editing of this blurb—no cuts whatsoever—and amended in an interview, “Why assume that endorsements are holy? I thought it was time to have a little fun with the solemnity of sexual promise. And indeed I did remain true to the endangered principle that information in an information age must strive to be as accurate as possible”. {{sfn|Greenstein|2000|p=40}} Whether he knew it or not, Norman’s comment would be telling of the very origin of the blurb itself, which first came to us on the cover of humorist Gelett Burgess’s ''Are You a Bromide?'' To promote his 1906 publication, Burgess had included the photo of a buxom woman with the fictional name of “Belinda Blurb,” followed by a brief, and nonsensical, text. This satirical look at self-praise caught on, and the word soon found a more serious home amongst promoters and advertisers. {{sfn|Corey|1997|p=35-6}} With his remarks, Norman had once again cut publicity down to its original chaff.

Mailer’s attention to sex was matched only by his early interest in fighting and its various styles. During the winter of 1956-57, Mailer was visited in his Connecticut home by Lyle Stuart, the publisher who would encourage him to begin writing about race in America, sending his statements to Faulkner and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Stuart was aware of Mailer’s interest in combat, and during this trip encouraged him to take jiu-jitsu classes in New York. Norman took to it immediately, and when he discovered that Stu- art was publishing a book by his own jiu-jitsu professor, he matched the fifteen-hundred-dollar advance, and profited from the investment by well over twenty-two thousand dollars.{{sfn|Mills|1982|p=184}} He even wrote a blurb, touting Kiyose Nakae’s 1958 ''Jiu-Jitsu Complete''{{sfn|Nakae|1958}} as “coherent and practical in its every detail.”

An affinity for boxing took Mailer from spectator to promoter to inside the ring. In the same above letter to King, he quipped, “I have to laugh when I think of all the dedication and abstention I’ve put into a sport where on my greatest days I rise within sight of being a mediocre amateur-gentlemen- boxer.” Norman would extol Larry Fink’s 1997 collection of boxing photo- graphs, proclaiming them to be “very good at capturing the dignity, the dread, the sense of doom and the desire to bring doom upon others that is the subtext of every fight . . . and every boxing gym.” He took to early spar- ring with Adele Morales’ father, Al, who always had a place to practice or a bag to swing at, and had associated with the likes of Roger Donoghue, Mo- hammed Ali, and very closely with light-heavyweight champ Jose Torres, whom Mailer financed for the 1965 title. Both men took great pains with {{pg|457|458}} each other as they traded punches and pages in the summer of 1972, Torres— who rented a nearby house in Jamaica, Vermont—was teaching Mailer the ropes, Mailer teaching Torres the pen. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=189}} By the end of it, Tor- res completed his book on Ali, the well-known ''Sting Like a Bee''. {{sfn|Torres|1971}} Mailer’s blurb would prove a quick jab of friendship: “Fantastic . . . Goddamit.”

Just as he was no stranger to taking a swing, Mailer would have a deep interest in the concepts of God, the devil, and the everlasting fight between the two—a fight taking place in the ring of one’s very soul. Myron Kaufmann, a Jewish classmate from Harvard, was present when Bea Silverman (Mailer’s girlfriend at the time) turned to the other women eating dinner at Dunster House and asked “Do you girls fuck?” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=34}} For Kaufmann, author of the 1957 bestseller ''Remember Me to God'', {{sfn|Kaufmann|1957}} Norman would state his “extraordinary honesty” in saying that the book would “cause a noticeable shift in the consciousness of the American Jew and the American Protestant” and would credit it for awakening him to hints of anti-Semitism at Harvard, though he “never felt ghettoized” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=24}}.

Sandra Harmon, who booked Mailer for his infamous appearance with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show, received his nod of approval for her novel, ''A Girl Like Me''. {{sfn|Harmon|1975}} The blurb, written soon after his return from Africa in 1975, took up the entire back cover. “We are entering a literature where all the lives which used to be silent now speak,” the comments began,
<blockquote> Now, in its way, ''A Girl Like Me'' is the most startling manifestation of this phenomenon. For no matter who else would write a book, how could we expect a novel as unendurably honest as this to come from that female Jewish world which is triangulated be- tween Brooklyn, Miami and Los Angeles, that secretive, plotting, self-calculating and wholly materialistic world, especially when its heroine is beautiful, sexually centered, victim and exploiter, as calculating and ambitious as the rest, and yet divinely, incomprehensibly honest. . . . </blockquote>

It seems appropriate that Harmon’s book made it to Mailer’s reading pile. It was around this time that he met Norris Church at a party thrown by long- time friends, Francis and Ecey Gwaltney. Opposite those “lives which used to be silent,” he filled his life, and his reading hours, with people of great fame. It is no secret that Norman was obsessed by the iconic Marilyn Monroe
{{pg|458|459}} (evidenced by his much disputed biography, Marilyn). The same year his name appeared on Harmon’s novel, it appeared on Robert Slatzer’s ''The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe'', hailing it as good enough to re-open the investigation on the starlet’s suspicious death:
<blockquote> [I]n fact I would say on the basis of hard evidence he has col- lected it would now be more difficult to prove she took her own life than that she was killed. It is already boring to say, ‘in light of Watergate . . .’ but in the light of Watergate, Dallas, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Malcolm X and Chappaquidick, I do not know how anyone could read the end of this book and think that a Coroner’s Inquest on the death of Marilyn Monroe can or should be avoided. The trouble is that public opinion must first call for it. . . . </blockquote>

In an interesting sidenote, biographer Carl Rollyson twice requested Mailer’s endorsement for his own book on Monroe: “He replied quite courteously, saying he hoped he would have time to read it—although he had stacks of books from friends who hoped he would write blurbs for them”. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=371}}

Another iconic starlet, socialite, actress, and model—Edie Sedgwick— once auditioned for Mailer’s stage adaptation of ''The Deer Park'', though he thought she “wasn’t very good . . . she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.” This quotation comes to us from the ''Edie: An American Biography'', {{sfn|Stein|1982}} by Jean Stein and longtime friend George Plimpton, which bore a blurb by Mailer: “[she] was the spirit of the Sixties . . . While it is not a novel (although it reads like one) I still will say: ''This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for''.” In 1985, he would comment: “''Savage Grace'' has to be the best oral history to come out since Edie.” {{sfn|Robins|1985}} Norman Mailer managed not only to get his name in Edie’s biography, but also on its cover, as well as mention it on an- other biography altogether—about ''Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous Family'', the doomed Baekelands.

One cannot mention Mailer’s association with fame and doom without also invoking the Kennedy name. In the late 1980s, he would mirror his comments on Marilyn Monroe with Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, {{sfn|Garrison|1988}} detailing the JFK shooting as “a conspiracy.” Of Summers’ Conspiracy: The {{pg|459|460}} ''Definitive Book on the JFK'' Assassination he would say, “I began it again as soon as I finished.” However, none of these was as lauded as ''Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption''. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} At 82, Mailer was still going strong—the University of Texas had just purchased his archive for $2.5 million—and he was more than willing to contribute this blurb for Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s book:
<blockquote> Books about famous American families usually land with a pious splat, or look to excavate a mud hole, but this one is a beauty. The Kennedys have had more achievements and more God-size disasters than most of us can ever know, but not one of the Kennedys has been a good writer. That verdict can now be al- tered . . . given as far as he chooses to go, he certainly tells it like it is. Three cheers. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} </blockquote>
Such a prominent and sprawling family name brings to mind Mailer’s own blood, specifically Cy Rembar, whose work, ''The End of Obscenity,'' {{sfn|Rembar|1968}} came only a few years after Norman’s testimony in favor of ''The Naked Lunch.'' Rembar’s work was supported by his cousin as “a quiet and essentially modest account of a legal revolution,” and would be bookended in 1996 by Mailer’s approval of Peter Alson’s ''Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie'' as
<blockquote> [T]ough, vulnerable, poignant . . . Alson’s achievement is to limn the spiritual pain of a well-educated Yuppie who is not on his uppers. This he does as no one has before. So, his confessional becomes one of those few books which captures a generation. Since I am Peter Alson’s uncle, I will probably be accused of nepotism, but to hell with that—I would stand by the first para- graph if he were your nephew. Literature is thicker than blood.{{sfn|Alson|1996}} </blockquote>
In his contributions to covers, Mailer even took the time to contemplate the minutiae of modern life. There is joyous disgust in his blurb for Fenichell’s ''Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century'', {{sfn|Fenichell|1999|}} “At last! For anyone who hates plastics and loves good writing, this is the book to satisfy your anger, your passion, and your instinctive judgment, and all at once.” And one cannot ignore ''Vittorio’s Dog Book'', {{sfn|Fiorucci|2002}} a collection of drawings that inspired the novelist to admit, “Dogs have souls. The only question, in my mind, is {{pg|460|461}} whether theirs are more noble than ours. And I say this despite having seen a great deal of execrable behavior in the canine species.”

Few subjects have escaped Norman Mailer’s interest, and even fewer observations his keen eye. The collection of his blurbs is a collection of reflective vignettes, and serves as a testament to his relationship with the spooky art, his munificence toward fellow conjurers, and his role as a quick-change artist; a Renaissance man; a broker of the literary marketplace. When considering the endorsement of fellow authors, it is perhaps best to heed Mailer’s advice, included in a 1974 letter to Richard Goodwin for his work ''The 'American Condition'':

<blockquote> If your publishers wish to cut [the blurb], that’s all right with me, but I’d like them to show the rare courtesy of indicating how and where they’re going to make the cuts . . . it creates good will and the opposite causes a quiet rancor to build in people who begin as your champion . . . don’t [take] the blurb and pull out of it ‘a great book.’ {{sfn|Goodwin|1974}} </blockquote>

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite book |last=Alson |first=Peter |date=1996 |title= Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie |url= |location=New York |publisher=Crown Publishers, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Baldwin |first=James |date= 1965|title= Giovanni’s Room |url= |location= New York |publisher= |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Burroughs |first=William |date= 1962|title= Naked Lunch |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press|pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date=1985 |title= The Class of ’’49: A Novel and Two Short Stories |url= |location= New York |publisher=North Point Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date= 1966|title= Hard Rain Falling |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Corey |first=Dale |date=1997 |title=Inventing English: The Imaginative Origins of Everyday Expressions. |url= |location= New York |publisher=Berkley Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fenichell |first=Stephen |date=1999 |title=Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper business |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fiorucci |first=Vittorio |date=2002 |title=Vittorio’s Dog Book |url= |location= |publisher=Scarlet Claw Publishing, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Garrison |first=Jim |date=1988 |title=On the Trail of the Assassins |url= |location=New York |publisher=Sheridan Square Pub |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Richard |date=1974 |title=The American Condition |url= |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= Greenstein |first= Jennifer |date=April 2000 |title= Advertisement for Himself |url= |magazine= Brill’s Content |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Harmon |first=Sandra |date=1975 |title=A Girl Like Me |url= |location=New York |publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |date=1951 |title=From Here to Eternity |url= |location=New York |publisher= Charles Scribner’s Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie | date=2009 |title=Lies My Mother Never Told Me |url= |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |author-mask= 1 |date=1990 |title=Quite the OtherWay |url= |location=New York |publisher=Fawcett |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite interview |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |author-mask= 1 |subject-link= |date=11 June 2009 |title=Telephone Interview |url= |work= |interviewer-last= |interviewer-first= |interviewer-link= |location= |publisher= |access-date=}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Myron |date=1957 |title=Remember Me to God |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=J. P. Lippincott |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Larry |date=1986 |title=None But a Blockhead |url= |location=New York |publisher=Viking Adult |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lawford |first=Christopher Kennedy |date=2005 |title=Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J.Michael. |date=2000 |title=Norman Mailer: Works and Days |url= |location=Shavertown, PA |publisher=Sligo Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= |first= |date=4 August 1952 |title=Made in Japan |url= |magazine=Time Magazine |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|"Made in Japan"|1952 }}}}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title=Mailer: His Life and Times |url= |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mills |first=Hiliary |date=1982 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nakae |first=Kiyose |date=1958 |title=Jiu-Jitsu Complete |url= |location=New York |publisher=Wehman Bros |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= |first= |title=Norman Mailer |url= |journal=1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium |volume= |issue= |date=1999 |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman |last= Mailer|recipient= Richard Goodwin |subject= Letter to Richard Goodwin |date= 4 March 1974|ref=harv}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman| last= Mailer |author-mask= 1|recipient= Larry L. King | subject=Letter to Larry L. King | date=11 May 1981 | publisher=The Daily Beast|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Rembar |first=Charles |date=1968 |title=The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Reuter |first=Madalynne |date=8 February 1985 |title=1,000 Writers toMeet in New York at PEN International Congress |url= |magazine=Publisher’s Weekly |pages=23-24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Robins |first=Natalie |last=Aronson |first=Steven |date=1985 |title=Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rosten |first=Norman |date=1972 |title=Over and Out |url= |location=New York |publisher=George Braziller |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Skellings |first=Edmund |date=1976 |title=Heart Attacks |url= |location=Gainesville |publisher=UP of Florida |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Slatzer |first=Robert F. |date=1975 |title=The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=New York |publisher=Pinnacle |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Stein |first=Jean |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1982 |title=Edie: An American Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Summers |first=Anthony |date=1989 |title=Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the J.F.K. Assassination |url= |location=St. Paul |publisher=Paragon House Publishing |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Tasaki |first=Hanama |date=1950 |title=Long the Imperial Way |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Torres |first=Jose |date=1971 |title=Sting Like a Bee: The Mohammad Ali Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Curtis Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Westoff |first=Leslie Aldridge |last=Stein |first=Daniel S. |date=1999 |title=Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You |url= |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |pages= |ref=harv }}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Advertisements for Others: The Blurbs of Norman Mailer

2025-04-14T22:25:59Z

Hobbitonya: Changed two citations to the letter template and added author mask to one of them

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
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{{byline|last=Mitchell |first=Matthew S Hinton |abstract=With ''Advertisements for Myself'', Norman Mailer established an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.. }}

WITH ''ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF'', NORMAN MAILER ESTABLISHED an influential foundation in his critique of fellow authors. Additionally, he secured his role as a contributor to the literary marketplace by way of his praise of other works. In over half a century, Norman Mailer composed approximately one hundred and forty blurbs for books on a bevy of subjects. From Hemingway to heavyweight champions, from conspiracy theories to Italian cooking, Mailer has, through his blurbs, shown great generosity to fellow writers, commented on a variety of topics, revealed several personal interests, and developed a poetry of promotion.
Although the 1990s were the peak years for his blurb-writing (he wrote thirty-six of them), Mailer was already punching up endorsements in the first full-year of his literary career. Fast on the heels of ''The Naked and the Dead'', he found fascination with a book authored by a thirty-eight-year-old Japanese businessman: a nightclub owner who was “Hawaiian-born, U.S.- educated, and a veteran of the Japanese army” named Hanama Tasaki.{{sfn|"Made in Japan"|1952}} Tasaki made his debut with ''Long the Imperial Way''—a war novel—and Mailer generously wrote the following one hundred and seventy two words:
<blockquote> I hope ''Long the Imperial Way'' finds a large audience, and to Americans this picture of Japanese life should prove fascinating. Even more important, the experience of military life seen through a Japanese filter is the possible way to grasp the swindle of modern war: the patriotism, the battle waged in the name of peace, the exploitation of soldiers by their officers—the sad song {{pg|453|454}} is here with all its verses. For undoubtedly the Japanese were more miserable, more subjected, more oppressed than soldiers of any other nation, and the brutalities and excesses they committed became comprehensible here to the Western mind. Or at least it is to be hoped that they do become comprehensible or we shall be in a pretty pass when not only the Russians but the Americans as well begin to commit the extra-curricular butcheries of war, and American soldiers and Russian soldiers will strike out in blind frustration and in desperation, swindled even in the moment of their death by the slogans which have already betrayed them.</blockquote>

The paragraph he wrote in support of James Jones’s ''From Here to Eternity'', one of his earliest blurbs, presages his relationship with the fellow war novelist—one of great camaraderie and, later, some disagreement. Mailer had received the work through Scribner’s editor, Burroughs Mitchell. Sick in bed in his Vermont home during the fall of 1950, with the galleys of ''Eternity'' to keep him company, Mailer had this to offer:

<blockquote> It’s a big fist of a book with powerful virtues and serious faults, but if the very good is mixed with the sometimes bad, those qual- ities are inseparable from the author. Jones writes with a wry compassionate anger which is individual and borrows from no writer I know. I think his book is one of the best of the ‘war novels’, and in certain facets perhaps the best.</blockquote>
In a letter to Jones in 1955, Mailer properly framed his contribution, saying, “I remember when I read ''Eternity.'' I was sick with the grippe at the time and I just got sicker. Because deep inside me I knew that no matter how I didn’t want to like it, and how I leaped with pleasure at its faults, it was still just too fucking good . . .” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999}}
Mailer suffered, surely, but also felt that Jones was “talking” to him, as good writers did through their books, especially a “major work” like ''Eternity.'' Later, after the deterioration of their friendship, Jones and Mailer would meet for the last time in Elaine’s, a bar in the Upper East Side. An uninformed Mailer suggested that the two “fight it out,” to which Jones replied, “I’m sick, I’ve got a bum heart” {{sfn|Jones|1951}} {{pg|454|455}}
Norman felt bad about having made this challenge, and relayed the story to Kaylie Jones when the two met at a cocktail party at Jean Stein’s in the late 1980s. Eager to heal old wounds, he offered his friendship to the then twenty-something author. Gloria Jones, rigid and quiet next her daughter through- out the exchange, finally spoke. “You can make it up to her right now,” she said, “give her a quote for her new book about Russia.” Mailer seemed to easily acquiesce, and Gloria added, “If you give her a quote for her novel . . . I swear, Norman, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . give you a blow job.” They all laughed, and Norman wrote the blurb for ''Quite the Other Way'',{{sfn|Jones|1990}} celebrating Kaylie’s “great honesty about a tricky and charged subject . . . a portrait of life in Moscow . . .”

The Joneses were not the only major authors to receive blurbs from Mailer. Mailer promoted ''The Naked Lunch'' {{sfn|Burroughs|1962}} as “a book of great beauty, great difficulty, and maniacally exquisite insight,” referring to Burroughs as “the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” Mailer would go on public record in a Boston obscenity trial with his thoughts, along with Allen Ginsberg, to appeal the banning of the book. {{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=216}}

Not long after meeting James Baldwin in Paris in 1956—Jean Malaquais introduced the two at his apartment—Mailer “kindly” provided a blurb for the just-finished ''Giovanni’s Room''. {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=144}}{{sfn|Baldwin|1965}} There to decompress after writing for ''The Village Voice'', the patriarch of hipsterdom was quitting Benzedrine and Seconal, and composed a simple review of Baldwin’s work, saying he “has become one of the few writers of our time . . . [he has written] a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction.”

Novelist and screenwriter Don Carpenter has had his share of Mailer praise as well, initially receiving a blurb for his first work in 1966, ''Hard Rain Falling'', {{sfn|Carpenter|1966}} which read, “Don Carpenter has written a remarkably cool, knowledgeable, sly, subtle, wry, painful novel about some intelligent and violent men and their little trip through life, prison, and the pains of reformation . . . the best novel I’ve ever read about contemporary show biz.”

Over twenty years later, Norman was doing his “church work” as president of the PEN American Center{{sfn|Lennon|2000|p=149}} and coping with the death of his mother, Fanny Mailer, but perhaps found solace in Carpenter’s ''The Class of ’49 ''. {{sfn|Carpenter|1985}} In an eloquent endorsement, he wrote: “I never knew what they meant when they said so-and-so writes like an angel, but now I do. Don Carpenter
{{pg|455|456}}
gives us a superb prose, light, fast as the speed of reading, quick in its turns, luminous, tender, humorous, sad, full of wise woe and comic optimism.”

As for Larry L. King, he would comment on ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' in a 1981 letter, saying he “love[ed] the penetration in that one.” Five years later, he reserved his less suggestive admiration for King’s ''None But a Blockhead'': “King’s strengths are his wit and his integrity . . . He rings an American bell. His writing is, I dare say, intoxicating.” {{sfn|King|1986}}

As with many novelists, Norman understood the infinite value of poets and their craft. He “accept[ed] the hazard of mentioning [his] own poetry” in a blurb for Florida poet Ed Skellings, {{sfn|Skellings|1976}} and included the refrain: “I want my poems / to be like bones / and shine silver in the sun.” Poet Norman Ros- ten, who referred to Mailer as “Norm I” (Rosten himself was “Norm II”), would also receive acclaim from his longtime friend. ''Over and Out'', {{sfn|Rosten|1972}} however, was not a poetry collection, but a “remarkable novel filled with poetic skills and startling tender sorrows which are blown away with the lightest diffusion of wit . . . the prevailing mood while reading it is pleasure, then more pleasure.” Rosten initiated Mailer’s literary life, helping him to carry the manuscript for ''The Naked and Dead'' on the subway to meet Ted Amussen. Once, he had even attempted to arrange a meeting between Norm I and Marilyn Monroe, who frequented the kitchen of his Connecticut home in the late 1950s. Mailer, who lived within a mere five miles, would tease Ros- ten about this, often accusing him of “favoring [Arthur] Miller” {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=253}} During the 1980s, both “Norms” would regularly eat lunch together in New York—it seems that they always stayed in touch.

But Mailer’s interests were never solely literary. Like any sane person, one of Norman’s favorite pastimes was sex. Yet with one book, he proudly announced a bit of ignorance. One Fall evening in 1956, Mailer had tried to prompt a fight between his then-wife Adele and Leslie Aldridge Westoff (then married to John Aldridge) at a party in their Connecticut farmhouse. Over forty years later, Leslie co-authored ''Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You''{{sfn|Westoff|1999}} and contacted him for a blurb, saying “[Y]ou, Norman, have always been known for your witty, provocative, brilliant, and sexy comments
. . . so if you could just say one sentence . . . I will be forever grateful . . .” {{sfn|Greenstein|2000}} She knew how to stroke his ego, and Mailer’s response matched her praise in kind: “Working on my own stuff, I haven’t had a moment to look into ''Passionate Sex'', but how can others fail to buy it? If the author delivers one-tenth of what is promised in the title, the book will be the bargain of the{{pg|456|457}} year.” He allowed no editing of this blurb—no cuts whatsoever—and amended in an interview, “Why assume that endorsements are holy? I thought it was time to have a little fun with the solemnity of sexual promise. And indeed I did remain true to the endangered principle that information in an information age must strive to be as accurate as possible”. {{sfn|Greenstein|2000|p=40}} Whether he knew it or not, Norman’s comment would be telling of the very origin of the blurb itself, which first came to us on the cover of humorist Gelett Burgess’s ''Are You a Bromide?'' To promote his 1906 publication, Burgess had included the photo of a buxom woman with the fictional name of “Belinda Blurb,” followed by a brief, and nonsensical, text. This satirical look at self-praise caught on, and the word soon found a more serious home amongst promoters and advertisers. {{sfn|Corey|1997|p=35-6}} With his remarks, Norman had once again cut publicity down to its original chaff.

Mailer’s attention to sex was matched only by his early interest in fighting and its various styles. During the winter of 1956-57, Mailer was visited in his Connecticut home by Lyle Stuart, the publisher who would encourage him to begin writing about race in America, sending his statements to Faulkner and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Stuart was aware of Mailer’s interest in combat, and during this trip encouraged him to take jiu-jitsu classes in New York. Norman took to it immediately, and when he discovered that Stu- art was publishing a book by his own jiu-jitsu professor, he matched the fifteen-hundred-dollar advance, and profited from the investment by well over twenty-two thousand dollars.{{sfn|Mills|1982|p=184}} He even wrote a blurb, touting Kiyose Nakae’s 1958 ''Jiu-Jitsu Complete''{{sfn|Nakae|1958}} as “coherent and practical in its every detail.”

An affinity for boxing took Mailer from spectator to promoter to inside the ring. In the same above letter to King, he quipped, “I have to laugh when I think of all the dedication and abstention I’ve put into a sport where on my greatest days I rise within sight of being a mediocre amateur-gentlemen- boxer.” Norman would extol Larry Fink’s 1997 collection of boxing photo- graphs, proclaiming them to be “very good at capturing the dignity, the dread, the sense of doom and the desire to bring doom upon others that is the subtext of every fight . . . and every boxing gym.” He took to early spar- ring with Adele Morales’ father, Al, who always had a place to practice or a bag to swing at, and had associated with the likes of Roger Donoghue, Mo- hammed Ali, and very closely with light-heavyweight champ Jose Torres, whom Mailer financed for the 1965 title. Both men took great pains with {{pg|457|458}} each other as they traded punches and pages in the summer of 1972, Torres— who rented a nearby house in Jamaica, Vermont—was teaching Mailer the ropes, Mailer teaching Torres the pen. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=189}} By the end of it, Tor- res completed his book on Ali, the well-known ''Sting Like a Bee''. {{sfn|Torres|1971}} Mailer’s blurb would prove a quick jab of friendship: “Fantastic . . . Goddamit.”

Just as he was no stranger to taking a swing, Mailer would have a deep interest in the concepts of God, the devil, and the everlasting fight between the two—a fight taking place in the ring of one’s very soul. Myron Kaufmann, a Jewish classmate from Harvard, was present when Bea Silverman (Mailer’s girlfriend at the time) turned to the other women eating dinner at Dunster House and asked “Do you girls fuck?” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=34}} For Kaufmann, author of the 1957 bestseller ''Remember Me to God'', {{sfn|Kaufmann|1957}} Norman would state his “extraordinary honesty” in saying that the book would “cause a noticeable shift in the consciousness of the American Jew and the American Protestant” and would credit it for awakening him to hints of anti-Semitism at Harvard, though he “never felt ghettoized” {{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=24}}.

Sandra Harmon, who booked Mailer for his infamous appearance with Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett show, received his nod of approval for her novel, ''A Girl Like Me''. {{sfn|Harmon|1975}} The blurb, written soon after his return from Africa in 1975, took up the entire back cover. “We are entering a literature where all the lives which used to be silent now speak,” the comments began,
<blockquote> Now, in its way, ''A Girl Like Me'' is the most startling manifestation of this phenomenon. For no matter who else would write a book, how could we expect a novel as unendurably honest as this to come from that female Jewish world which is triangulated be- tween Brooklyn, Miami and Los Angeles, that secretive, plotting, self-calculating and wholly materialistic world, especially when its heroine is beautiful, sexually centered, victim and exploiter, as calculating and ambitious as the rest, and yet divinely, incomprehensibly honest. . . . </blockquote>

It seems appropriate that Harmon’s book made it to Mailer’s reading pile. It was around this time that he met Norris Church at a party thrown by long- time friends, Francis and Ecey Gwaltney. Opposite those “lives which used to be silent,” he filled his life, and his reading hours, with people of great fame. It is no secret that Norman was obsessed by the iconic Marilyn Monroe
{{pg|458|459}} (evidenced by his much disputed biography, Marilyn). The same year his name appeared on Harmon’s novel, it appeared on Robert Slatzer’s ''The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe'', hailing it as good enough to re-open the investigation on the starlet’s suspicious death:
<blockquote> [I]n fact I would say on the basis of hard evidence he has col- lected it would now be more difficult to prove she took her own life than that she was killed. It is already boring to say, ‘in light of Watergate . . .’ but in the light of Watergate, Dallas, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Malcolm X and Chappaquidick, I do not know how anyone could read the end of this book and think that a Coroner’s Inquest on the death of Marilyn Monroe can or should be avoided. The trouble is that public opinion must first call for it. . . . </blockquote>

In an interesting sidenote, biographer Carl Rollyson twice requested Mailer’s endorsement for his own book on Monroe: “He replied quite courteously, saying he hoped he would have time to read it—although he had stacks of books from friends who hoped he would write blurbs for them”. {{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=371}}

Another iconic starlet, socialite, actress, and model—Edie Sedgwick— once auditioned for Mailer’s stage adaptation of ''The Deer Park'', though he thought she “wasn’t very good . . . she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.” This quotation comes to us from the ''Edie: An American Biography'', {{sfn|Stein|1982}} by Jean Stein and longtime friend George Plimpton, which bore a blurb by Mailer: “[she] was the spirit of the Sixties . . . While it is not a novel (although it reads like one) I still will say: ''This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for''.” In 1985, he would comment: “''Savage Grace'' has to be the best oral history to come out since Edie.” {{sfn|Robins|1985}} Norman Mailer managed not only to get his name in Edie’s biography, but also on its cover, as well as mention it on an- other biography altogether—about ''Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous Family'', the doomed Baekelands.

One cannot mention Mailer’s association with fame and doom without also invoking the Kennedy name. In the late 1980s, he would mirror his comments on Marilyn Monroe with Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, {{sfn|Garrison|1988}} detailing the JFK shooting as “a conspiracy.” Of Summers’ Conspiracy: The {{pg|459|460}} ''Definitive Book on the JFK'' Assassination he would say, “I began it again as soon as I finished.” However, none of these was as lauded as ''Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption''. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} At 82, Mailer was still going strong—the University of Texas had just purchased his archive for $2.5 million—and he was more than willing to contribute this blurb for Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s book:
<blockquote> Books about famous American families usually land with a pious splat, or look to excavate a mud hole, but this one is a beauty. The Kennedys have had more achievements and more God-size disasters than most of us can ever know, but not one of the Kennedys has been a good writer. That verdict can now be al- tered . . . given as far as he chooses to go, he certainly tells it like it is. Three cheers. {{sfn|Lawford|2005}} </blockquote>
Such a prominent and sprawling family name brings to mind Mailer’s own blood, specifically Cy Rembar, whose work, ''The End of Obscenity,'' {{sfn|Rembar|1968}} came only a few years after Norman’s testimony in favor of ''The Naked Lunch.'' Rembar’s work was supported by his cousin as “a quiet and essentially modest account of a legal revolution,” and would be bookended in 1996 by Mailer’s approval of Peter Alson’s ''Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie'' as
<blockquote> [T]ough, vulnerable, poignant . . . Alson’s achievement is to limn the spiritual pain of a well-educated Yuppie who is not on his uppers. This he does as no one has before. So, his confessional becomes one of those few books which captures a generation. Since I am Peter Alson’s uncle, I will probably be accused of nepotism, but to hell with that—I would stand by the first para- graph if he were your nephew. Literature is thicker than blood.{{sfn|Alson|1996}} </blockquote>
In his contributions to covers, Mailer even took the time to contemplate the minutiae of modern life. There is joyous disgust in his blurb for Fenichell’s ''Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century'', {{sfn|Fenichell|1999|}} “At last! For anyone who hates plastics and loves good writing, this is the book to satisfy your anger, your passion, and your instinctive judgment, and all at once.” And one cannot ignore ''Vittorio’s Dog Book'', {{sfn|Fiorucci|2002}} a collection of drawings that inspired the novelist to admit, “Dogs have souls. The only question, in my mind, is {{pg|460|461}} whether theirs are more noble than ours. And I say this despite having seen a great deal of execrable behavior in the canine species.”

Few subjects have escaped Norman Mailer’s interest, and even fewer observations his keen eye. The collection of his blurbs is a collection of reflective vignettes, and serves as a testament to his relationship with the spooky art, his munificence toward fellow conjurers, and his role as a quick-change artist; a Renaissance man; a broker of the literary marketplace. When considering the endorsement of fellow authors, it is perhaps best to heed Mailer’s advice, included in a 1974 letter to Richard Goodwin for his work ''The 'American Condition'':

<blockquote> If your publishers wish to cut [the blurb], that’s all right with me, but I’d like them to show the rare courtesy of indicating how and where they’re going to make the cuts . . . it creates good will and the opposite causes a quiet rancor to build in people who begin as your champion . . . don’t [take] the blurb and pull out of it ‘a great book.’ {{sfn|Goodwin|1974}} </blockquote>

==Citations==
{{reflist|20em}}

==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{cite book |last=Alson |first=Peter |date=1996 |title= Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie |url= |location=New York |publisher=Crown Publishers, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Baldwin |first=James |date= 1965|title= Giovanni’s Room |url= |location= New York |publisher= |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Burroughs |first=William |date= 1962|title= Naked Lunch |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press|pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date=1985 |title= The Class of ’’49: A Novel and Two Short Stories |url= |location= New York |publisher=North Point Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Carpenter |first=Don |date= 1966|title= Hard Rain Falling |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Corey |first=Dale |date=1997 |title=Inventing English: The Imaginative Origins of Everyday Expressions. |url= |location= New York |publisher=Berkley Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fenichell |first=Stephen |date=1999 |title=Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper business |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fiorucci |first=Vittorio |date=2002 |title=Vittorio’s Dog Book |url= |location= |publisher=Scarlet Claw Publishing, Inc |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Garrison |first=Jim |date=1988 |title=On the Trail of the Assassins |url= |location=New York |publisher=Sheridan Square Pub |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Richard |date=1974 |title=The American Condition |url= |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= Greenstein |first= Jennifer |date=April 2000 |title= Advertisement for Himself |url= |magazine= Brill’s Content |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Harmon |first=Sandra |date=1975 |title=A Girl Like Me |url= |location=New York |publisher= E.P. Dutton & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |date=1951 |title=From Here to Eternity |url= |location=New York |publisher= Charles Scribner’s Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=2009 |title=Lies My Mother Never Told Me |url= |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |date=1990 |title=Quite the OtherWay |url= |location=New York |publisher=Fawcett |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite interview |last=Jones |first=Kaylie |subject-link= |date=11 June 2009 |title=Telephone Interview |url= |work= |interviewer-last= |interviewer-first= |interviewer-link= |location= |publisher= |access-date=}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaufmann |first=Myron |date=1957 |title=Remember Me to God |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=J. P. Lippincott |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Larry |date=1986 |title=None But a Blockhead |url= |location=New York |publisher=Viking Adult |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lawford |first=Christopher Kennedy |date=2005 |title=Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J.Michael. |date=2000 |title=Norman Mailer: Works and Days |url= |location=Shavertown, PA |publisher=Sligo Press |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last= |first= |date=4 August 1952 |title=Made in Japan |url= |magazine=Time Magazine |pages= |access-date= |ref={{harvid|"Made in Japan"|1952 }}}}
* {{cite book |last=Manso |first=Peter |date=1985 |title=Mailer: His Life and Times |url= |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mills |first=Hiliary |date=1982 |title=Mailer: A Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nakae |first=Kiyose |date=1958 |title=Jiu-Jitsu Complete |url= |location=New York |publisher=Wehman Bros |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last= |first= |title=Norman Mailer |url= |journal=1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium |volume= |issue= |date=1999 |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman |last= Mailer|recipient= Richard Goodwin |subject= Letter to Richard Goodwin |date= 4 March 1974|ref=harv}}
* {{cite letter |first= Norman| last= Mailer |author-mask= 1|recipient= Larry L. King | subject=Letter to Larry L. King | date=11 May 1981 | publisher=The Daily Beast|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Rembar |first=Charles |date=1968 |title=The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Reuter |first=Madalynne |date=8 February 1985 |title=1,000 Writers toMeet in New York at PEN International Congress |url= |magazine=Publisher’s Weekly |pages=23-24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Robins |first=Natalie |last=Aronson |first=Steven |date=1985 |title=Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family |url= |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rosten |first=Norman |date=1972 |title=Over and Out |url= |location=New York |publisher=George Braziller |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Skellings |first=Edmund |date=1976 |title=Heart Attacks |url= |location=Gainesville |publisher=UP of Florida |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Slatzer |first=Robert F. |date=1975 |title=The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=New York |publisher=Pinnacle |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Stein |first=Jean |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1982 |title=Edie: An American Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Summers |first=Anthony |date=1989 |title=Conspiracy: The Definitive Book on the J.F.K. Assassination |url= |location=St. Paul |publisher=Paragon House Publishing |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Tasaki |first=Hanama |date=1950 |title=Long the Imperial Way |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Torres |first=Jose |date=1971 |title=Sting Like a Bee: The Mohammad Ali Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Curtis Books |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Westoff |first=Leslie Aldridge |last=Stein |first=Daniel S. |date=1999 |title=Passionate Sex: Discover the Special Power in You |url= |location=New York |publisher=Carroll & Graf |pages= |ref=harv }}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/All You Need is Glove

2025-04-11T23:19:34Z

Hobbitonya: added body text

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{{BookReviewBox
| title = Fighters and Writers
| author = John G. Rodwan, Jr.
| location= Norman, OK
| pub = Mongrel Empire Press
| date = 2010
| pages = 222 pp.
| type = Paperback
| price = 18.00
| note =
| first = Sal
| last = Cetrano
| link =
| url =
}}

Clichés walk a long road. They don’t start out the sorry, threadbare creatures we finally make some out to be, bumbling and clutching at straws, but once were young and thoroughly of their time, cracking wise at parties and stoking dying talk. That boxers and journalists are somehow cut from the same cloth or share some wild atavistic gene has stoked individual imagination and shaped American popular culture, occasionally touching upon history, for better than a century, a long, if not unbroken, line.

In his essentially titled collection of essays, ''Fighters and Writers,'' John Rodwan Jr., a veteran observer of the boxing scene, as well as a respected commentator on jazz and American social change, leads us on such a wide-ranging expedition, through the parallel histories and changing roles of these sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-infamous occupations, as seen from forefronts of masculinity and violence, race and identity, image and reality.

Byron and Keats were boxing fans. Conan Doyle made Sherlock Holmes an amateur pugilist. Jack London led a search for a “Great White Hope.” George Orwell, who would have much to say about violence, was a schoolboy boxer, and Albert Camus a capable amateur. George Bernard Shaw, Dashiell Hammett, Charles Bukowski ... the roster of boxing’s bedazzled is both pedigreed and diverse.

There are, of course, the familiar exploits of those who themselves famously laced up the gloves: Hemingway, A.J.Liebling, Plimpton, and Mailer.
Scott Fitzgerald, object of platonic passion, manages to bruise a hapless Papa, head and heart, without tossing a punch, and even Oscar Wilde makes an unexpected appearance.

''The Ali Act,'' not surprisingly, is Rodwan’s starting point, an acknowledgment of that magical confluence of a phenomenal boxer and one of the most turbulent eras in American history. Before rap music’s arid syntax of bluster and threat, greed and lust, spastic id and unwarranted ego, Ali gushed flowers, effortless as waterfall, always of the moment, even his harshest invective laced with poetry, and always that wicked motherlove smile.

Principally through the duelling biographical attitudes of several dons of “Ali Studies,” Rodwan conducts the flood of critical opinion surrounding Ali, from opprobrium to adulation. Mark Kram questions Ali’s intelligence and incisive wit. A fatigued Michael Arkush cannot finally see past Ali’s façade, distinguish hero from hype. Mike Marquesee sees the champ as humanist and iconoclast, a deft and instinctive molder of attitudes. Thomas Hauser goes one better: Ali “changed the experience of being black.”

Whether as “emblem of black pride,” “embodiment of rebellion,” or “surest sign of capitalism’s capacity to transform almost anything into a commodity,” Rodwan leads us through the measured schizophrenia of America embracing a separationist Civil Rights hero and pacifist warrior, simple poet and disturbingly complex thinker.
In the end as much a product of self-promoter supreme Gorgeous George as of either Angelo Dundee or Malcolm X, Ali becomes symbolic of a myriad of things to a myriad of observers with different axes to grind, until in danger of becoming “a generic representative of greatness.”

Rodwan helps to sort out this heavyweight welter of sport, politics, celebrity and pop psychology in which so many were able to see exactly what they wanted to see (a McLuhanism comes to mind: “I wouldn‘t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”): prismatic Ali the apparent envy of scribes less facile at persuasive charm, guile and misdirection, without which narrative does not dance, but sags into the canvas.
E. M. Forster used the phrase “the beast and the monk” to describe man’s unsettling duality. (Feel free to insert the author of your choice here.) We are given a prime example of this in ''Seeing Stars,'' where James Toback’s dark film portrait ''Tyson'' is examined. Tyson, as iconic of his time as Ali of a flowery, more dramatic era, was arguably as adept at the concept of creating and inhabiting roles as Ali, but without what Rodman identifies as the successful fighter or writer’s aspirational ability to adapt and control.

We gawk in ''Tyson'' at a haunted man, strange yet familiar, his remorse and self-loathing convincing beyond craft, bizarrely framed by a filmmaker more arch than artist. The savage mauler of memory sits stonily in mood-lit profile, Hamlet as Elephant Man, and fed doctored reflections.
Veteran fight fans will remember the bashful, wounded boy and respectful student of boxing history that Tyson, under the nurture of Cus D’Amato and Jimmy Jacobs, once was. For a strange, brief time the confident, self proclaimed “master of skullduggery,” Tyson’s eyes now wander past the camera into the dark, onto the blank page of his next incarnation, and you sense the wordless terror at the gaping task of filling it.

Rodwan reminds us that Iron Mike “enjoyed outsmarting others as a criminal,” but we are also reminded of the boy “living in constant fear” of being bullied in the “horrific” streets of Brownsville. At root of the baleful, psyche-shrinking legend, that of the rapacious, baby-eating ''bête noire,'' is the frightened child-man still in the process of growing up. Yet when D’Amato tells him that it was Ali’s personality that made him a great fighter, Tyson does not understand. Ali, Rodwan tells us, perfected the writerly capacity “for ceaseless reinvention.” The contrast here with Tyson is, in the strictest sense of the word, pathetic. It is pure ''schadenfreude,'' with not a penny’s worth of difference between the most depraved ringsider screaming for blood and the armchair moralist deriving satisfaction at the ''auto de fé'' of this tragic soul.

In ''The Cinderella Man Fairytale,'' Rodwan brings to earth the myth of James J.Braddock, “a strong but limited fighter” who succeeded little in life’s basic tests, but rode an inspirational wave as one of the first to tap a boxer’s “special capacity to become emblematic figures of their time.” Rodwan echoes the familiar—and cinematic—notion that certain eras in history cry out for heroes, searching for the genuine and admirable in the contrasting personalities of the prosaic stevedore Braddock and the flashy but lackadaisical Max Baer, who presaged the media-milkers to come more than the laconic Louis, who was soon to stand colossus-like astride a rare, exhilarating confluence of fistic spectacle and world history.

Although Braddock biographer Jeremy Shaap’s assertion that “great champions usually are fashioned by adversity” serves as stirring paean to all who fashioned lives beneath the Great Depression’s boot, Rodwan reels this in as “far too simplistic.” Both in fiction and the ring, the buffered version “Hard times don’t create heroes; they reveal them” is probably nearer the truth. “''The Cinderella Man'' Fairytale,” sets the stage for later champions whose adversities will be measured on wholly different scales.

Although a bit disjointed—the essays are neither closely connected nor presented as such—Rodwan is steadily engaging. Some of Rodwan’s personal essays, as much of life’s soft parade, are trivial. In ''Weight Loss: A Love Story,'' Rodwan weds logic to romance through the scrupulous gleaning of the proper foods for his hypoglycemic wife, while providing quixotic inspiration through his own gut-busting exertions. We get the practical appreciation of a fighter’s heart in a slightly-saggy everyman’s body. Boxing, the author maintains, being a sport where a fighter’s inattention to his weight can have fell consequence, gave him “a perspective on size, one that I found changed as my body did.” The equation between self-image and exercise as a habit, then, defines the price of admission to the boxer’s world.
Rodwan’s peregrinations are wide: from weight loss to Melville’s use of what Liebling termed “labyrinthine digressions” in ''Moby-Dick;'' what book dedications apparent and lesser known (''Fighters and Writers'' is dedicated to Jose Torres, whom only death could KO)reveal about the headwaters of creation; the “tribal” fractiousness of state boxing commissions in ''There Are No Easy Answers'' to the futility of “health and safety” measures in a sport bent on focused destruction in—whatelse— ''Health & Safety;''the habits of jaguars or James Bond girls, or the use of repetition in the bodies of authors’ work.

Wander as he might, Rodwan is an effective gate-keeper, no musing too far from his unifying thesis: that boxing is a significant window on both the human condition and pivotal historic events.

''A First Class Sport'' is a breath of fresh air along Rodman’s promenade. The phrase was coined by everybody’s favorite tough-guy president, Teddy Roosevelt, who as New York’s police commissioner, when cops still rode horses, staunchly averred that “the establishment of a boxing club in a tough neighborhood always tended to do away with knifing and gun-fighting among the young fellows who would otherwise have been in murderous gangs.” First as governor, then as president, he would occasionally don the gloves, not leery of making a bad impression.

Trainer and boxing commentator Teddy Atlas traces his long career to “boxing in an old laundry room in a rough project.” Boxing programs, he insists, give kids “care, direction, instruction, discipline, accountability and dreams.” Katherine Dunn maintains that women as well as men stand to benefit from the sport’s contributions to an “individual’s reflexes, stamina and strength.” Linked as it is to the survival instinct, she sees “the aggressiveness of boxing as a positive good.”

A twelve-year-old Cassius Clay’s first trainer is a policeman in a neighborhood gym, where the pumped-up boy has come to report a stolen bicycle. Larry Holmes, who before following Ali as heavyweight champion had been a petty criminal and drug dealer, boxes first as a boy in PAL-organized bouts in Pennsylvania. Few writers could more eloquently express than the stolid ex-champion why he found himself through boxing, or the sport’s broader significance: “People express themselves differently. Painters paint, writers write, dancers dance. I discovered I needed physical contact to let what was in me come out.”

The mantra is repeated, old hand after old hand: how boxing helps young men “overcome long odds, just to be strong and functional.” Where else might young men hone these qualities today? It is a sobering thought.

It is perhaps useful to view writers of Rodwan’s age—and, if we’re fortunate, scholarship—as a bridge between journalistic generations, as the grand, insipid machinations explored in “Is Martin Amos Serious?”, a cautionary tale of polysyllabic bitch-slapping between effete critic and self-appointed social visionary in the post-Vietnam era, might seem truly other-worldly to a masculinity cut of the Hemingway-Miller-Mailer model or the Runyunesque romanticism of just-plain, tabloid-reading guys and dolls.

In so many Depression era movies—think ''His Girl Friday'' or ''Kid Dynamite''—there is a hairy vitality in which words are punches, clever dialogue the bob and weave. A choice put-down is comparable to a jab, a prolonged exchange—often between man and woman—a promoter’s dream of well-matched battlers. Reporters are scoop-driven individualists, resourceful and combative, or cigar-chomping cynics, sparring with snappy gangster patter. Writers romanticized, or were romanticized by, action in barroom, alley or ring, in corrida or on safari.

Over the years, muscular exercises in ribald badinage such as Pat and Mike and ''The Philadelphia Story'' established a salutary pugilism between clever men and women, toothsome adversaries, bent on loosing kindred angels from first row to balcony. Violence was mostly theatrical, and the theater had walls.

No more.

The journalist, however intrepid or self-possessed, confronting what Amis calls “a world of perfect terror and perfect boredom,” is faced with the same dilemma as the other-directed, would-be reader. He is caught in a world where the numbing possibility of extreme, sudden violence is all around, while incidents of personal involvement with violence and tests of imminent physical danger become ever fewer, an inexpressible irony no poultice of gadgetry and spattered crimson image can mollify.

There is no stylistic shortcut for the writer who would wear Hemingway’s hat. How to convey, in Mailer’s words, “not only the fear of getting hurt, which is profound in more men than will admit to it, but . . . the opposite panic, equally unadmitted, of hurting others” without having drunk of both fountains? Charlatan! Fop! Poseur!

If, then, few of us face real violence on an imminent basis in a sanitized, secularized, keep-everybody-alive, everybody’s-a-star world, what then are “life-and-death” or “fight-or-flight” but desiccated phrases in lives passively and dutifully led? Boxing has all but disappeared from the public eye today. “Mixed martial arts,” with its gladiatorial setting, heightened ceiling of violence and ignominious possibility of “submission,” has at least temporarily cornered the attention of erstwhile boxing fans. Motion pictures, replete with superheroes who neither sweat nor bleed, facile special effects and editing friendly to the goldfish attention span of a generation raised on television, have largely replaced the novel as the preferred vehicle of narrative expression. Newspapers are an endangered species, with a surfeit of commentators clinging jealously to odd perches in the blogosphere, desperate to attract attention.

Were Hemingway to rise from the dead, would anybody notice?

There is in Rodwan the suggestion that today’s writer, self-appointed priest in a vanishing church of print, wears uneasily a burden of responsibility to taste life at its extremes, the better to proffer menus to the meek. The parallel between fighter and writer becomes more the whimsical conceit of the writer, anxious of the masculinity of his chosen bread and butter, sublimating with virtuosity what cannot be shown in action.

Rodwan offers the familiar premise: it is boxing’s skill, honed in solitude through training and discipline, together with an inner strength that separates champion from journeyman, contender from “opponent.” “Fighters,” he avers, “are athletes, not brutes.” What, then, of those who presume to explain them?

Although he likens the “artful evisceration” of critics trying to “outshine Amis’s authorial flair” to “a degraded version of Ali’s style of taunting his opponents,” it is clear that the tenuous metaphor between boxing and violence has come under considerable strain, with ad hominem and hyperbole increasingly the arsenal of the infuriated and morally outraged, where pointed plain speaking once sufficed. Fathers who did not dance have sons who play air guitar. While the spectacle of boxing has, to be sure, changed little, the nature of violence, as Amis insists in his “The Second Plane,” has.

“The Fighting Life” looks at the use of boxing in the fiction of two literary giants, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer. In “The Human Stain,” Roth’s Coleman Silk, a light-skinned black who succeeds in convincing the world, including a wife, that he is a nappy-haired, sallow-skinned Jew, flowers a lifelong self-image based on boxing metaphors: “the pleasures and uses of concealment” . . . “taking the measure of every last situation,” “heeding the internal voice that counsels.” These dovetail nicely with “the boxer’s tough guy code” often espoused by Mailer: disguising intentions, never letting your thoughts be known or your guard down, self-knowledge as power, all to be found in Mailer’s ''tour de force'' of baroque violence, ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' and epic ''The Fight.''

Silk’s personal struggle for identity is mirrored in and magnified by the national catharsis of Joe Louis’s symbolic slaying of Nazism’s vaunted ''übermensch''—poor, kindly Max Schmeling, a man who would later befriend Louis, even pay for his burial—as fully conflating Max Baer’s “situational” Jewishness to democracy as Mailer later does blackness to boxing.

As Rodman’s many-voiced analysis of this episode infers, the lippy Ali and the laconic Louis each jogged people free of preconceptions, but did it in different ways. To some extent each was a helpless fulcrum for forces playing out about them. Louis, by and large, had only to go with history’s flow, Fate having provided no lesser dragon than Hitler for him to slay. Before even entering the ring for Louis-Schmeling II, Louis was a champion on multiple levels. He was not, as Jack Johnson had been, the black fighting the white; he was the American fighting the German.

The wind that blew at Louis’s back was comparable in intensity to the evil inexorably rising in Europe, a conception eagerly reinforced by patriotic journalists, awash in the infinite possibilities of good versus evil, light versus dark, slavery versus liberation. Silk, a classics professor, tells his students that “all of European literature springs from a fight,” referring to ''The Iliad’s'' “barroom brawl between Achilles and Agamemnon.” He finds integrity in the inner consistency of his life of misdirection and disguise, just as “Mailer forged a fighter’s persona for himself” which even caustic critics unwittingly bolstered to the writer’s ongoing advantage.

You can almost hear Mailer chuckling when, in ''The Spooky Art,'' he refers to his being provided “a false legend of much machismo.” Yet, as one who had the pleasure of sharing a ring with the man, I can tell you it is true: when style failed, Norman would just block a punch or three with his face, bearing down, relentless, clubbing like a Kodiak bear. Those jealous of his galling facility with language, as with Amis’s detractors, will conveniently question the manhood behind the words. In the case of Norman Mailer, there was nothing false about it.

In “George and Me,” a duly reverential Rodwan echoes the view of countless readers first enthralled by ''Animal Farm'' of a saintly, prescient Orwell against a charge leveled at him, long after his death, that he had raped a woman. It is an interesting story, one I’d not heard before, and I’ll not give up the ending.

Particulars aside, we are served a meaty example—feel free to fill in your own—of how “accomplished writers may have led less than exemplary lives.” Long after high ideals emphasized in the writing “have come to be associated with the man,” to what degree can a writer’s persona be separated from his work? Should a single incident forever jaundice a gift of vision?

Recognizing that pernicious streak in man that delights in finding inconsistencies in those we hate—or grudgingly admire—Rodwan asks, “Was Orwell, decency’s advocate, merely a fraud?” The author, plainly troubled that the reputation of one synonymous with clarity and justice might be vitiated by even the rumor of a single incongruous ugliness, finds himself poring over Orwell’s collected work for any clues about his attitudes toward women. In the end,he bemoans “the inevitability of failure in reaching complete truth.”

Incidents of “justifiable violence” in the writer’s life, including a bloody involvement in the Spanish Civil War, moral crucible for a virtual squadron of writers and artists, ironically seem to buttress both sides of the dark possibility. Again citing Amis’s critics, he revisits the thin line between certain pacifists and an admiration for totalitarianism, finding there the same sort of narrowmindedness that would sully a career so esteemed as Orwell’s for the questionable goal of striking a vein of inconsistency in a mountain of verity.

The title essay in ''Fighters and Writers'' offers a last hurrah to all working stiffs blessed to have just enough Mickey Spillane in the blood to hear their romantic inner drummer over the clatter of the morning commute. It opens with a banner on the wall of Gleason’s Gym—from Virgil: “Now, whoever has courage and a strong and collected spirit in his breast let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put his hands up.”

That ordinary men (let alone those blessed with a touch of imagination and the price of a pencil) should find in the spectacle of humans fighting “something akin to their own efforts,” gives nuance to every action so illumined. “To write about boxing,” says Joyce Carol Oates, as heavyweight a mind as ever weighed in on the subject, “is to write about oneself—however elliptically, and unintentionally.” What dark parentheses the writer may insert in either life or work speak of something other than pure perception, and therein lie all tales. Misogyny, racial hatred, brutality, deception, intolerance: all inhabit niches of boxing’s dark side as surely as courage, tenacity, resourcefulness and skill do the light. When heroes have faults, we share their pain; when they are assholes, we look twice in the mirror.

“Boxers are liars,” quotes Rodman of Jose Torres. So, too, then are lovers. In either case, it keeps you alive.

Boxing is about violence, the ability to inflict and withstand, impulses old as man from instincts even older. On one side of what we might call the Oates/Mailer Scale is the myth-nipping conviction that boxing is not a sport, has nothing playful about it, consumes the excellence it displays, damages the body, brain and spirit, and presents a stylized image of man’s collectivized aggression, while in the white corner stand endless protean metaphors for dialectics in manhood, sex, race, personal identity and, yes, even literary style. Writers, at best imperious directors of the play of their imaginings, see fighters in “straightforward pursuits of victory under the unmediated imposition of their wills.”

For all, ugliness and beauty blur in the beholder’s fevered eye. In arenas of dreams, you pays your money and you takes your chance.

In covering Sonny Liston’s 1962 knock-out of Floyd Patterson, Mailer describes boxing as “a murderous and sensitive religion that mocks the effort of understanding to approach it.” We may be thankful that the likes of John Rodwan still make the effort. ''Fighters and Writers'' is superbly referenced grist for the ringside scholar’s mill.

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:All You Need is Glove}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/All You Need is Glove

2025-04-11T21:52:48Z

Hobbitonya: created page, having issues with book review template

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven

2025-04-11T21:39:00Z

Hobbitonya: added the poem text and used poem code

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/ Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{Byline|last=Samaras|first=Nicholas}}

<poem>
Instead, they sit companionably on white, wooden lawn-chairs,
the kind you find painted in a summer mountain lodge scene,
white lawn-chairs dotting the landscape, the pleasant air
rippling through the mountain fields its shades of green.

Two old masters laughing in enlivened conversation,
their hands gesturing in animated points,
comparing their boisterous lives, their women, their literary station.
Then, what is Heaven but reverie and sharing?

Mailer drawling, "I never met a beautiful woman
who wasn’t angry.” Hemingway gut-laughing to agree.
Two hard-scrabbled souls relaxing to become true men
finally, beyond fighting to live harder, dying to be free.

No, we can’t imagine contentions continuing after death.
Instead, just let the souls of two old masters have
the time to talk for their small eternity. It’s the breath
of words that are good, words that live on, words that save.
</poem>

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven}}
[[Category:Poetry (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven

2025-04-11T21:35:40Z

Hobbitonya: Created page with "{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/ Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Samaras|first=Nicholas}} {{Review}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven}} Category:Poetry (MR)"

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park

2025-04-11T21:28:33Z

Hobbitonya: used the poem code instead

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Boxer in the Park}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{Byline|last=Blessington|first=Francis}}

<poem>
He jogs feintingly

crossing his right hard,
surpassing the park walkers

whose eyes he dodges:

his head bobs a blur
inside the hood’s dark,
hands fluttering high

masking non-stoppingly,
battling spirits in air,
part defeated, part actor,

dancing what we must know is
shaking his heart at the world,
muscling his song.
</poem>

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boxer in the Park, The}}
[[Category:Poetry (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park

2025-04-10T21:21:51Z

Hobbitonya: Put in body and formatting

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{The Boxer in the Park}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{Byline|last=Blessington|first=Francis}}

He jogs feintingly

crossing his right hard, 
surpassing the park walkers

whose eyes he dodges:

his head bobs a blur 
inside the hood’s dark, 
hands fluttering high 

masking non-stoppingly, 
battling spirits in air, 
part defeated, part actor, 

dancing what we must know is 
shaking his heart at the world, 
muscling his song.

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park

2025-04-10T21:12:36Z

Hobbitonya: Created paged, added title, byline, volume.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{The Boxer in the Park}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{Byline|last=Blessington|first=Francis}}

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-06T16:21:29Z

Hobbitonya: /* Final Review PM Article */ new section

{{Talk header}}
[[/Archive 202504/]]

== Final edits ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished remediating my assigned article. Please review it at your earliest convenience. The link is here: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer's_Mythmaking_in_An_American_Dream_and_“The_White_Negro”|Norman Mailer's Mythmaking in An American Dream and “The White Negro”]]—[[User:Erhernandez|Erhernandez]] ([[User talk:Erhernandez|talk]]) 08:52, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Erhernandez}} well done! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. I removed your banner after making a few corrections. Please have a look over it and move on to the next thing. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:06, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::@Grlucas, I have tried correcting the sfn codes in my citations. I was able to get the 2 web citations to link correctly. But for some reason, I cannot get the Mailer 1967 film Wild 90 citation to link to the reference list. Please advise. [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 20:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} OK, all fixed and published. Thanks. Please move on to another remediation. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:46, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.
:{{Reply to|APKnight25}} great work! Please help other editors to complete the volume. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:34, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} great work so far. Your references must use templates, please. Blockquotes must also be done correctly. No spaces or line breaks before or after the {{tl|pg}} template. Footnote placement is also off (punctuation goes before the footnote; no spaces before or after the footnote). I will add the abstract and url. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:30, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norman Mailer Today'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up my remediation article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer Today|Norman Mailer Today]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 18:20, 3 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Kamyers}} Great work! Please help your fellow editors finish the volume, or pick something to work on in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010|Volume 4]]. Thanks, and well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:00, 4 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of “The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished my remediation of Jennifer Yirinec's article: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”|The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”]] Thank you for your assistance with the article. It is ready for its final review! [[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 10:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} a stellar job. Well done. I removed the banner, so you can move on to another article. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:12, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediations ==
Dr. Lucas, I have begun work on the tributes for volume 5. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Grace Notes|Grace Notes]] by Stephen Borkowski is ready for its final review.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 12:58, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} Well done! Banner removed, url added. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:18, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

==Oohh Normie Final Edits==
Hi Dr. Lucas, I have finished my article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/"Oohh_Normie_—_You're_Sooo_Hemingway":_Mailer_Memories_and_Encounters|Oohh Normie, You're Sooo Hemingway]]. Please let me know if there is anything I need to fix. [[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Tbara4554}} thank you. I made some corrections and removed the banner. You might want to have another look over it. Please move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:53, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harlot's Ghost, Bildungsroman, Masculinity and Hemingway ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Harlot%27s_Ghost,_Bildungsroman,_Masculinity_and_Hemingway

[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 21:22, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} excellent. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:39, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== I am done with this ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Situating_Hemingway:_Mailer,_Style,_Ethics
:Received. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:29, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Review PM Article ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|here]] is my remediated article, ready for review![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 12:21, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-06T16:17:10Z

Hobbitonya: Fixed issue with date and sfn

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959a|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951a|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that
day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266-267}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.'' Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1955|p=852}}[This letter is unavailable digitally because of permissions. Ed.] It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,'' September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1961|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E. Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=George Plimpton |subject=To George Plimpton |date=17 January 1961 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Wallace Meyer |subject=To Wallace Meyer |date=5 December 1955 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951a |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | pages = 11 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959a | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-267 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40 | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last =Mailer | first =Norman | author-mask = 1 | title =Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last =Lennon |editor-first =J. Michael | location =Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-264 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv}}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-05T14:15:47Z

Hobbitonya: added letter to year 1959 and added information to note c

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959a|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that
day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266-267}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.'' Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1955|p=852}}[This letter is unavailable digitally because of permissions. Ed.] It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,'' September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1961|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E. Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=George Plimpton |subject=To George Plimpton |date=17 January 1961 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Wallace Meyer |subject=To Wallace Meyer |date=5 December 1955 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | pages = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959a | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-267 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40 | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last =Mailer | first =Norman | author-mask = 1 | title =Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last =Lennon |editor-first =J. Michael | location =Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-264 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T22:42:59Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that
day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266-267}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.'' Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1955|p=852}} It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,'' September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1961|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E. Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=George Plimpton |subject=To George Plimpton |date=17 January 1961 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Wallace Meyer |subject=To Wallace Meyer |date=5 December 1955 |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |author-mask= 1|ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | pages = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-267 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40 | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-264 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T22:15:19Z

Hobbitonya: Some more minor edits to citations and footnotes.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious, mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266-267}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=852}} It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | pages = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-267 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40 | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-264 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T22:05:27Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,{{' "}} mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | pages = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40 | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-264 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T21:58:52Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,{{' "}} mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |author-mask=1 |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''| magazine=Time |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T21:51:34Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,{{' "}} mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T21:49:41Z

Hobbitonya: Fixed a mistake in a citation

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,{{' "}} mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1963 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-04T12:54:44Z

Hobbitonya: Fixed a couple of punctuation issues.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=http://prmlr.us/mr04len |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source,”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately 50,000 copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}} It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,{{' "}} mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out,”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}} but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-02T21:55:11Z

Hobbitonya: /* Final edits */

{{Talk header}}

== Article Errors ==

I've added the body of the article to my sandbox page. What errors do I need to specifically change in order to make it correct?[[User:CDucharme|CDucharme]] ([[User talk:CDucharme|talk]]) 17:04, 14 September 2020 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|CDucharme}} Mostly you need to add the notes, citation, and read for typos. It’s meticulous, but that’s the job. (Thanks for signing.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:08, 14 September 2020 (EDT)

Hey, I need help with instructions for the Norman Mailer Bibliography for the remediation project. I am not sure what I am supposed to do.[[User:AJohnson|AJohnson]] ([[User talk:AJohnson|talk]]) 29 March 2021 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|AJohnson}} You need to remediate the bibliography by adding missing entries from the PDF to the article on this site using the correct templates. As the note on the bibliography says, you may use [[The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007|Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007]] as a model. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:48, 29 March 2021 (EDT)

== Final edits ==
Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

Hello, Dr. Lucas, I finished editing my article. May I have the banner removed?[[User:KJordan|KJordan]] ([[User talk:KJordan|talk]]) 20:13, 22 September 2020 (EDT)KJordan
:{{Reply to|KJordan}} Maybe. You should always link to something you want me to have a look at, please. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 20:14, 22 September 2020 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished editing my article. Can you please review it? Thank You. Here is a link to it: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_2,_2008/The_Heart_of_the_Nation:_Jewish_Values_in_the_Fiction_of_Norman_Mailer --[[User:AMurray|AMurray]] ([[User talk:AMurray|talk]]) 21:56, 23 September 2020 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|AMurray}} Looking good! However, I still see quote a few typos. There should be no space before a footnote or citation.<ref>Like this.</ref> And all parenthetical citations need to be converted. I also see a lot of missing punctuation, especially around citations. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:24, 24 September 2020 (EDT)

{{Reflist}}

Dr. Lucas, I finished editing my article. Will you please review?
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_2,_2008/The_Unknown_and_the_General --[[User:Jrdavisjr|Jrdavisjr]] ([[User talk:Jrdavisjr|talk]]) 09:00, 25 September 2020 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Jrdavisjr}} It looks good. Let's go through editing week and see if anything else comes up. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:15, 25 September 2020 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished editing my article. Can you please review it? Thank You
https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:JSheppard/sandbox [[User:JSheppard|JSheppard]] ([[User talk:JSheppard|talk]])
:{{Reply to| JSheppard}} You have a '''lot''' of work left to do. I see [[User:Jules Carry]] is helping, but you’re missing references and there are typos throughout. Keep working. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:19, 25 September 2020 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I finished my article.
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/More_Than_The_Dead_Know
[[User:RWalsh|RWalsh]] ([[User talk:RWalsh|talk]]) 15:15, 8 February 2021 (EST)
:{{reply to|RWalsh}} Not quite, but it's looking good. Clean it up and begin helping others. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:11, 9 February 2021 (EST)

Dr. Lucas, I believe I have finished editing my article. Will you please review?
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/%E2%80%9CHer_Problems_Were_Everyone%E2%80%99s_Problems%E2%80%9D:_Self_and_Gender_in_The_Deer_Park [[User:Klcrawford|Klcrawford]] ([[User talk:Klcrawford|talk]]) 09:06, 15 February 2021 (EST)
:{{Reply to|Klcrawford}} Great work. I have removed the working banner. I would appreciate it if you began to assist some of the other editors. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:04, 15 February 2021 (EST)

Hello Dr. Lucas, I have been making some edits, I am still looking to see if there is more, can you look through and give any feedback?https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/Angst,_Authorship,_Critics:_“The_Snows_of_Kilimanjaro,”_“The_Crack-Up,”_Advertisements_for_Myself [[User:JFordyce|JFordyce]] ([[User talk:JFordyce|talk]]) 18:27, 20 February 2021 (EST)JFordyce

Hello Dr. Lucas, I believe I have finished my article. Can you please review it? https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/Request [[User:EKrauskopf|EKrauskopf]] ([[User talk:EKrauskopf|talk]]) 13:06, 22 Februrary 2021 (EST)
:{{Reply to|EKrauskopf}} OK, looks good. Well done. Now please begin assisting others on getting volume 9 finished. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 06:41, 23 February 2021 (EST)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished and cleaned up my article. Could you please review it?
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/More_Than_The_Dead_Know [[User:RWalsh|RWalsh]] ([[User talk:RWalsh|talk]]) 12:35, 23 February 2021 (EST)
:{{Reply to|RWalsh}} OK, nice job. Now please begin assisting others on getting volume 9 finished. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:47, 23 February 2021 (EST)

Hello Dr.Lucas final edits have been made and the article is finished.https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/Angst,_Authorship,_Critics:_“The_Snows_of_Kilimanjaro,”_“The_Crack-Up,”_Advertisements_for_Myself[[User:JFordyce|JFordyce]] ([[User talk:JFordyce|talk]]) 22:27, 2 March 2021 (EST) JFordyce

Hello, Dr. Lucas! I have completed remediation on [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees]]. Can you please let me know if there's anything I need to correct? Thanks so much! [[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 17:11, 1 April 2025 (EDT)

Hi, Dr. Lucas. I think I have finished my PM article:[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|Hemingway to Mailer-A Delayed Response to The Deer Park]]. Please let me know if there is anything else needed from me. [[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 17:54, 2 April 2025 (EDT)

==Article Request==
Dr. Lucas. I have started working on another article. Would you be able to send me the PDF of "The Savage Poet-- Unlocking the Universe With Metaphor" so that I can help add to the article? [[User:Klcrawford|Klcrawford]] ([[User talk:Klcrawford|talk]]) 18:24, 23 February 2021 (EST)
:{{Reply to|Klcrawford}} Done. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:46, 24 February 2021 (EST)

== When we Were Kings 1st remediation ==

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/When_We_Were_Kings:_Review_and_Commentary|https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_13,_2019/When_We_Were_Kings:_Review_and_Commentary]]

Here is the link for the remediation I did for this weeks assignment. I did not now where to place the link.

Thank you,
Trevor Ryals
:{{Reply to|TRyals}} Thank you, but this is unnecessary. Just do the work; I promise I will see it. (And be sure to sign your talk page posts.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 18:16, 2 February 2021 (EST)

==Summer 2021==
Can you please review my article? I have a couple errors that I do not understand how to fix. Other than that, I am finished. https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:PLowery/sandbox

Can you review my article again please? I think I might be done. [[User:PLowery|PLowery]] ([[User talk:PLowery|talk]])
:{{Reply to|PLowery}} In order for you to be finished, your entire article must be posted [[The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/A Favor for the Ages|in the mainspace]]. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:29, 21 June 2021 (EDT)
::Done
:::I believe I have it done correctly now.

My topic person is Marion Stegeman Hodgson,however she was not my first choice. There are four others who initially chose Hodgson, Tyler McMillan, Elizabeth Webb, Caleb Andrews, and Marguerite Walker. I haven't gotten in touch with either classmate as of this date however.[[User:KWilcox|KWilcox]] ([[User talk:KWilcox|talk]])Kenneth Wilcox(KWilcox)July 7, 2021[[User:KWilcox|KWilcox]] ([[User talk:KWilcox|talk]])
:{{Reply to|KWilcox}} This work should be done on Wikipedia. Please post all questions and work about project 2 on Wikipedia. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:12, 8 July 2021 (EDT)

My attempt at creating a draft article failed by creating a new page. My next attempt will be using the user page to create the draft article, is this correct?[[User:KWilcox|KWilcox]] ([[User talk:KWilcox|talk]]) 10:22, 8 July 2021 (EDT)Kenneth Wilcox, July 8, 2021, 10:21am[[User:KWilcox|KWilcox]] ([[User talk:KWilcox|talk]]) 10:22, 8 July 2021 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|KWilcox}} As I said: please post all questions for project 2 on Wikipedia. This is an inappropriate forum for them. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:27, 8 July 2021 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-02T21:50:13Z

Hobbitonya: Finishing touches, perhaps

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}, ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the {{pg|31|32}} difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:
{{cquote|
<poem>
To ERNEST HEMINGWAY

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

NORMAN MAILER
</poem>}}
The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him{{pg|32|33}} but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}}, but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in {{pg|33|34}} his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-02T00:01:48Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}, ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}}, but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-02T00:01:23Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}, ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway
—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers,
sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}}, but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-02T00:00:17Z

Hobbitonya: Fixed citation issues

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}, ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}}, but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''| magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine| last =Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | magazine= The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-04-01T23:55:49Z

Hobbitonya: Inserted in-text citations

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}, ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=312}} Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' (1951), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether.{{sfn|Mailer|1951|p=110}} For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence,{{sfn|Weatherby|1961|p=8}} and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}} He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 353, which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=266}} Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=265}}

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948] came out”{{sfn|Mailer|1988|p=320}}, but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1981|p=912}} Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through.”{{sfn|Plimpton|1977|p=259-264}}

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence.”{{sfn|Mailer|1963|p=73}} Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose.”{{sfn|Mailer|1971|p=3-4}} Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite newspaper | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | newspaper = The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-31T23:23:42Z

Hobbitonya: Added the efn to the body

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park''{{efn|Putnam’s finally accepted the much-revised novel and published it on November 6, 1955.}} was intended to be his come back novel.{{efn|''The Deer Park'' received mainly negative reviews but was a middling commercial success, selling approximately , copies. It spent weeks on the ''Times'' bestseller list, reaching number six. ''Time'' panned it (October 17, 1955), but ''Newsweek'' (October 17, 1955) ranked it with Fitzgerald’s ''The Last Tycoon'' (1941) and Nathanael West’s ''The Day of the Locust'' (1939).}}It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates.{{efn|See pp.17–18 of this number of ''The Mailer Review.''Hemingway’s original hand-written letter resides in the Mailer Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas-Austin. Hemingway knew about, if he had not read, ''The Deer Park'' as early as December 5, 1955, when he wrote to Wallace Meyer: “In ''The Deer Park'' Mailer really blows the whistle on himself” (“To Wallace” 852). It is more likely that he was merely relaying the buzz about the book then circulating.}} Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August 1959{{efn|The dates for Hemingway’s movements are taken from Carlos Baker’s biography, ''Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story''; Baker’s edition of Hemingway’s letters; and A.E. Hotchner’s ''Papa Hemingway.''.}} it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.{{efn|The Dangerous Summer. About half of the book was published in three parts in ''Life,''September 1960.}} He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite newspaper | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | newspaper = The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-31T16:48:00Z

Hobbitonya: Added Notes List

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite newspaper | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | newspaper = The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-31T16:45:38Z

Hobbitonya: Fixed some issues with the citations. Making progress. Still have more to do!

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin |indent=1 |20em}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite newspaper | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | newspaper = The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-29T00:37:19Z

Hobbitonya: more citations

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |date= 17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+|ref=harv}}
*{{cite newspaper | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1|title = Quickly: A Column for Slow Readers | newspaper = The Village Voice | date = 28 March 1956 | page = 11 | format = Print|ref=harv }}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Advertisements for Myself | location = New York | publisher = G.P. Putnam’s Sons | year = 1959 | pages = 311–312 | format = Print | chapter = Column Twelve| ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |year=1959|chapter=Postscript to the Fourth Advertisement for Myself |date=|title=Advertisements for Myself |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=265-67 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite magazine | last = Mailer | first = Norman |author-mask=1 | title = Twelfth Round: An Interview with Norman Mailer | author2-last = Begiebing | author2-first = Robert | magazine = Harvard Magazine | date = March–April 1983 | pages = 40+ | format= Print|ref=harv}}
*{{cite book | last = Mailer | first = Norman | author-mask = 1 | title = Conversations with Norman Mailer | editor-last = Lennon | editor-first = J. Michael | location = Jackson | publisher = University Press of Mississippi | year = 1988 | pages = 306–389 | format = Print|ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=17 October 1955 |title=Norman Mailer's Despair |url= |magazine=Newsweek |pages=263-64 |access-date=|ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-29T00:03:34Z

Hobbitonya: Added a few citations and made some corrections. Still having some problems, though.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |date= 17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
*{{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1|date=28 May 1951 |title=Love Among the Love Buckets Rev. of ''The Deer Park''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= 122+| |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman| author-mask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1| date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-28T23:09:15Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
*{{cite letter |first=Ernest |last=Hemingway |recipient=Norman Mailer |subject=Letter to Norman Mailer |date=12 August 1959 |url= |access-date= |author-mask=1 |language= |location=University of Texas, Austin |publisher=MS. Mailer Archive |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To George Plimpton |date= 17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=912–914 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
*{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1 |year=1981 |chapter=To Wallace Meyer |date=17 January 1961 |title=Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Carlos |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages=851–853 |format=Print |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv}}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-26T22:55:54Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story|url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 September 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-26T22:55:25Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story|url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |date=28 Sept. 1961 |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Manchester Guardian |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-26T22:53:32Z

Hobbitonya: Added some citations

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story|url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |journal=Manchester Guardian |volume= |issue= |date= |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-26T22:52:52Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to ''The Deer Park''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}} 
{{Byline |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |url=. . . |abstract=Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer chronicles the exchange between Hemingway and Mailer that began with ''[[The Deer Park]]''. }}

{{dc|dc=S|ometime in September of 1955, Norman Mailer}} obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), ''New York Times'' columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket, saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

To Ernest Hemingway

—because finally after all these
years I am deeply curious to know
what you think of this.

—but if you do not answer, or if you
answer with the kind of crap you
use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc., then
fuck you, and I will never attempt
to communicate with you again.

—and since I suspect that you’re even
more vain than I am, I might as well
warn you that there is a reference to
you on page 353 which you may or may
not like.

Norman Mailer

The reference on page 35,which serves as a further indication of Mailer’s cross-wired intentions, is contained in a comment by Mailer’s narrator, Sergius O’Shaugnessey, about his bullfighting novel, which he says is “inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway.” The inscribed copy went off and tendays later was returned in the same wrapper, “and maybe the same string,” with “Address Unknown” in Spanish stamped all over it (“Postscript” 266). Mailer pondered the various possibilities: that it was a bad address; that all unsolicited books were returned; that Mary Hemingway interceded; that Hemingway read the novel but was uncertain what to say and punted the book back; or that he had read the inscription and said to himself, “If you want to come on that hard, Buster, don’t write words like ‘deeply curious,’” mailed it back “and started to drink fifteen minutes early that day”(266–67).

As it turns out, Hemingway never received the copy that Mailer sent him, but went out and bought it, read it and liked it, as his hand-written letter indicates. Hemingway’s letter, with its pips of paranoia, reveal his disturbed mental state, but it also shows his desire to clear up the matter of the returned copy of ''The Deer Park'' and to encourage a fellow writer. Perhaps he did enjoy the novel and follow its reception (the reviews were “shitty,” for the most part), but it is hard to understand how he could have missed O’Shaugnessey’s line of praise, which comes near the end of the novel. A more puzzling matter is how Hemingway could have gotten his hands on ''Advertisements for Myself'' (and the story of the undelivered book) by the August 12, 1959 date on his letter, since ''Advertisements'' was not published until November. In addition, Hemingway was in Spain in August; it was the “dangerous summer” of the bullfighting duels between Luis Miguel Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez that were the subject of his final book.v He was in Spain again in August of 1960; the only summer he spent at his Ketchum home was his last summer. He committed suicide there on July 2, 1961.

Mailer later told interviewer Robert Begiebing that he “corresponded with Hemingway ten years after ''The Naked and the Dead'' [1948 ] came out” (“Twelfth” 320 ), but he did not give a more specific date. One plausible explanation is that Hemingway wrote to Mailer at the urging of George Plimpton, who tried and failed to set up a meeting between the two writers in New York on November 3, 1959, shortly after Hemingway returned from Europe. It seems likely that Hemingway bought his copy of ''Advertisements'' during this stay in New York. In a letter to Plimpton on January 17, 1961, he recalls being with Plimpton when buying ''Advertisements,'' which he calls a “ragtag assembly of his rewrites, second thoughts and ramblings shot through with occasional brilliance” (“To George” 912). Hemingway left New York for Ketchum about a week later and was there until mid-January when he went to Cuba. If the letter was indeed written in Ketchum, it was probably written during this period, although there is no certain way of knowing. In Plimpton’s memoir-history-new journalism study of boxing, ''Shadow Box,'' he recalls how he tried and failed to get Mailer and Hemingway together shortly after ''Advertisements'' was published. Plimpton told stories of Mailer’s head butting and thumb wrestling and got Hemingway interested in meeting him. “You call him,” Hemingway told Plimpton. But A.E.Hotchner, a close friend of Hemingway’s, advised against it and Papa said, “Oh, well, forget it.” Thumb wrestling intrigued him though, and he went at it with Plimpton. When he couldn’t get the hang of it, he began to squeeze Plimpton’s hand in his powerful grip, leaving marks that lasted a week. When someone asked what they were doing, Hemingway replied, “We’re pretending we’re a pair of Norman Mailers.” Mailer waited in vain for the call from Plimpton, “both scared and excited,” he told Plimpton later, “and then both disappointed and even a bit relieved when the call never came through” (Plimpton 259–64).

In the fall of 1960, Mailer wrote an open letter to Fidel Castro in an attempt to reverse growing American opposition to his revolution. He proposed that Castro invite Hemingway to Cuba and give him free access to report on the situation there. But Mailer is pessimistic about Hemingway agreeing to the idea and says that he “no longer writes to us. Maybe a letter once in a while. . . .We feel he has deserted us and produced no work good enough to justify his silence. There are many of us who will curse his memory if he dies in silence”(Presidential 73).Mailer had no way of knowing the depth of Hemingway’s depression in his final year, or his concern about events in Cuba. Later, when he learned of Hemingway’s suicide, “He was sick in that miasmal and not quite discoverable region between the liver and the soul. Hemingway’s suicide left him wedded to horror” for he had “constituted the walls of the fort: Hemingway had given the power to believe you could still shout down the corridor of the hospital, live next to the breath of the beast, accept your portion of dread each day. Now the greatest living romantic was dead. Dread was loose” (Mailer, Of a Fire 3–4). Over the next decade, it could be argued, Mailer himself assumed the role of chief American romantic. Who will aspire to that position now that he is also gone?

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story|url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hotchner |first=A.E. |date=1959 |title=Papa Hemingway |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=28 May 1951 |title=Last of the Leftists? Rev. of ''Barbary Shore''|url= |magazine=Time |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown & Co |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=The Presidential Papers |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Son's |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Plimpton |first=George |date=1977 |title=Shadow Box |url= |location=New York |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Weatherby |first=W.J. |title=The Pursuit of Experience: W.J. Weatherby Talks to Norman Mailer |url= |journal=Machester Guardian |volume= |issue= |date= |pages=14 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-25T22:58:32Z

Hobbitonya: Put in most of the body. Still working on citations and footnotes

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-23T14:30:55Z

Hobbitonya:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{Byline|last=Lennon|first=J. Michael|url=|abstract=|note=}}
SOMETIME IN SEPTEMBER OF 1955, NORMAN MAILER obtained Ernest Hemingway’s address in Cuba from “a reliable source”(Mailer,“Postscript”), New York Times columnist, Harvey Breit. From his college years onward, Mailer had been deeply impressed by Hemingway—not so much his by style, as his life scars and macho exploits. In a ''Village Voice'' column, Mailer nominated him for President on the Democratic ticket,saying he “is one of the few people in our national life who has tried to live with a certain passion for capturing what he desired” (“Column” ). Mailer wrote in 1959 that he concurred with Papa’s “notion, arrived at slowly in my case, that even if one dulled one’s talent in the punishment of becoming a man, it was more important to be a man than a very good writer”(“Postscript” ). Mailer’s second novel, ''Barbary Shore'' ( ), had received disastrous reviews. ''Time'' labeled it “paceless, tasteless and graceless” and Mailer seriously considered giving up writing altogether (“Last” ). For the next four years, he wrote and rewrote an ambitious, multi-layered, sexually explicit (at least then) novel centered on a blacklisted director set in the Hollywood film colony of Palm Springs, renamed Desert D’Or. Turned down by seven publishers,''The Deer Park'' was intended to be his come back novel. It was written very much under Hemingway’s influence (Weatherby ), and he was hoping for “twenty good words” from Papa to use for publicity (Mailer,“Postscript” ). But Mailer was also angry with himself for begging, “for stealing a trick from that Hollywood I knew so well,” and the inscription on the copy he mailed to Finca Vigia in Cuba undercut his desire for a blurb that “would make the difference between half-success and a breakthrough”( ). He tells the story of the episode in his miscellany, ''Advertisements for Myself'', including his disastrously qualified inscription:

===Citations===

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===Works Cited===

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* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1969 |title=Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story|url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1985 |title=The Dangerous Summer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |pages= |ref=harv }}

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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Hemingway to Mailer — A Delayed Response to The Deer Park

2025-03-15T15:59:15Z

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2025-03-10T15:54:24Z

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