Project Mailer - User contributions [en]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007

2020-10-05T23:09:51Z

JREubanks: corrected a couple instances of "news" to "magazine."

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{{Byline|last=Holmes|first=Constance E.|last1=Wilson|first1=Kristine A.|note=Much of the following has been incorporated into ''[[NM:WD|Norman Mailer: Works and Days]]''.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08bib}}
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==Addenda through 2006==
===Primary===
====Letters====

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Protest |location=10:5 |date=March 4, 1968 |url= |access-date= |author-mask= |ref=harv }} Copy of letter to Leonid I. Brezhnev, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Violence in Oakland |location=10:9 |date=May 9, 1968 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/05/09/violence-in-oakland/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Protest |location=12:6 |date=March 27, 1969 |url= |accessdate= |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Copy of telegram to Hon. U Thant, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Committee to Defend the Conspiracy |location=12:12 |date=June 19, 1969 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1969/06/19/the-committee-to-defend-the-conspiracy/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Ford’s Better Idea |location=19:11 & 12 |date=January 25, 1973 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/01/25/fords-better-idea/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Words for the Shah |location=24:19 |date=November 24, 1977 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1977/11/24/words-for-the-shah/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Open letter to the Prime Minister of Iran, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=In a Cuban Prison |location=25:19 |date=December 7, 1978 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/12/07/in-a-cuban-prison/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Case of Alexandr Bogolovski |location=31:15 |date=October 11, 1984 |url= |accessdate= |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Copy of letter to Mr. A. M. Rekunov, Procurator General of the USSR, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Arrests in Poland |location=33.13 |date=August 13, 1986 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1986/08/14/arrests-in-poland/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Celebrating Mencken |location=37:4 |date=March 15, 1990 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/03/15/celebrating-mencken/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=President Clinton. ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=An Urgent Appeal from Pen American Center |location=40:4 |date=February 11, 1993 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1993/02/11/an-urgent-appeal-from-pen-american-center/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=to Prime Minister Paul Keating et al. ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Case of Wei Jingsheng |location=43:3 |date=February 15, 1996 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/02/15/the-case-of-wei-jingsheng/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories. An open letter.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=JFK’s Assassination |location=50:20 |date=December 18, 2003 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/12/18/jfks-assassination/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Election and America’s Future |location=51:17 |date=November 4, 2004 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2004/11/04/the-election-and-americas-future/ |url-access=subscription |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Letter; one of a series solicited by the Editors.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject= Blocked |location=52:13 |date=August 11, 2005 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/08/11/blocked/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} As author of ''Oswald’s Tale'', with other signatories.

==2007==

===Primary===
====Books====
{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=2007 |title=The Castle in the Forest |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last1=Mailer |first1=Norman |author-mask=1 |last2=Lennon |first2=J. Michael |date=2007 |title=On God: An Uncommon Conversation |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}

====Book Contributions====
{{cite book |contributor-last=Mailer |contributor-first=Norman |contribution=Commentary |last=Regan |first=Ken |date=2007 |title=Knockout: The Art of Boxing |url= |location=San Rafael, CA |publisher=Insight Editions |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |contributor-last=Mailer |contributor-first=Norman |contributor-mask=1 |contribution=Introduction |last=Schiller |first=Lawrence |date=2007 |title=Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=Los Angles, CA |publisher=East End Editions KLS |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

====Interviews====


{{cite magazine |last=Binelli |first=Mark |date=May 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Rolling Stone |pages=3–17 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Foley |first=Dylan |date=January 28, 2007 |title=A Portrait of the Devil as a Young Man |url= |work=Star-Ledger |location=final ed. |page=6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Fox |first=Sue |date=July 8, 2007 |title=Even at 84, Norman Mailer Refuses to Pull His Punches |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20070708/282346855399714 |work=Sunday Express |location=UK first ed. |page=55 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Freeman |first=John |date=January 20, 2007 |title=Devilish Motives |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/devilish-motives-20070120-gdp9x7.html |work=Sydney Morning Herald |location=Australia |access-date=2020-10-01 |page=30 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Goldberg |first=Nan |date= |title=Writing with the Devil |url=http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/11/10/writing_with_the_devil/ |work=Boston Globe |location=Magazine |page=15 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Kirschling |first=Gregory |date=January 19, 2007 |title=Tough Guys Don’t Quit |url= |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |issue=916 |page=48 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lee |first=Michael |title=The Devil in Norman Mailer |url=https://search.proquest.com/openview/5bff77fb5c089c0b3d810827ee4686c7/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=40852 |journal=Literary Review |volume=50 |issue=4 |date=Summer 2007 |pages=202–217 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Lennon |first=Michael |date=October 5, 2007 |title=The Rise of Mailerism |url=https://nymag.com/news/features/38961/ |magazine=New York |issue=40.36 |pages=24+ |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }} Mailer discusses ''On God''.

{{cite magazine |last=Llewellyn |first=Caro |author-mask= |title=The Lion in Winter: Norman Mailer Talks about Writing His First Novel in a Decade |url= |magazine=Weekend Australian |location=pre-prints ed. |date=March 31, 2007 |pages=1 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=McCrum |first=Robert |date=November 11, 2007 |title=The Author at Home |url= |work=The Observer |location=England |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Miner |first=Colin |date=January 22, 2007 |title=Mailer on Bush, Obama & Writing |url=https://www.nysun.com/arts/mailer-on-bush-obama-writing/47109/ |work=New York Sun |page=15 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=O’Hagan |first=Andrew |title=The Art of Fiction No. 193, Norman Mailer |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5775/the-art-of-fiction-no-193-norman-mailer |journal=The Paris Review |volume=49 |issue=181 |date=Summer 2007 |pages=44+ |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=O’Hagan |first=Andrew |author-mask=1 |title=Get Your Ass off My Pillow |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2007/09/get-your-ass-off-my-pillow/ |url-access=subscription |magazine=Harper’s Magazine |issue=315.1888 |date=September 2007 |pages=22–24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Pierleoni |first=Allen |date=February 7, 2007 |title=Now Age 84.... |url= |work=Sacramento Bee |location=metro final ed.: TK22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 2007 |title=Proust Questionnaire: Norman Mailer |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/proust_mailer200701 |magazine=Vanity Fair |issue=557 |page=166 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Rose |first=Daniel Asa |date=January 21, 2007 |title=In Conversation ... ; with Norman Mailer |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011802000_pf.html |work=Washington Post |location=Final ed.: T07 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Santaro |first=Gene |title=The Sound and the Baby Führer |url=https://www.historynet.com/interview-sound-baby-fuhrer.htm |journal=World War II |volume=22 |issue=2 |date=May 2007 |pages=23–25 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Stoffman |first=Judy |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer’s Novel Ideas about Hitler |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2007/01/28/mailers_novel_ideas_about_hitler.html |work=The Toronto Star |page=C04 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Wollheim |first=Richard |title=Living like Heroes |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2007/11/violence-hip-mailer-1961 |magazine=New Statesman |issue=137.4871 |date=November 19, 2007 |pages=62 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} Abridged reprint of a 1961 interview promoting ''Advertisements for Myself''.

===Secondary===

====Essays, Articles, Book Chapters, and Dissertations====

{{cite news |author= |date=January 17, 2007 |title=Sex-Mad Mailer Enraged Rival |url=https://pagesix.com/2007/01/25/sex-mad-mailer-enraged-rival/ |work=New York Post |location=Page Six |page=12 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} Article discussing Ralph Ellison’s attitude toward Mailer, according to Ellison’s biographer.

{{cite news |author=Bancroft, Collette |date=October 16, 2007 |title=A Man of Many Letters |url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2007/10/16/a-man-of-many-letters/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida 1E |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }} A look at Mailer and Mailer scholarship on the occasion of both the publication of ''On God'' and the launch of ''Mailer Review''.

{{cite news |author=Beach, Patrick |date=December 23, 2007 |title=Mailer’s Memories about to Open at Ransom Center |url= |work=Austin American-Statesman |location=final ed. |page=J5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author=Bennett, Bruce |date=July 20, 2007 |title=Mailer at the Movies |url=https://www.nysun.com/arts/mailer-at-the-movies/58850/ |work=New York Sun |location=11 |page= |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Overview of Mailer’s films.

{{cite news |author=Brokaw, Leslie |date=September 16, 2007 |title=HFA Salutes Norman Mailer on Film |url=http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/09/16/hfa_salutes_norman_mailer_on_film/ |work=Boston Globe |location=third ed. |page=N11 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |author=Bufithis, Philip |date=2007 |title=''The Executioner’s Song'': A Life Beneath Our Conscience |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07bufi |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |edition=1 |location= |page=77-79 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last=Burns |first=Paul C. |date=2007 |title=In Jesus in Twentieth-Century Literature, Art, and Movies |chapter=Transformation of Biblical Methods and Godhead in Norman Mailer’s Gospel |location=New York |publisher=Continuum |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Chaiken |first=Michael |title=The Master’s Mercurial Mistress: How Norman Mailer Courted Chaos 24 Frames per Second |journal=Film Comment |url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/25897522/the-masters-mercurial-mistress-how-norman-mailer-courted-chaos-24-frames-per-second |url-access=subscription |volume=43 |issue=4 |date=July 2007 |pages=36–42 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Crook |first=Zeba |date=January 2007 |title=Fictionalizing Jesus: Story and History in Two Recent Jesus Novels |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249573018_Fictionalizing_Jesus_Story_and_History_in_Two_Recent_Jesus_Novels |url-access=subscription |work=Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus |volume=5 |issue=1 |page=33-55 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |date=2007 |title=How Mailer Became ‘Mailer’: The Writer as Private and Public Character |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07dick |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=118-31 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Duguid |first=Scott |date=2007 |title=The Addiction of Masculinity: Norman Mailer’s ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' and the Cultural Politics of Reaganism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619310 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=23-30 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Freeman |first=John |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Writers Remain a Robust Bunch |work=St. Petersburg Times |page=B1+ |location=Florida |access-date= |ref=harv }} Article about the continued productivity of aging “literary giants” Mailer, Updike, and Roth.

{{cite news |last=Goldfarb |first=Reuven |date=November 20, 2007 |title=The Jewish Mailer |url=https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/the-jewish-mailer |work=Jerusalem Post |volume=14 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gottlieb |first=Akiva |date=July 20, 2017 |title=Norman Mailer, Auteur |url=http://old.forward.com/articles/11164/norman-mailer-auteur-00143/index.html |work=Forward |location=B1+ |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Article on Mailer’s films, on the occasion of the New York exhibit “The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer.”

{{cite journal |last=Henderson |first=Cathy |last2=Oram |first2=Richard W. |last3=Schwartzburg |first3=Molly |last4=Hardy |first4=Molly |title=Mailer Takes on America: Images from the Ransom Center Archive |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07hend |journal=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=141-75 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Constance E. |last2=Lennon |first2=J. Michael |title=Norman Mailer: Supplemental Bibliography through 2006 |url=https://prmlr.us/mr06bib |journal=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2007 |pages=234-60 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Houpt |first=Simon |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Still a Brawler at Heart |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/still-a-brawler-at-heart/article677847/ |work=Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=R4 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Howard |first=Gerald |title=Mailer Gets Hammered |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/books/review/Howard-t.html |work=New York Times Book Review |issue=late ed, final |date=August 2007 |pages=27 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Essay discussing Mailer’s films, focusing on ''Maidstone''.

{{cite journal |last=Howley |first=Ashton |title=Mailer Again: Heterophobia in ''Tough Guys Don't Dance'' |url= |journal=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=31-46 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last=James |first=Clive |date=2007 |title=Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts |url= |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |pages=409-413 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |author=J. C. |title=White Mischief |url= |journal=TLS: Times Literary Supplement |volume= |issue= |date=October 26, 2007 |pages=36 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Includes brief mention of ''Mailer Review''.

{{cite magazine |last=Junod |first=Tom |date=January 2007 |title=The Last Man Standing |magazine=Esquire |volume=147 |issue=1|pages=108-133 |url=https://classic.esquire.com/article/2007/1/1/the-last-man-standing |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Kachka |first=Boris |date=January 15, 2007 |title=Mr. Tenditious |url= |magazine=New York |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=62 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Recaps Mailer’s history of responding negatively—even violently—to criticism.

{{cite journal |last=Kaufmann |first=Donald L. |date=Fall 2007 |title=An American Dream: The Singular Nightmare |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07kauf |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=194-205 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Kennedy |first=William |date=Fall 2007 |title=Norman Mailer as Occasional Commentator in a Self-Interview and Memoir |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07kenn |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=11-26 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Kriegel |first=Leonard |date=Fall 2007 |title=Mailer’s Hitler: Round One |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40211658|url-access=subscription |work=Sewanee Review |volume=115 |issue=4 |page=615-620 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |date=Fall 2007 |title=Gallery Talk: The Mailer Archive |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07lenn |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=132-40 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |author-mask=1 |date=2007 |title=Norman Mailer: Novelist, Journalist, or Historian? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619315|url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=91-103 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |editor-last=Lennon |editor-first=J. Michael |editor-mask=1 |date=Fall 2007 |title=‘A Series of Tragicomedies’: Mailer’s Letters on ''The Deer Park'', 1954–55 |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07lenn1 |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=45-79 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Long |first=Karen Haymon |title=Mailer in Review |url= |work=Tampa Tribune |issue=final ed., Baylife: 1 |date=November 18, 2007 |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }} Discusses the formation of the Mailer Society and the annual conference, focusing on Tampa-area members and the launch of the Mailer Review out of USF.

{{cite journal |last=Lucid |first=Robert F. |date=Fall 2007 |title=[Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942] |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07luci |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=27–33 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Excerpt from incomplete authorized biography.

{{cite news |last=Masters |first=Brian |title=So Are Some People Really Born Evil? |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20070207/281749854885237 |work=Daily Mail [London] |issue=first ed.: 14 |date=April 19, 2007 |pages= |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Article discussing ''The Castle in the Forest'' in relation to an actual scientific study on evil and genetics.

{{cite journal |last=McDonald |first=Brian |date=2007 |title=Post-Holocaust Theodicy, American Imperialism, and the ‘Very Jewish Jesus’ of Norman Mailer’s ''The Gospel According to the Son'' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619314 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=78–90 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Excerpt from incomplete authorized biography.

{{cite thesis |last=Meloy |first=Michael |date=2007 |title=Sex Fiends of the Fifties: Intersections of Violence, Sexuality, and Masculinity in the Work of Norman Mailer, William Styron, and Ken Kesey |type=Diss. U of South Carolina, 2007 |chapter= |publisher=Ann Arbor: UMI |docket=AAT 3280339 |oclc= |url= |access-date= }}

{{cite journal |last=Middlebrook |first=Jonathan |date=Fall 2007 |title=Five Notes toward a Reassessment of Norman Mailer |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07midd |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=179–83 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Partridge |first=Jeffrey F. L. |date=2007 |title=''The Gospel According to the Son and Christian Belief'' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619313 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=64–77 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Petigny |first=Alan |date=Fall 2007 |title=Norman Mailer,‘The White Negro,’ and New Conceptions of the Self in Postwar America |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07peti |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=184–93 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Rampton |first=David |date=2007 |title=Plexed Artistry: The Formal Case for Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619312 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=47–63 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Rodwin |first=John G. |date=Fall 2008 |title=Fighters and Writers |url=https://prmlr.us/mr08rodw |work=Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |page=396-406 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |title=Mailer’s Other Career |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2007/07/10/norman-mailers-other-career/ |work=Village Voice |issue=52.29 |date=July 18, 2007 |pages=68 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} On the occasion of the New York exhibit, “The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer.”

{{cite magazine |last=Rose |first=Daniel Asa |date=February 5, 2007 |title=Advertisements for a Gay Self |url=https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/26999/ |magazine=New York |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=9 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Brief comment praising Mailer’s treatment of homosexuality in ''The Castle in the Forest''.

{{cite journal |last=Ryan |first=James Emmett |date=2007 |title=‘Insatiable as Good Old America’: Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Popular Criminality |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619309 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=17–22 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Scott |first=A.O. |title=Norman Mailer Unbound |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/movies/20norm.html |work=Village Voice |issue=late ed. final, east coast: E1. |date=July 20, 2007 |pages= |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Discuss/reviews Mailer’s films in anticipation of a screening at Lincoln Center.

{{cite thesis |last=Severs |first=Jeffrey Frank |date=2007 |title=Reinventing Totalitarianism in the Postwar American Novel |type=Diss. Harvard U, 2007 |chapter= |publisher=Ann Arbor: UMI |docket=AAT 3265089 |oclc= |url= |access-date= }}

. . .

====Book Reviews====
=====Reviews of ''The Castle in the Forest''=====

{{cite magazine |last=Abell |first=Stephen |date=February 16, 2007 |title=The Anality of Evil |url= |magazine=TLS: Times Literary Supplement |pages=21–22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Allen |first=Bruce |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer Asks: Who Made Hitler? |url= |work=News & Observer |edition=final |page=G5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{cite news |last=Allington |first=Patrick |date=May 12, 2007 |title=Devil’s Disciple |url= |work=Advertiser |location=Australia |edition=state |page=W10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Amidon |first=Stephen |date=February 4, 2007 |title=Portrait of a Monster |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/portrait-of-a-monster-nr77qrvvxqg |url-access=subscription |work=Sunday Times |location=London |page=54 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Anderson |first=Don |date=April 7, 2007 |title=Devil of a Time |url= |work=Weekend Australian |edition=Qld Review |page=10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Anshen |first=D. |title=An Enigmatic Development |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/485260/pdf |url-access=subscription |journal=American Book Review |volume=28 |issue=6 |date=September 2007 |page=18 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Arditti |first=Michael |date=February 16, 2007 |title=New Fiction |url= |work=Daily Mailer |location=London |edition=first |page=72 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bainbridge |first=Beryl |date=February 10, 2007 |title=Devil’s Plaything: Norman Mailer has Produced an Electrifying Inquiry into the Nature of Evil |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/feb/10/fiction.berylbainbridge |work=The Guardian |location=London |edition=final |page=16 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bancroft |first=Colette |date=February 4, 2007 |title=Hitler: the Intimacy of Evil |url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2007/02/04/hitler-the-intimacy-of-evil/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=10L |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Barron |first=John |date=January 21, 2007 |title=The Devil Made Hitler Do It, According to Norman Mailer |url=http://www.pressreader.com/usa/chicago-sun-times/20070121/283407712255383 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |edition=final |page=B12 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bate |first=Jonathan |date=February 11, 2007 |title=Fiction: Jonathan Bate is Dismayed by Norman Mailer’s Account of Hitler in Short Trousers |url= |work=Sunday Telegraph |location=London |edition=sec. Seven |page=41 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Battersby |first=Eileen |date=February 10, 2007 |title=Young Hitler Defeats Mailer |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/young-hitler-defeats-mailer-1.1194613 |work=Irish Times |edition=Weekend |page=11 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Begiebing |first=Robert J. |title=Castle Mailer |url=https://promlr.us/mr07begi |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=215–22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyagoda |first=Randy |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Mailer on Hitler Still No Moby-Dick |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/mailer-on-hitler-still-no-moby-dick/article721277/ |work=The Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=D6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=William |date=January 21, 2007 |title=Hitler Youth |url= |work=Washington Post |edition=final |page=T07 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=William |author-mask=1 |date=January 21, 2007 |title=Mailer Takes on a Juvenile Hitler |url= |work= |location=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |edition=fourth |page=F8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Brown |first=Phil |date=April 18, 2007 |title=Books |url= |work=Brisbane News |location=Australia |page=28 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Cartwright |first=Justin |date=February 3, 2007 |title=The Devil's Work |url= |work=Guardian |location=London | edition=final | page=03 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Chancellor |first=Jennifer |date=February 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Turns his ‘Creative Nonfiction’ Form Loose on Hitler. |url= |work=Tulsa World | edition=final | page=H7 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Coale |first=Sam |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer's Hitler a Troubled Blank. |url= |work=Providence Journal | location=Rhode Island | page=I11 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Coetzee |first=J.M. |date=February 15, 2007 |title=Portrait of the Monster as a Young Artist. |url= |work=New York Review of Books | edition=54.2 | page=8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Cohen |first=Joshua |date=February 2, 2007 |title=Early Hitler, Late Mailer. |url= |work=Forward | edition=2 | page=B2 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Craven |first=Peter |date=April 7, 2007 |title=American Bull in a Pig Sty. |url= |work=Age | location=Melbourne | page=A2:21 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{cite journal |author= |title=His Perfect Sense of the Other |url=https://newcriterion.com/issues/2007/2/ldquohis-perfect-sense-of-the-otherrdquo |journal=New Criterion |volume=25 |issue=6 |date=February 2007 |pages=1–2 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 20, 2007 |title=Little Hitler |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2007/01/18/little-hitler |magazine=Economist |location=Books & Arts |page=92 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=August 8, 2007 |title=Mailer Brings out the Devil in Hitler |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=21 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Digs into Hitler’s Childhood |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7040474 |work=Weekend Edition: All Things Considered |location=NPR |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Writes a Novel about Adolf Hitler’s Childhood |url= |magazine=Gleaner |location=New Brunswick |pages=C4 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

====Obituaries and Retrospectives====

{{cite news |last=Allen-Mills |first=Tony |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer, Literary Rebel, Dies |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/norman-mailer-literary-rebeldies-zkhkhdbchfw |work=Sunday Times |location=London |pages=1+ |access-date=2020-10-01 |url-access=subscription |ref=harv }} [Note: Also printed in the ''Australian'' under a different headline.]

{{cite news |last=Ambrose |first=Jay |date=November 25, 2007 |title=Remembering Mailer |url= |work=Knoxville News |location= |page=73 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Andriani |first=Lynn |date=November 19, 2007 |title=A Prolific Life to the End |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20071119.html |magazine=Publishers Weekly |location= |publisher= |access-date=2020-10-03 |url-access=subscription }}

{{cite news |author= |title=Literary Lion Sparked American Debate |url= |work=Daily Variety |agency=Associated Press |date=November 12, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |title=Writers Remember Mailer |url= |work=Times Union |agency=Associated Press |date=November 13, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=The Bad Boy of U.S. Literature |url= |work=Sunday Times |location=London |page=20 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Baddiel |first=David |date=November 17, 2007 |title=For Norman Mailer, Authenticity was all about Masculinity |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=3 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bancroft |first=Colette |date=November 11, 2007 |title=‘He was Much More’ than a Writer |url= |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=1A |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Bart |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Blustery Force in Life and Letters |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/norman-mailer-blustery-force-in-life-and-letters-dies-at-84/2019/01/24/56b92688-2031-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html |work=Washington Post |location= |page=A01 |access-date=2020-10-04 |url-access=subscription |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Bernstein |first=Mashey |date=December 2007 |title=In Different Way, Norman Mailer was a Deeply Jewish Writer |url= |magazine=Deep South Jewish Voice |location= |publisher= |access-date= }}

{{cite news |last1=Blau |first1=Rosie |last2=Mulligan |first2=Martin |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Pulling No Punches to the End |url=https://www.ft.com/content/aa64fec6-9085-11dc-a6f2-0000779fd2ac |work=London Financial Times |location= |page=13 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=Herb |date=November 15, 2007 |title=When James Baldwin Met Norman Mailer |url= |work=New York Amsterdam News |location= |page=1+ |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Burke |first1=Cathy |last2=Venezia |first2=Todd |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Literary Pug and Original Hipster Mailer, 84, Dies |url=https://nypost.com/2007/11/11/literary-pug-original-hipster-mailer-84-dies/ |work=New York Post |location= |page=November 11, 2007 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date= November 12, 2007 |title=A Brawler who Never Pulled a Punch |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-brawler-who-never-pulled-a-punch-1.981221 |work=Irish Times |location= |page=10 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Calabrese |first=Erin |date=November 19, 2007 |title=Widow Defends Mailer, Says He ‘Loved Women’ |url=https://nypost.com/2007/11/19/widow-defends-mailer-says-he-loved-women/ |work=New York Post |location= |page=14 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Campbell |first=James |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: Pugnacious Journalist and Author |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/nov/12/guardianobituaries.usa |work=Guardian |location=London |page=34 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Cappell |first=Ezra |date=November 16, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: A Man of Letters Inspired by the People of the Book |url=https://forward.com/news/12032/norman-mailer-a-man-of-letters-inspired-by-the-pe-00800/ |work=Forward |location= |page=A1+ |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Clark |first=Roy Peter |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Two Minutes with Mailer |url=https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2007/two-minutes-with-mailer/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=1E |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Clarke |first=Toni |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Writer Norman Mailer dies at 84 |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/writer-norman-mailer-dies-at-84-1.981225 |work=Irish Times |location= |page=10 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Craig |first=Olga |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Life of Books, Bars, Brawling |url=https://www.pressreader.com/canada/montreal-gazette/20071111/textview |work=Gazette |location=Montreal |page=A3 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Crosbie |first=Lynn |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Believe it: This was the Man who Loved Women |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/believe-it-this-was-the-man-who-loved-women/article726268/ |work=Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=R1 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Crossen |first=Cynthia |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Readback: When Normal Mailer Was Nobody: 1948’s ‘The Naked and the Dead’ Was Written Before He Was Famous, And That Is Its Greatest Blessing |url= |work=Wall Street Journal Online |location= |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Cryer |first1=Dan |last2=Jacobson |first2=Aileen |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer 1923–2007: A Literary Icon Dies |url= |work=Newsday |location= |page=A08 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=D’Alessio |first=Jeff |title=A Life Written and Lived on a Large Scale: Norman Mailer 1923–2007 |url= |journal=Atlanta Journal-Constitution |volume= |issue= |date=November 11, 2007 |page=A5 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Reactions from Atlanta residents on the life and death of Mailer.

{{cite magazine |last=Deignan |first=Tom |title=Mailer: More Irish than the Irish |url= |magazine=Irish Voice |volume=21 |issue=47 |date=November 21, 2007 |pages=11 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Demirel |first=Selçuk |title=Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Nation |volume=285 |issue=18 |date=December 3, 2007 |page=8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |title=The Nijinsky of Ambivalence |url= |magazine=Nation |volume=285 |issue=19 |date=December 10, 2007 |pages=48–52 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |author-mask=1 |title=The Un-generation |url= |work=Los Angeles Times |volume= |issue= |date=December 30, 2007 |page=R4 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Retrospective comparing the lives and careers of Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and Grace Paley, who all died in 2007 at the age of 84.

{{cite magazine |last=Duggan |first=Keith |title=Two-Fisted Mailer Finally Counter Out |url= |magazine=Irish Times |volume= |issue= |date=November 7, 2007 |page=12 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Epstein |first=Jason |title=Norman Mailer (1923–2007) |url= |magazine=New York Review of Books |volume=54 |issue=20 |date=December 20, 2007 |page=10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Eyman |first=Scott |title=Mailer’s Works Made Deep Impression on Post-WWII Political, Cultural Landscape |url= |magazine=Palm Beach Post |volume= |issue= |date=November 11, 2007 |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Fee |first1=Gayle |last2=Raposa |first2=Laura |title=Mailer's Car Tale Resurrected |url=https://www.bostonherald.com/2007/11/14/mailers-car-tale-resurrected/ |work=Boston Herald |location=News |date=November 14, 2007 |page=20 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Feeney |first=Mark |title=Norman Mailer, Self-titled King of the Literary Hill, Dies at 84 |url=http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2007/11/11/norman_mailer_self_titled_king_of_the_literary_hill_dies_at_84/ |work=Boston Globe |edition=third |location=Obituaries |date=November 11, 2007 |page=A1 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Fields |first=Suzanne |title=Recalling My Mailer Crush |url=https://www.creators.com/read/suzanne-fields/11/07/recalling-my-mailer-crush |work=Washington Times |date=November 15, 2007 |page=A21 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Versions of this article also appear elsewhere under similar headlines.

{{cite news |last=Fulford |first=Robert |title=The Failed Career of Norman Mailer |url=http://www.robertfulford.com/2007-11-12-mailer.html |work=National Post |location=Canada |edition=national |issue= |date=November 12, 2007 |page=A13 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gagen |first=Thomas |title=Advertisements for Himself |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13iht-edmailer.1.8314248.html |work=Boston Globe |volume=third |issue= |date=November 13, 2007 |page=A14 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gallo |first=Bill |title=Norman Mailer was a True Heavyweight |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/norman-mailer-true-heavyweight-article-1.258682?pgno=1 |work=Daily News |location=New York |edition=sports final |issue= |date=November 18, 2007 |page=94 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gelernter |first=David |title=Captain Hornblower |work=Weekly Standard |issue=13.11 |page=41 |date=November 26, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Greer |first=Bonnie|title=Mailer: Truth without Fear |work=Canberra Times|location=Australia |edition=final |page=A15 |date=November 14, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Guillermo|first=Emil |title=Bits of Obits: Three of My Heroes Pass On |work=Asiaweek |issue=4.13 |page=5 |date=November 16-22, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Haden-Guest |first=Anthony |title=Last Round for the Wife Stabbing, Critic Punching Bruiser of Books |work=Mail on Sunday |location=London |issue=13.11 |page=FB 58 |date=November 11, 2007 |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{cite news |author= |date=November 14, 2007 |title=Heavyweight: Mailer’s Life and Work Were Outsized |url=https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2007/11/14/Heavyweight-Mailer-s-life-and-work-were-outsized/stories/200711140262 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |location= |page=B6 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Legendary Writer with Particular Love for the Irish |url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/legendary-writer-with-particular-love-for-the-irish-26331219.html |work=Irish Independent |location= |page=unknown |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Life of Writing, Boozing and Brawling |url= |work=Edmonton Journal |location= |page=A3 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 19, 2007 |title=Mailer won pair of Pulitzers |url= |work=Variety |location= |page=55 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |title=Mailer's Ghost |url=https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41004/ |magazine=New York |location= |publisher= |date=November 26, 2007 |access-date=2020-10-02 }} [Note: Revisits the seven covers of ''New York Magazine'' that have featured Mailer, either as author or subject.]

{{cite news |author= |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2007/11/15/norman-mailer |work=Economist |location=US |page=103 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Sunday Independent |location=Ireland |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=53 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 13, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/norman-mailer-400006.html |work=Independent |location=London |page=34 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Times Union |location= |page=A12 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Cincinnati Post |location= |page=C10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |title=Norman Mailer, 84 |url= |magazine=Newsweek |location= |publisher= |date=December 31, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Obituary of Norman Mailer |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1569056/Norman-Mailer.html |work=Daily Telegraph |location=London |page2= |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Pulitzer Prize Author Norman Mailer Dies at 84 |url= |work=Providence Journal |location= |page=A6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{Review|state=expanded}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007}}
[[Category:Bibliographies (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007

2020-10-05T23:04:47Z

JREubanks: completed page 528

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Holmes|first=Constance E.|last1=Wilson|first1=Kristine A.|note=Much of the following has been incorporated into ''[[NM:WD|Norman Mailer: Works and Days]]''.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08bib}}
{{TOC right|width=25%}}
==Addenda through 2006==
===Primary===
====Letters====

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Protest |location=10:5 |date=March 4, 1968 |url= |access-date= |author-mask= |ref=harv }} Copy of letter to Leonid I. Brezhnev, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Violence in Oakland |location=10:9 |date=May 9, 1968 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/05/09/violence-in-oakland/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Protest |location=12:6 |date=March 27, 1969 |url= |accessdate= |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Copy of telegram to Hon. U Thant, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Committee to Defend the Conspiracy |location=12:12 |date=June 19, 1969 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1969/06/19/the-committee-to-defend-the-conspiracy/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Ford’s Better Idea |location=19:11 & 12 |date=January 25, 1973 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/01/25/fords-better-idea/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Words for the Shah |location=24:19 |date=November 24, 1977 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1977/11/24/words-for-the-shah/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Open letter to the Prime Minister of Iran, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=In a Cuban Prison |location=25:19 |date=December 7, 1978 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/12/07/in-a-cuban-prison/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Case of Alexandr Bogolovski |location=31:15 |date=October 11, 1984 |url= |accessdate= |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Copy of letter to Mr. A. M. Rekunov, Procurator General of the USSR, with other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Arrests in Poland |location=33.13 |date=August 13, 1986 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1986/08/14/arrests-in-poland/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=Celebrating Mencken |location=37:4 |date=March 15, 1990 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/03/15/celebrating-mencken/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=President Clinton. ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=An Urgent Appeal from Pen American Center |location=40:4 |date=February 11, 1993 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1993/02/11/an-urgent-appeal-from-pen-american-center/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=to Prime Minister Paul Keating et al. ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Case of Wei Jingsheng |location=43:3 |date=February 15, 1996 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/02/15/the-case-of-wei-jingsheng/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories. An open letter.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=JFK’s Assassination |location=50:20 |date=December 18, 2003 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/12/18/jfks-assassination/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} With other signatories.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject=The Election and America’s Future |location=51:17 |date=November 4, 2004 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2004/11/04/the-election-and-americas-future/ |url-access=subscription |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} Letter; one of a series solicited by the Editors.

{{cite letter |last=Mailer |first=Norman |recipient=the Editors, ''New York Review of Books'' |subject= Blocked |location=52:13 |date=August 11, 2005 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/08/11/blocked/ |accessdate=2020-10-01 |author-mask=1 |ref=harv }} As author of ''Oswald’s Tale'', with other signatories.

==2007==

===Primary===
====Books====
{{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=2007 |title=The Castle in the Forest |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last1=Mailer |first1=Norman |author-mask=1 |last2=Lennon |first2=J. Michael |date=2007 |title=On God: An Uncommon Conversation |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }}

====Book Contributions====
{{cite book |contributor-last=Mailer |contributor-first=Norman |contribution=Commentary |last=Regan |first=Ken |date=2007 |title=Knockout: The Art of Boxing |url= |location=San Rafael, CA |publisher=Insight Editions |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |contributor-last=Mailer |contributor-first=Norman |contributor-mask=1 |contribution=Introduction |last=Schiller |first=Lawrence |date=2007 |title=Marilyn Monroe |url= |location=Los Angles, CA |publisher=East End Editions KLS |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

====Interviews====


{{cite magazine |last=Binelli |first=Mark |date=May 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Rolling Stone |pages=3–17 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Foley |first=Dylan |date=January 28, 2007 |title=A Portrait of the Devil as a Young Man |url= |work=Star-Ledger |location=final ed. |page=6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Fox |first=Sue |date=July 8, 2007 |title=Even at 84, Norman Mailer Refuses to Pull His Punches |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-express-1070/20070708/282346855399714 |work=Sunday Express |location=UK first ed. |page=55 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Freeman |first=John |date=January 20, 2007 |title=Devilish Motives |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/devilish-motives-20070120-gdp9x7.html |work=Sydney Morning Herald |location=Australia |access-date=2020-10-01 |page=30 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Goldberg |first=Nan |date= |title=Writing with the Devil |url=http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/11/10/writing_with_the_devil/ |work=Boston Globe |location=Magazine |page=15 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Kirschling |first=Gregory |date=January 19, 2007 |title=Tough Guys Don’t Quit |url= |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |issue=916 |page=48 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lee |first=Michael |title=The Devil in Norman Mailer |url=https://search.proquest.com/openview/5bff77fb5c089c0b3d810827ee4686c7/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=40852 |journal=Literary Review |volume=50 |issue=4 |date=Summer 2007 |pages=202–217 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Lennon |first=Michael |date=October 5, 2007 |title=The Rise of Mailerism |url=https://nymag.com/news/features/38961/ |magazine=New York |issue=40.36 |pages=24+ |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }} Mailer discusses ''On God''.

{{cite magazine |last=Llewellyn |first=Caro |author-mask= |title=The Lion in Winter: Norman Mailer Talks about Writing His First Novel in a Decade |url= |magazine=Weekend Australian |location=pre-prints ed. |date=March 31, 2007 |pages=1 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=McCrum |first=Robert |date=November 11, 2007 |title=The Author at Home |url= |work=The Observer |location=England |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Miner |first=Colin |date=January 22, 2007 |title=Mailer on Bush, Obama & Writing |url=https://www.nysun.com/arts/mailer-on-bush-obama-writing/47109/ |work=New York Sun |page=15 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=O’Hagan |first=Andrew |title=The Art of Fiction No. 193, Norman Mailer |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5775/the-art-of-fiction-no-193-norman-mailer |journal=The Paris Review |volume=49 |issue=181 |date=Summer 2007 |pages=44+ |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=O’Hagan |first=Andrew |author-mask=1 |title=Get Your Ass off My Pillow |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2007/09/get-your-ass-off-my-pillow/ |url-access=subscription |magazine=Harper’s Magazine |issue=315.1888 |date=September 2007 |pages=22–24 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Pierleoni |first=Allen |date=February 7, 2007 |title=Now Age 84.... |url= |work=Sacramento Bee |location=metro final ed.: TK22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 2007 |title=Proust Questionnaire: Norman Mailer |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/proust_mailer200701 |magazine=Vanity Fair |issue=557 |page=166 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Rose |first=Daniel Asa |date=January 21, 2007 |title=In Conversation ... ; with Norman Mailer |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011802000_pf.html |work=Washington Post |location=Final ed.: T07 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Santaro |first=Gene |title=The Sound and the Baby Führer |url=https://www.historynet.com/interview-sound-baby-fuhrer.htm |journal=World War II |volume=22 |issue=2 |date=May 2007 |pages=23–25 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Stoffman |first=Judy |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer’s Novel Ideas about Hitler |url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2007/01/28/mailers_novel_ideas_about_hitler.html |work=The Toronto Star |page=C04 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Wollheim |first=Richard |title=Living like Heroes |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2007/11/violence-hip-mailer-1961 |magazine=New Statesman |issue=137.4871 |date=November 19, 2007 |pages=62 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} Abridged reprint of a 1961 interview promoting ''Advertisements for Myself''.

===Secondary===

====Essays, Articles, Book Chapters, and Dissertations====

{{cite news |author= |date=January 17, 2007 |title=Sex-Mad Mailer Enraged Rival |url=https://pagesix.com/2007/01/25/sex-mad-mailer-enraged-rival/ |work=New York Post |location=Page Six |page=12 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }} Article discussing Ralph Ellison’s attitude toward Mailer, according to Ellison’s biographer.

{{cite news |author=Bancroft, Collette |date=October 16, 2007 |title=A Man of Many Letters |url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2007/10/16/a-man-of-many-letters/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida 1E |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }} A look at Mailer and Mailer scholarship on the occasion of both the publication of ''On God'' and the launch of ''Mailer Review''.

{{cite news |author=Beach, Patrick |date=December 23, 2007 |title=Mailer’s Memories about to Open at Ransom Center |url= |work=Austin American-Statesman |location=final ed. |page=J5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author=Bennett, Bruce |date=July 20, 2007 |title=Mailer at the Movies |url=https://www.nysun.com/arts/mailer-at-the-movies/58850/ |work=New York Sun |location=11 |page= |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Overview of Mailer’s films.

{{cite news |author=Brokaw, Leslie |date=September 16, 2007 |title=HFA Salutes Norman Mailer on Film |url=http://archive.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/09/16/hfa_salutes_norman_mailer_on_film/ |work=Boston Globe |location=third ed. |page=N11 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |author=Bufithis, Philip |date=2007 |title=''The Executioner’s Song'': A Life Beneath Our Conscience |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07bufi |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |edition=1 |location= |page=77-79 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last=Burns |first=Paul C. |date=2007 |title=In Jesus in Twentieth-Century Literature, Art, and Movies |chapter=Transformation of Biblical Methods and Godhead in Norman Mailer’s Gospel |location=New York |publisher=Continuum |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Chaiken |first=Michael |title=The Master’s Mercurial Mistress: How Norman Mailer Courted Chaos 24 Frames per Second |journal=Film Comment |url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/25897522/the-masters-mercurial-mistress-how-norman-mailer-courted-chaos-24-frames-per-second |url-access=subscription |volume=43 |issue=4 |date=July 2007 |pages=36–42 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Crook |first=Zeba |date=January 2007 |title=Fictionalizing Jesus: Story and History in Two Recent Jesus Novels |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249573018_Fictionalizing_Jesus_Story_and_History_in_Two_Recent_Jesus_Novels |url-access=subscription |work=Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus |volume=5 |issue=1 |page=33-55 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |date=2007 |title=How Mailer Became ‘Mailer’: The Writer as Private and Public Character |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07dick |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=118-31 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Duguid |first=Scott |date=2007 |title=The Addiction of Masculinity: Norman Mailer’s ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' and the Cultural Politics of Reaganism |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619310 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=23-30 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Freeman |first=John |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Writers Remain a Robust Bunch |work=St. Petersburg Times |page=B1+ |location=Florida |access-date= |ref=harv }} Article about the continued productivity of aging “literary giants” Mailer, Updike, and Roth.

{{cite news |last=Goldfarb |first=Reuven |date=November 20, 2007 |title=The Jewish Mailer |url=https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/the-jewish-mailer |work=Jerusalem Post |volume=14 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gottlieb |first=Akiva |date=July 20, 2017 |title=Norman Mailer, Auteur |url=http://old.forward.com/articles/11164/norman-mailer-auteur-00143/index.html |work=Forward |location=B1+ |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Article on Mailer’s films, on the occasion of the New York exhibit “The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer.”

{{cite journal |last=Henderson |first=Cathy |last2=Oram |first2=Richard W. |last3=Schwartzburg |first3=Molly |last4=Hardy |first4=Molly |title=Mailer Takes on America: Images from the Ransom Center Archive |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07hend |journal=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=141-75 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Constance E. |last2=Lennon |first2=J. Michael |title=Norman Mailer: Supplemental Bibliography through 2006 |url=https://prmlr.us/mr06bib |journal=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2007 |pages=234-60 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Houpt |first=Simon |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Still a Brawler at Heart |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/still-a-brawler-at-heart/article677847/ |work=Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=R4 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Howard |first=Gerald |title=Mailer Gets Hammered |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/books/review/Howard-t.html |work=New York Times Book Review |issue=late ed, final |date=August 2007 |pages=27 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }} Essay discussing Mailer’s films, focusing on ''Maidstone''.

{{cite journal |last=Howley |first=Ashton |title=Mailer Again: Heterophobia in ''Tough Guys Don't Dance'' |url= |journal=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=31-46 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite book |last=James |first=Clive |date=2007 |title=Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts |url= |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |pages=409-413 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |author=J. C. |title=White Mischief |url= |journal=TLS: Times Literary Supplement |volume= |issue= |date=October 26, 2007 |pages=36 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Includes brief mention of ''Mailer Review''.

{{cite magazine |last=Junod |first=Tom |date=January 2007 |title=The Last Man Standing |magazine=Esquire |volume=147 |issue=1|pages=108-133 |url=https://classic.esquire.com/article/2007/1/1/the-last-man-standing |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Kachka |first=Boris |date=January 15, 2007 |title=Mr. Tenditious |url= |magazine=New York |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=62 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Recaps Mailer’s history of responding negatively—even violently—to criticism.

{{cite journal |last=Kaufmann |first=Donald L. |date=Fall 2007 |title=An American Dream: The Singular Nightmare |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07kauf |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=194-205 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Kennedy |first=William |date=Fall 2007 |title=Norman Mailer as Occasional Commentator in a Self-Interview and Memoir |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07kenn |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=11-26 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Kriegel |first=Leonard |date=Fall 2007 |title=Mailer’s Hitler: Round One |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40211658|url-access=subscription |work=Sewanee Review |volume=115 |issue=4 |page=615-620 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |date=Fall 2007 |title=Gallery Talk: The Mailer Archive |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07lenn |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=132-40 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Lennon |first=J. Michael |author-mask=1 |date=2007 |title=Norman Mailer: Novelist, Journalist, or Historian? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619315|url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=91-103 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |editor-last=Lennon |editor-first=J. Michael |editor-mask=1 |date=Fall 2007 |title=‘A Series of Tragicomedies’: Mailer’s Letters on ''The Deer Park'', 1954–55 |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07lenn1 |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=45-79 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Long |first=Karen Haymon |title=Mailer in Review |url= |work=Tampa Tribune |issue=final ed., Baylife: 1 |date=November 18, 2007 |pages= |access-date= |ref=harv }} Discusses the formation of the Mailer Society and the annual conference, focusing on Tampa-area members and the launch of the Mailer Review out of USF.

{{cite journal |last=Lucid |first=Robert F. |date=Fall 2007 |title=[Boston State Hospital: The Summer of 1942] |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07luci |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=27–33 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Excerpt from incomplete authorized biography.

{{cite news |last=Masters |first=Brian |title=So Are Some People Really Born Evil? |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20070207/281749854885237 |work=Daily Mail [London] |issue=first ed.: 14 |date=April 19, 2007 |pages= |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Article discussing ''The Castle in the Forest'' in relation to an actual scientific study on evil and genetics.

{{cite journal |last=McDonald |first=Brian |date=2007 |title=Post-Holocaust Theodicy, American Imperialism, and the ‘Very Jewish Jesus’ of Norman Mailer’s ''The Gospel According to the Son'' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619314 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=78–90 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Excerpt from incomplete authorized biography.

{{cite thesis |last=Meloy |first=Michael |date=2007 |title=Sex Fiends of the Fifties: Intersections of Violence, Sexuality, and Masculinity in the Work of Norman Mailer, William Styron, and Ken Kesey |type=Diss. U of South Carolina, 2007 |chapter= |publisher=Ann Arbor: UMI |docket=AAT 3280339 |oclc= |url= |access-date= }}

{{cite journal |last=Middlebrook |first=Jonathan |date=Fall 2007 |title=Five Notes toward a Reassessment of Norman Mailer |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07midd |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=179–83 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Partridge |first=Jeffrey F. L. |date=2007 |title=''The Gospel According to the Son and Christian Belief'' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619313 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=64–77 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Petigny |first=Alan |date=Fall 2007 |title=Norman Mailer,‘The White Negro,’ and New Conceptions of the Self in Postwar America |url=https://prmlr.us/mr07peti |work=Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=184–93 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Rampton |first=David |date=2007 |title=Plexed Artistry: The Formal Case for Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619312 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=47–63 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Rodwin |first=John G. |date=Fall 2008 |title=Fighters and Writers |url=https://prmlr.us/mr08rodw |work=Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |page=396-406 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |title=Mailer’s Other Career |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2007/07/10/norman-mailers-other-career/ |work=Village Voice |issue=52.29 |date=July 18, 2007 |pages=68 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} On the occasion of the New York exhibit, “The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer.”

{{cite magazine |last=Rose |first=Daniel Asa |date=February 5, 2007 |title=Advertisements for a Gay Self |url=https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/26999/ |magazine=New York |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=9 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Brief comment praising Mailer’s treatment of homosexuality in ''The Castle in the Forest''.

{{cite journal |last=Ryan |first=James Emmett |date=2007 |title=‘Insatiable as Good Old America’: Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Popular Criminality |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4619309 |url-access=subscription |work=Journal of Modern Literature |volume=30 |issue=1 |page=17–22 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Scott |first=A.O. |title=Norman Mailer Unbound |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/movies/20norm.html |work=Village Voice |issue=late ed. final, east coast: E1. |date=July 20, 2007 |pages= |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Discuss/reviews Mailer’s films in anticipation of a screening at Lincoln Center.

{{cite thesis |last=Severs |first=Jeffrey Frank |date=2007 |title=Reinventing Totalitarianism in the Postwar American Novel |type=Diss. Harvard U, 2007 |chapter= |publisher=Ann Arbor: UMI |docket=AAT 3265089 |oclc= |url= |access-date= }}

. . .

====Book Reviews====
=====Reviews of ''The Castle in the Forest''=====

{{cite magazine |last=Abell |first=Stephen |date=February 16, 2007 |title=The Anality of Evil |url= |magazine=TLS: Times Literary Supplement |pages=21–22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Allen |first=Bruce |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer Asks: Who Made Hitler? |url= |work=News & Observer |edition=final |page=G5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{cite news |last=Allington |first=Patrick |date=May 12, 2007 |title=Devil’s Disciple |url= |work=Advertiser |location=Australia |edition=state |page=W10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Amidon |first=Stephen |date=February 4, 2007 |title=Portrait of a Monster |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/portrait-of-a-monster-nr77qrvvxqg |url-access=subscription |work=Sunday Times |location=London |page=54 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Anderson |first=Don |date=April 7, 2007 |title=Devil of a Time |url= |work=Weekend Australian |edition=Qld Review |page=10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Anshen |first=D. |title=An Enigmatic Development |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/485260/pdf |url-access=subscription |journal=American Book Review |volume=28 |issue=6 |date=September 2007 |page=18 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Arditti |first=Michael |date=February 16, 2007 |title=New Fiction |url= |work=Daily Mailer |location=London |edition=first |page=72 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bainbridge |first=Beryl |date=February 10, 2007 |title=Devil’s Plaything: Norman Mailer has Produced an Electrifying Inquiry into the Nature of Evil |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/feb/10/fiction.berylbainbridge |work=The Guardian |location=London |edition=final |page=16 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bancroft |first=Colette |date=February 4, 2007 |title=Hitler: the Intimacy of Evil |url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2007/02/04/hitler-the-intimacy-of-evil/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=10L |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Barron |first=John |date=January 21, 2007 |title=The Devil Made Hitler Do It, According to Norman Mailer |url=http://www.pressreader.com/usa/chicago-sun-times/20070121/283407712255383 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |edition=final |page=B12 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bate |first=Jonathan |date=February 11, 2007 |title=Fiction: Jonathan Bate is Dismayed by Norman Mailer’s Account of Hitler in Short Trousers |url= |work=Sunday Telegraph |location=London |edition=sec. Seven |page=41 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Battersby |first=Eileen |date=February 10, 2007 |title=Young Hitler Defeats Mailer |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/young-hitler-defeats-mailer-1.1194613 |work=Irish Times |edition=Weekend |page=11 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite journal |last=Begiebing |first=Robert J. |title=Castle Mailer |url=https://promlr.us/mr07begi |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=215–22 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyagoda |first=Randy |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Mailer on Hitler Still No Moby-Dick |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/mailer-on-hitler-still-no-moby-dick/article721277/ |work=The Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=D6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=William |date=January 21, 2007 |title=Hitler Youth |url= |work=Washington Post |edition=final |page=T07 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=William |author-mask=1 |date=January 21, 2007 |title=Mailer Takes on a Juvenile Hitler |url= |work= |location=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |edition=fourth |page=F8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Brown |first=Phil |date=April 18, 2007 |title=Books |url= |work=Brisbane News |location=Australia |page=28 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Cartwright |first=Justin |date=February 03, 2007 |title=The Devil's Work |url= |work=Guardian |location=London | edition=final | page=03 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Chancellor |first=Jennifer |date=February 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Turns his ‘Creative Nonfiction’ Form Loose on Hitler. |url= |work=Tulsa World | edition=final | page=H7 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Coale |first=Sam |date=January 28, 2007 |title=Mailer's Hitler a Troubled Blank. |url= |work=Providence Journal | location=Rhode Island | page=I11 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Coetzee |first=J.M. |date=February 15, 2007 |title=Portrait of the Monster as a Young Artist. |url= |work=New York Review of Books | edition=54.2 | page=8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Cohen |first=Joshua |date=February 2, 2007 |title=Early Hitler, Late Mailer. |url= |work=Forward | edition=2 | page=B2 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Craven |first=Peter |date=April 7, 2007 |title=American Bull in a Pig Sty. |url= |work=Age | location=Melbourne | page=A2:21 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{cite journal |author= |title=His Perfect Sense of the Other |url=https://newcriterion.com/issues/2007/2/ldquohis-perfect-sense-of-the-otherrdquo |journal=New Criterion |volume=25 |issue=6 |date=February 2007 |pages=1–2 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 20, 2007 |title=Little Hitler |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2007/01/18/little-hitler |magazine=Economist |location=Books & Arts |page=92 |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=August 8, 2007 |title=Mailer Brings out the Devil in Hitler |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=21 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Digs into Hitler’s Childhood |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7040474 |work=Weekend Edition: All Things Considered |location=NPR |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |date=January 27, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer Writes a Novel about Adolf Hitler’s Childhood |url= |magazine=Gleaner |location=New Brunswick |pages=C4 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

====Obituaries and Retrospectives====

{{cite news |last=Allen-Mills |first=Tony |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer, Literary Rebel, Dies |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/norman-mailer-literary-rebeldies-zkhkhdbchfw |work=Sunday Times |location=London |pages=1+ |access-date=2020-10-01 |url-access=subscription |ref=harv }} [Note: Also printed in the ''Australian'' under a different headline.]

{{cite news |last=Ambrose |first=Jay |date=November 25, 2007 |title=Remembering Mailer |url= |work=Knoxville News |location= |page=73 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Andriani |first=Lynn |date=November 19, 2007 |title=A Prolific Life to the End |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20071119.html |magazine=Publishers Weekly |location= |publisher= |access-date=2020-10-03 |url-access=subscription }}

{{cite news |author= |title=Literary Lion Sparked American Debate |url= |work=Daily Variety |agency=Associated Press |date=November 12, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |title=Writers Remember Mailer |url= |work=Times Union |agency=Associated Press |date=November 13, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=The Bad Boy of U.S. Literature |url= |work=Sunday Times |location=London |page=20 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Baddiel |first=David |date=November 17, 2007 |title=For Norman Mailer, Authenticity was all about Masculinity |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=3 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Bancroft |first=Colette |date=November 11, 2007 |title=‘He was Much More’ than a Writer |url= |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=1A |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Barnes |first=Bart |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Blustery Force in Life and Letters |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/norman-mailer-blustery-force-in-life-and-letters-dies-at-84/2019/01/24/56b92688-2031-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html |work=Washington Post |location= |page=A01 |access-date=2020-10-04 |url-access=subscription |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Bernstein |first=Mashey |date=December 2007 |title=In Different Way, Norman Mailer was a Deeply Jewish Writer |url= |magazine=Deep South Jewish Voice |location= |publisher= |access-date= }}

{{cite news |last1=Blau |first1=Rosie |last2=Mulligan |first2=Martin |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Pulling No Punches to the End |url=https://www.ft.com/content/aa64fec6-9085-11dc-a6f2-0000779fd2ac |work=London Financial Times |location= |page=13 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Boyd |first=Herb |date=November 15, 2007 |title=When James Baldwin Met Norman Mailer |url= |work=New York Amsterdam News |location= |page=1+ |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Burke |first1=Cathy |last2=Venezia |first2=Todd |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Literary Pug and Original Hipster Mailer, 84, Dies |url=https://nypost.com/2007/11/11/literary-pug-original-hipster-mailer-84-dies/ |work=New York Post |location= |page=November 11, 2007 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date= November 12, 2007 |title=A Brawler who Never Pulled a Punch |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-brawler-who-never-pulled-a-punch-1.981221 |work=Irish Times |location= |page=10 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Calabrese |first=Erin |date=November 19, 2007 |title=Widow Defends Mailer, Says He ‘Loved Women’ |url=https://nypost.com/2007/11/19/widow-defends-mailer-says-he-loved-women/ |work=New York Post |location= |page=14 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Campbell |first=James |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: Pugnacious Journalist and Author |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/nov/12/guardianobituaries.usa |work=Guardian |location=London |page=34 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Cappell |first=Ezra |date=November 16, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: A Man of Letters Inspired by the People of the Book |url=https://forward.com/news/12032/norman-mailer-a-man-of-letters-inspired-by-the-pe-00800/ |work=Forward |location= |page=A1+ |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Clark |first=Roy Peter |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Two Minutes with Mailer |url=https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2007/two-minutes-with-mailer/ |work=St. Petersburg Times |location=Florida |page=1E |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Clarke |first=Toni |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Writer Norman Mailer dies at 84 |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/writer-norman-mailer-dies-at-84-1.981225 |work=Irish Times |location= |page=10 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Craig |first=Olga |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Life of Books, Bars, Brawling |url=https://www.pressreader.com/canada/montreal-gazette/20071111/textview |work=Gazette |location=Montreal |page=A3 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Crosbie |first=Lynn |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Believe it: This was the Man who Loved Women |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/believe-it-this-was-the-man-who-loved-women/article726268/ |work=Globe and Mail |location=Canada |page=R1 |access-date=2020-10-04 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Crossen |first=Cynthia |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Readback: When Normal Mailer Was Nobody: 1948’s ‘The Naked and the Dead’ Was Written Before He Was Famous, And That Is Its Greatest Blessing |url= |work=Wall Street Journal Online |location= |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Cryer |first1=Dan |last2=Jacobson |first2=Aileen |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer 1923–2007: A Literary Icon Dies |url= |work=Newsday |location= |page=A08 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=D’Alessio |first=Jeff |title=A Life Written and Lived on a Large Scale: Norman Mailer 1923–2007 |url= |journal=Atlanta Journal-Constitution |volume= |issue= |date=November 11, 2007 |page=A5 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Reactions from Atlanta residents on the life and death of Mailer.

{{cite magazine |last=Deignan |first=Tom |title=Mailer: More Irish than the Irish |url= |magazine=Irish Voice |volume=21 |issue=47 |date=November 21, 2007 |pages=11 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Demirel |first=Selçuk |title=Norman Mailer |url= |magazine=Nation |volume=285 |issue=18 |date=December 3, 2007 |page=8 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |title=The Nijinsky of Ambivalence |url= |magazine=Nation |volume=285 |issue=19 |date=December 10, 2007 |pages=48–52 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |author-mask=1 |title=The Un-generation |url= |work=Los Angeles Times |volume= |issue= |date=December 30, 2007 |page=R4 |access-date= |ref=harv }} Retrospective comparing the lives and careers of Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and Grace Paley, who all died in 2007 at the age of 84.

{{cite magazine |last=Duggan |first=Keith |title=Two-Fisted Mailer Finally Counter Out |url= |magazine=Irish Times |volume= |issue= |date=November 7, 2007 |page=12 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Epstein |first=Jason |title=Norman Mailer (1923–2007) |url= |magazine=New York Review of Books |volume=54 |issue=20 |date=December 20, 2007 |page=10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |last=Eyman |first=Scott |title=Mailer’s Works Made Deep Impression on Post-WWII Political, Cultural Landscape |url= |magazine=Palm Beach Post |volume= |issue= |date=November 11, 2007 |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last1=Fee |first1=Gayle |last2=Raposa |first2=Laura |title=Mailer's Car Tale Resurrected |url=https://www.bostonherald.com/2007/11/14/mailers-car-tale-resurrected/ |work=Boston Herald |location=News |date=November 14, 2007 |page=20 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Feeney |first=Mark |title=Norman Mailer, Self-titled King of the Literary Hill, Dies at 84 |url=http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2007/11/11/norman_mailer_self_titled_king_of_the_literary_hill_dies_at_84/ |work=Boston Globe |edition=third |location=Obituaries |date=November 11, 2007 |page=A1 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Fields |first=Suzanne |title=Recalling My Mailer Crush |url=https://www.creators.com/read/suzanne-fields/11/07/recalling-my-mailer-crush |work=Washington Times |date=November 15, 2007 |page=A21 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }} Versions of this article also appear elsewhere under similar headlines.

{{cite news |last=Fulford |first=Robert |title=The Failed Career of Norman Mailer |url=http://www.robertfulford.com/2007-11-12-mailer.html |work=National Post |location=Canada |edition=national |issue= |date=November 12, 2007 |page=A13 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gagen |first=Thomas |title=Advertisements for Himself |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13iht-edmailer.1.8314248.html |work=Boston Globe |volume=third |issue= |date=November 13, 2007 |page=A14 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gallo |first=Bill |title=Norman Mailer was a True Heavyweight |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/norman-mailer-true-heavyweight-article-1.258682?pgno=1 |work=Daily News |location=New York |edition=sports final |issue= |date=November 18, 2007 |page=94 |access-date=2020-10-05 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Gelernter |first=David |title=Captain Hornblower |work=Weekly Standard |issue=13.11 |page=41 |date=November 26, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Greer |first=Bonnie|title=Mailer: Truth without Fear |work=Canberra Times|location=Australia |edition=final |page=A15 |date=November 14, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Guillermo|first=Emil |title=Bits of Obits: Three of My Heroes Pass On |work=Asiaweek |issue=4.13 |page=5 |date=November 16-22, 2007 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |last=Haden-Guest |first=Anthony |title=Last Round for the Wife Stabbing, Critic Punching Bruiser of Books |work=Mail on Sunday |location=London |issue=13.11 |page=FB 58 |date=November 11, 2007 |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{cite news |author= |date=November 14, 2007 |title=Heavyweight: Mailer’s Life and Work Were Outsized |url=https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2007/11/14/Heavyweight-Mailer-s-life-and-work-were-outsized/stories/200711140262 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |location= |page=B6 |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Legendary Writer with Particular Love for the Irish |url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/legendary-writer-with-particular-love-for-the-irish-26331219.html |work=Irish Independent |location= |page=unknown |access-date=2020-10-01 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=A Life of Writing, Boozing and Brawling |url= |work=Edmonton Journal |location= |page=A3 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 19, 2007 |title=Mailer won pair of Pulitzers |url= |work=Variety |location= |page=55 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |title=Mailer's Ghost |url=https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41004/ |magazine=New York |location= |publisher= |date=November 26, 2007 |access-date=2020-10-02 }} [Note: Revisits the seven covers of ''New York Magazine'' that have featured Mailer, either as author or subject.]

{{cite news |author= |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2007/11/15/norman-mailer |work=Economist |location=US |page=103 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Sunday Independent |location=Ireland |page= |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Times |location=London |page=53 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 13, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/norman-mailer-400006.html |work=Independent |location=London |page=34 |access-date=2020-10-02 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 15, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Times Union |location= |page=A12 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |work=Cincinnati Post |location= |page=C10 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{cite magazine |author= |title=Norman Mailer, 84 |url= |magazine=Newsweek |location= |publisher= |date=December 31, 2007 |access-date= }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 12, 2007 |title=Obituary of Norman Mailer |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1569056/Norman-Mailer.html |work=Daily Telegraph |location=London |page2= |access-date=2020-10-03 |ref=harv }}

{{cite news |author= |date=November 11, 2007 |title=Pulitzer Prize Author Norman Mailer Dies at 84 |url= |work=Providence Journal |location= |page=A6 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

. . .

{{Review|state=expanded}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer Bibliography: 2007}}
[[Category:Bibliographies (MR)]]

User:JREubanks

2020-09-30T21:31:41Z

JREubanks:

'''Joshua R Eubanks''' is a student at Middle Georgia State University, where he is majoring in New Media and Communications. Previously, he has written for Culturemass.com, and he currently writes a weekly article for U2Radio.com. He hopes to learn all that he can from Project Mailer so that he can start and maintain his own wiki projects in the future. Aside from this goal, he also hopes to work in the field of radio or television after graduation, which should occur sometime in 2022.

User:JREubanks

2020-09-30T21:17:10Z

JREubanks:

'''Joshua R Eubanks''' is a student at Middle Georgia State University. Previously, he has written for Culturemass.com, and he currently writes a weekly article for U2Radio.com. He hopes to learn all that he can from Project Mailer so that he can start and maintain his own wiki projects in the future. Aside from this goal, he also hopes to work in the field of radio or television after graduation, which should occur sometime in 2022.

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/A New Politics of Form in Harlot's Ghost

2020-09-28T22:51:28Z

JREubanks: corrected a couple of typos

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/A New Politics of Form in ''Harlot's Ghost''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Anshen|first=David|abstract=A reading of ''[[Harlot’s Ghost]]'' in relation to {{NM}}’s efforts to use fiction writing to reveal contradictions at the heart of American society and challenge American ideology, particularly in relation to the Cold War. The novel resists making overt judgments on events. The novel’s form and its political and social content are unified in their challenge to the dominant societal narratives about America and how these narratives are traditionally told.||url=https://prmlr.us/mr08ansh}}

{{quote|width=50%|“The sour truth is that I am imprisoned with a perception which will settle for nothing less than making a revolution in the consciousness of our time.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=17}} }}

{{quote|“Please do not understand me too quickly.”|author=Norman Mailer|source=quoting [[w:Andre Gide|Andre Gide]] in the epigraph to ''[[The Deer Park]]''.}}

{{dc|dc=N|orman Mailer was one of the most ambitious writers}} of our time. He had enormous faith in the power of writing to influence and change society and to alter the quality of human life. Despite the controversies that swirled around his public figure, he should be more recognized for the scope of his efforts to use his writing to transform America. With bravado, courage, and a bit of recklessness, he has repeatedly proclaimed his ''personal'' ambition to place himself, as a writer, in the company of literary giants and thereby remedy what he believes are America’s literary deficiencies, while also promising that he is about to write a novel that will create the “revolution in consciousness”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=17}} which he believes is necessary to rejuvenate a stagnant America,{{efn|See again {{harvtxt|Mailer|1959}} as well as essays in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1966}} and {{harvtxt|Mailer|1982}}. This point recurs throughout his writing.}} through writing the “great American novel” which will “tell the truth of our times.” Undoubtedly, however, this effort has been fraught with difficulties; as [[w:Carl Rollyson|Carl Rollyson]] explains in his biography of Mailer: “In the forty years since ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' Mailer has been searching for a way to write the great panoramic American novel. . . . America had seemed too complex for any single novelist—no matter how mature—to take on.”{{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=359}} His last, sustained effort to reveal America through a work of fiction is the long historical novel about the CIA, ''Harlot’s Ghost''. However, this novel has been overlooked as the culmination of Mailer’s project of a fictional representation of America and therefore largely ignored as the important work of politically engaged fiction that I believe it is.{{efn|One of the many critics who argue this way is {{harvtxt|Nielson|1997}}, who sums up her conclusion about Mailer’s politics based on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and ''[[Oswald’s Tale]]'' by stating, “What an examination of the persistent presence of Kennedy in their writings tends to suggest is that, for all Mailer’s non-conformism, his oeuvre serves to ultimately uphold the defining myths of the society which he describes, while that of Vidal works to undermine them.”{{sfn|Nielson|1997|p=23}} While her analysis of the episodes featuring [[William Kennedy|Kennedy]] in Mailer’s work and [[w:Gore Vidal|Vidal]]’s is persuasive in showing that Mailer’s writings on Kennedy are more positive than Vidal’s, this doesn’t justify, in my opinion, the broad conclusions she draws. On the other hand, the major critic who has treated ''Harlot’s Ghost'' as a whole, John {{harvtxt|Whalen-Bridge|1995}} argues persuasively that Mailer’s novel debunks the “myth of the American Adam.” This “myth” described by R.W.B. Lewis (and others) concerns alleged American “innocence” which Whalen-Bridge convincingly demonstrates is undermined by the novel. Whalen-Bridge is the major scholar that has written in detail on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and draws the conclusion that “His [Mailer’s DA] fictional interpretation of American intelligence work does more than any other work of literature to help readers gain access to ‘the imagination of the state.{{' "}} Unfortunately, few others have recognized the critical features of the novel. See also {{harvtxt|Whalen-Bridge|1998}}. Others who don’t believe the novel is critical of the CIA include {{harvtxt|Glenday|1995}} who, in his biography states categorically that the novel “doesn’t set out be, then, a critique of the CIA”{{sfn|Glenday|1995|p=131}} and {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999}}.}} This is undoubtedly because the novel presents a strange puzzle; both its content and form need careful consideration before its significance can be understood.

My essay offers a reading of the novel in relation to Mailer’s efforts to use fiction writing to reveal contradictions at the heart of American society and challenge American ideology, particularly in relation to the [[w:Cold War|Cold War]], while offering an explanation for the unorthodox formal features. In contrast to most critics who have written on the novel, I believe that ''Harlot’s Ghost'' presents a fierce indictment of America during the Cold War and after, which is intensified by the unconventional form.{{efn|I would place this novel alongside masterpieces of Cold War literature such as [[w:Robert Coover|Coover]], [[w:E. L. Doctorow|Doctorow]] and [[w:Don Delillo|Delillo]] below. All of these novels challenge the conventions of traditional literary realism and present radical formal structures.}} Indeed, I hope to show that the novel’s importance and significance, the truth it tells about American society, lies in what might appear its utter failure, both as a novel and a judgment on the history and politics, namely the way the novel fails to cohere as a novel. The novel refuses overt judgments on the events narrated. Paradoxical as it may seem, I will argue that the ''failure'' of traditional novelistic form and resolution creates a dialectic between reader and text allowing important revelations about American society to emerge which make the novel a success in telling the “truth of our times.” The truths revealed are precisely that the issues of the novel, which concern the meaning of the Cold War and the struggle between capitalism and its challenges, are not over and that instead of “the end of history” (to use [[w:Francis Fukiyama|Francis Fukiyama]]’s famous phrase) we are still plunged into unresolved history. Therefore, the novel’s form and its political and social content are unified in their challenge to the dominant societal narratives about America and how these narratives are traditionally told.

===A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma===
The relative neglect of the novel is easily understandable. After 1,168 pages, Norman Mailer terminates ''Harlot’s Ghost'' with a promise. He writes in bold capital letters at the end of the novel “TO BE CONTINUED.”{{efn|This isn’t the very end of the ''Harlot’s Ghost''. Mailer writes an “Author’s Note” which offers a defense of the novel’s claim for “verisimilitude” to historical reality and a list of nonfiction works about the CIA that informed the novel. This is followed by a list of CIA acronyms and individuals. This is an interesting and unconventional ending to a fictional spy novel. See {{harvtxt|Mailer|1991|pp=1169–1187}}}} There has been no sequel. To make matters worse, none of the conflicts of the novel, whether personal or political, are resolved, leaving readers to wonder about the fate of Harry Hubbard, the central character, and the other characters in the novel. This has obviously frustrated many readers. Given that Hubbard is a CIA agent caught in highly charged, real episodes in the history of the Cold War, and considering Mailer’s career-long ambition to tell the “truth of our times,” more information is expected. The novel ends with Hubbard in Moscow, after years of service to the CIA, looking for his godfather and career mentor, known as Harlot, who may have faked death and defected to the Soviets. In the last sentence of the novel, Hubbard poses a question: “Could I be ready to find my godfather and ask him, along with everything else I would ask: ‘Whom?’ In the immortal words of [[w:Vladimir Ilich Lenin|Vladimir Ilich Lenin]], ‘Whom? Whom does all this benefit?{{' "}}{{efn|It is doubtful that Lenin ever said this. Although presented as a quotation it is, as far as I can ascertain—at best—a paraphrase. It sounds a little like the title of Lenin’s famous book that also presents a question, ''What is to be Done?'' It also seems similar to the question Kevin Costner, playing Jim Garrison, in Oliver Stone’s ''JFK'' asks about the Kennedy assassination—who benefits from this? See {{harvtxt|Lenin|1977}}.}} It is puzzling that this question, so starkly posed, has not received an answer in the sequel promised at the end of the novel.

Mailer sets up grandiose expectations for the sequel by the incomplete ending and the final questions of the novel. The information left open concerns the fictional life of Harry Hubbard but also implies a verdict on the politics of America in the Cold War. To explain the events of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' means to reveal history since Hubbard is conveniently placed in the midst of major episodes in the Cold War due to his role in the CIA as an “agent” trying to influence developments. It is only at the end that Hubbard and readers realize the degree to which there is uncertainty as to what exactly has happened and why. In effect, the novel has set up a mystery without providing answers. However, to provide the meaning of the political events so starkly, in the form of answers to a question (“Whom does all this benefit?”), which will supposedly be answered when Harlot is located, is difficult to imagine given the deep level of political truths involved. Can any person, no matter how well placed, really be imagined who can answer ultimate truths about the meaning of the Cold War? In my view, it is to Mailer’s credit that he challenges himself to find a way to imaginatively create persuasive answers and meaning to the most important political issues of our times. Yet, it is further to his credit that, whether consciously or not, he has shown the honesty to abandon a simple approach to a career-long objective which could only be achieved, I will argue, at the cost of intellectual, political, and literary triviality. In effect, Mailer turns away from a dream that, if achieved, would situate him as part of a literary tradition that includes authors he admires most: [[w:Honoré de Balzac|Balzac]], [[w:Leo Tolstory|Tolstoy]], and [[w:Émile Zola|Zola]], who also strove to tell the truth of their times. However, to invent a character revealing the meaning behind historical events brings to mind the superficiality of conspiracy theories, one form of historical fiction that seems to be growing in popularity (sometimes interestingly in literature but tragically in public discourse).{{efn|Conspiracy theories have been taken by several critics as the hallmark of postmodern historical representation. See {{harvtxt|Jameson|1991}}, and {{harvtxt|McHale|1992}}, among others.}} On the other hand, [[w:Bertolt Brecht|Bertolt Brecht]]’s goal for writers that they should “render reality to men in a form they can master”{{sfn|Adorno|1978|p=81}}{{efn| This phrase comes from Brecht’s polemic around the ''nature'' of realism with [[w:Georg Lukács|Georg Lukács]] “Against Lukács” in {{harvtxt|Adorno|1978|p=81}}.}} seems the prerequisite for any politically useful fiction and sets up relevant criteria for evaluating ''Harlot’s Ghost''. Therefore, Mailer’s unwillingness or inability to write an ending or sequel to ''Harlot’s Ghost'' will be considered in light of such Brechtian goals. This paper will show that the novel’s lack of resolution is best understood not as a personal failure, or as symptomatic of the impossibility of political writing at the present time, but rather represents a new and valuable strategy in Mailer’s efforts to present unpleasant realities of American society. It should be noted, in passing, that my argument is not based on Mailer’s conscious ''intention'', which cannot be definitively ascertained, but rather on the logic of the novel in relation to its historical and political subject matter and Mailer’s stated objectives. These objectives are derived from Mailer’s career-long writings, interviews and public pronouncements and, in my view, form a clear and definable worldview and approach to human existence and human freedom.

With a few notable exceptions, this novel hasn’t fared well among critics and readers because it has been taken as conservative and sympathetic to the CIA, and because of its lack of an ending. These reactions need to be reconsidered. The novel is not a flattering portrait of the CIA, as we shall see, despite the tendency of some commentators to conflate the politics of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' with that of its narrator and protagonist, Harry Hubbard who, at least initially, views the CIA as a noble organization.{{efn|Mary Dearborn in her recent biography of Norman Mailer takes this view of the work. She writes, “To Hubbard, America is a country that ‘had God’s sanction’ and he is privileged and honored to serve it” and concludes from her reading of the novel that “Norman’s admiration for the CIA, and his approval of what he takes to be its patrician ways, is obvious in Harlot’s Ghost.”{{sfn|Dearborn|1999|p=409}} This seems to me to miss the ambiguity and tension that drive the novel and represents a too simplistic conflation of the framework of the protagonist with the logic of the novel.}} ''Harlot’s Ghost'' presents a damning vision of contemporary American society that fits into an alternative canon of politically engaged, Cold War literature that find traditional modes of representation inadequate for conditions of late capitalism. The novel’s lack of closure, although frustrating to many readers, reflects an unwillingness to artificially resolve the real historical conditions and conflicts depicted in the novel—even if this is a ''post-facto'' explanation. This refusal of premature closure represents a new politics of form for Mailer. To understand the novel’s lack of ending, we need to consider the subtle and unexpected affinities between Mailer’s performance and the Brechtian concepts of how political art should function as elaborated by [[w:Walter Benjamin|Walter Benjamin]].{{efn|See {{harvtxt|Brecht|2001}}, “The Modern Theater is the Epic Theater.”}} The novel’s lack of closure is best understood by considering it in light of Walter Benjamin’s famous essay, influenced by Brecht, “The Author as Producer.”{{efn|See {{harvtxt|Benjamin|1998|pp=85–105}}. I wish to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Mailer was influenced by this essay directly but rather that it helps us understand the functioning and logic of the structure of the novel. While Mailer never cites Benjamin or Brecht, in relation to this novel or in any of his writings (that I know of), his explanation for the structure of the novel, quoted towards the end of this essay

echoes their approach.}} Benjamin confronts the question that has haunted Mailer for years—namely, how can authors effectively and meaningfully use their writing to expand creativity and human freedom{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|pp=85–105}} in the face of the depersonalizing effects of modern capitalism. It is often the case that the politics of a work of fiction is reduced to its explicit political content but Benjamin, in contrast, makes the claim, still radical in current circumstances, that “the tendency of a work of literature can be politically correct only if it is also correct in the literary sense,”{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=86}} inextricably linking political content to form. Therefore, by Benjamin’s criteria the politics of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' do not reside in what it overtly tells us about the politics of the CIA, but rather through a more complex dialectic between the novel’s form and content. The justification for Benjamin’s assertion lies in his description of a situation in which, “we are in the midst of a vast process in which literary forms are being melted down, a process in which many of the contrasts in terms of which we have been accustomed to think may lose their relevance,”{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=87}} which is more true in the contemporary media and information explosion that accompanies late capitalism than when Benjamin wrote. Mailer’s incomplete novel can be taken as coherent if, despite the belief that we live in a post-ideological era where the struggle between capitalism and its challenges are over, the issues at the heart of the Cold War remain unresolved, leaving a final word impossible.

===The Portrait of a Young Man—Hubbard and Mailer===
There is a strange ambiguity within ''Harlot’s Ghost'' concerning the novel’s subject matter. The novel is about real historical events yet it also serves as a ''[[w:Bildüngsroman|Bildüngsroman]]'' (as Hubbard himself describes the work){{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=109}} under the veneer of the spy genre. ''Harlot’s Ghost'' certainly disappoints readers who expect the traditional features of spy novels, since all of the experiences described are left profoundly opaque and there are no heroic resolutions à la [[w:Ian Fleming|Ian Fleming]]. Perhaps the closest literary comparison would be [[w:Joseph Conrad|Conrad]]’s ''[[w:The Secret Agent|The Secret Agent]]'' since both novels are filled with bureaucratic machinations, unsavory characters, and a vision of society in terminal crisis, although Mailer never provides even the limited cognitive satisfaction of Conrad’s highly ambiguous work. In ''The Secret Agent'', readers are at least provided with enough details to understand the motivations of the characters and the events of the novel. ''Harlot’s Ghost'' features an almost complete, radical indeterminacy, where it is not just the characters that don’t know the meaning of the events but also the readers and perhaps even the author himself. This situation is justified by understanding the real subject matter of the novel.

Critics who have written about the novel have generally taken it as a simple novel about the CIA, and have failed to notice its allegorical features and the way the novel operates.{{efn|A notable exception, as mentioned above, is John Whalen-Bridge.}} On the literal level, the novel treats historical events from the Cold War and espionage. On a deeper level, the novel concerns issues central to Mailer, namely the possibility of creativity, freedom, and the cost of success in American society. Mailer’s intellectual framework, based on the valorization of courage and existential integrity as the road to self-expansion, is tested in this novel through characters who strive to succeed in influencing history.{{efn|See {{harvtxt|Mailer|1965}} and the episodes of rock climbing in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1991}}.}} Further, as is often true of Mailer’s writing, questions of individuality and freedom intersect with the status of ''writing'' and being a ''writer''. The status of writing is explicitly at stake since the novel is formed by a series of incomplete narratives with missing information from the protagonist Hubbard, who at one point explains, “I clung to my writings as if they were body organs.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=102}} Hubbard feels that if he can narrate the events he will have gained knowledge and provided absolute truths; however, since his narrative if fragmentary, filled with gaps, and incomplete, he cannot fulfill either goal.

Mailer’s treatment of the dangers and conditions of life in the CIA gives a clue to the novel’s real subject matter, which is broader than just the military and information gathering features of the Cold War. The Cold War and espionage serve as parts of a greater whole, as metonymic representations of the nature of life in America. This explains the fact that we find few episodes of physical danger in Mailer’s CIA. Instead, the difficulty of CIA work seems to parallel the struggles of any individual striving for success inside a large, faceless bureaucracy and an impersonal society. Harry Hubbard describes himself at the beginning of the novel when he reviews his entire career, as a once-promising CIA operative, who is reduced to hack status. He has failed in every major project and has been reduced to the object of amusement by his colleagues who whisper about his failed potential. Indeed, all the agents in the novel, whether fictional or based on real CIA agents, are obsessed with the most American of ambitions: career advancement. Courage, skill, and grace (key values for Mailer) are generally tested in the shark-infested waters of “the Company,” not by evil madmen intent on taking over the world, but by common features of life in capitalist America, including the struggle for career advancement. The dangers to America are what America is becoming. This theme is familiar in Mailer’s work and has been accurately summarized by [[w:Harold Bloom|Harold Bloom]] as conditions of, “[A]n America where he [Mailer] sees our bodies and spirits as becoming increasingly artificial, even ‘plastic.{{' "}}{{sfn|Bloom|1986|p=40}} In other words, authentic experience and meaningful action is constantly threatened by standardizing features and mediocrity prevalent in the CIA (“the Company” extraordinaire).

An indicative example of life in the CIA and its “dangers” face Hubbard on his first assignment. He is placed in a records room known as the “Snake Pit” and ordered to provide information and files on an individual known only by a code acronym. He cannot locate the data since it has either been removed or lost. Since he is under orders by a superior officer overseas to provide this information, which cannot be located, his mission becomes to conceal his own identity as an incompetent data clerk. He is able to do this with the help of his mentor and Godfather, Harlot, who has the power to change Harry’s own code name acronym. Eventually, he gets placed overseas and finds himself in West Germany, serving under Bill Harvey (the real CIA station head at that time) who gives him the assignment of locating the real identity of the incompetent data clerk who, it turns out, failed to locate information for Harvey. Hubbard’s mission becomes investigating and reporting on the real identity of an incompetent clerk who turns out to be Hubbard himself (shades of Oedipus).

Hubbard manages to conceal his identity despite close dealings with Harvey. However, he never finds out the significance of his original inability to locate the data requested. Perhaps the original missing information would have provided Harvey with information about a double agent, reporting to the East Germans about the secret construction of a tunnel, which would have aided the West in spiriting information and people across the [[w:Iron Curtain|Iron Curtain]]. In other words, Hubbard’s failure might have been of real importance in the Cold War. This distinguishes life in the CIA from other agencies or bureaus of government or business, since the CIA is, to a very large degree, in the business of directly intervening in history through the achievement of accurate information or “intelligence.” Hubbard makes clear that he is attracted to the CIA precisely because, as he explains in his CIA personal history statement, “''I have been brought up to face ultimates'',”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=182}} which reflects the belief that the CIA is the road to truth and effective action. However, truth is never so easy. Harlot argues to Hubbard that the successful completion of the tunnel would have been a disaster because it would have provided ''too much'' information about the real state of affairs in the Soviet bloc (a weak level of military preparedness and a series of bankrupt economies), which would threaten CIA funding. Harlot prefers disinformation to accurate information because it justifies future government expenditures. Did he set up Hubbard? Another possibility readers are forced to consider is that Harlot himself is a double agent and therefore subverts the tunnel to aid the Soviets. Readers, like Hubbard, never know for sure.

When Hubbard moves on to operations in Uruguay to fight communist influence, he receives a secret message from a high-ranking KGB official that there is a high-ranking double agent and he shouldn’t trust anyone—particularly the Soviet Division of the CIA. When Hubbard is debriefed; that is, interrogated by the Soviet Division, he decides not to report this part of the message. His evasion sets in motion a prolonged series of questions: it seems suspicious to the Soviet Division, experts on how the [[w:KGB|KGB]] works, that a KGB agent would become a double agent for the US by fingering double agents against the US without specifying who they are. And, of course, the KGB does act exactly as expected to act, but Harry, not knowing how the KGB is supposed to act, puts himself in jeopardy. If his omission is revealed, Hubbard will appear as a double agent himself, but with the help of Harlot he is able to get out of the jam. Harlot himself offers the theory that if Hubbard mentioned the Soviet Division, it would be taken, by the Soviet Division, as evidence that Harlot and Harry were intent on destroying the Soviet Division.

This picture of CIA activities would be ridiculous if it didn’t present a convincing picture of institutional logic. All of these gaps in knowledge are typical of the novel. Indeed, they present a consistent picture of inherent, systematic obstacles to effective activity. As Hubbard puts it, “As an Agency officer, I . . . encountered my fair share of plots . . . but I was rarely able to see them whole.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|pp=109-110}} This conflicts with the “existential” quest for courage, freedom and effective action since for an individual to freely choose his or her behavior, they must be able to understand their situation with a certain degree of accuracy. What prevents success in ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is not lack of courage or unwillingness to face unpleasant truths, but rather the daily functioning of compartmentalized, fragmented, and isolated individuals pursuing their own local interests. Knowledge and effective action are revealed as impossible on a micro-level, despite the traditional claim that competing interests in a market system result in maximum efficiency, fair results, and the common good. Truth, if it exists at all in this fictional world of espionage, can only be imagined as a whole picture looked at from the outside of the multiple bureaus and interests. However, if we take these episodes as suggestive of American society more broadly with its logic of privatization and the market system, we are given a critical picture of how the divergent interests that operate within American capitalist society serve to frustrate the interests of the whole. The ultimate logic of capitalism and the market (where each individual pursues individual interests) are revealed as leading to incoherence and flawed results. American society is in crisis, unable to function effectively in the Cold War because so-called intelligence gathering can never effectively provide more than limited and partial information, and truth is contingent upon pragmatic considerations.

The major characters and their problems also function more narrowly. The CIA agents, determined to influence history, are all would-be authors; they are not just writers-in-general, but the characters often articulate ideas similar to Mailer himself.{{efn|Mailer makes explicit his connection with his characters in the “Authors Note” of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' when he says that, “I wrote this book with the part of my mind that had lived in the CIA for forty years,”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=1169}} going on to say that he might have joined the CIA provided he had a “different political bent.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=1170}} On at least one other occasion, he explicitly compared the life of writers, and his, with CIA agents. In an interview quoted by Glenday, he explains, “I have an umbilical connection to ''Harlot’s Ghost'' because I’ve been obsessed with questions of identity my whole life” explaining that the changes in his status as a writer have been comparable to “spies and actors who take on roles that are not their own.”{{sfn|Glenday|1995|p=134}} }} On the most general level, they are all ambitious and determined, but are left in a precarious status in terms of their ultimate contribution to history (like Mailer).

The novel opens with Hubbard reading over his memoirs. He opines that under other circumstances he might have settled as a writer (just as Mailer states in the “Author’s note” that under other circumstances he might have been a CIA agent, which reveals similarities between the two “spooky arts”) but he wonders if anyone will ever read his document. We flash back to his early life where, notably, there are many common features between the tradecraft of writing and espionage. Hubbard learns that espionage is an art. He finds out that “codes” express and determine the life of an agent. Codes change an individual’s name, and Hubbard expresses the view that “the change of name itself ought to be enough to alter one’s character”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=196}} and that “even as shifting one’s cryptonym called forth a new potentiality for oneself, so there was a shiver of metamorphosis in this alteration of appearance.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=197}} Developing a code name is taken as the construction of a personality, one of the primary tasks of writers and CIA agents alike. Being an effective agent is almost directly compared to the kinds of imagination and creativity required for producing powerful literature. For example, Hubbard describes his early training:

<blockquote>
We were assigned a specific color for each number...

[n]ext, we were asked to visualize a wall, a table, a lamp. If the first three digits of the telephone number were 586, we were to picture a red wall behind a gray table on which was sitting an orange lamp. For the succeeding four numbers, we might visualize a woman in a purple jacket, green skirt, and yellow shoes sitting on an orange chair. That was our mental notation for 4216. By such means, 586-4216 had been converted into a picture with seven colored objects.... I became so proficient at these equivalents that I saw hues so soon as I heard numbers.{{sfn|Mailer|1991|pp=197-198}}</blockquote>

Espionage is the art of metaphor. Representation allows transformation, the alteration of “appearances” and signifiers creating powerful new meanings. This is what agents learn in their CIA schooling, according to Mailer. They don’t just master symbols, metaphors, codes, and figures of speech; they also master influence over others. This is Harlot’s specialty, what he trains agents in, and he stresses that influencing individuals through the art of espionage is linked with the struggle to influence history. This is made particularly clear when “counter-espionage,” or developing double agents, is taught by Harlot and practiced by Hubbard in Uruguay. Hubbard describes feeling a loyalty to his “creation” Chevi Fuertes, a leftist won over to the CIA who eventually defects to Cuba after the [[w:Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]] fails to create effective characters or characters misunderstood by critics. Through these and other episodes in the CIA, we see that Hubbard’s grand ambitions parallel Mailer’s, and interestingly, generally lead to failure.

It is not just Harry that can be seen as embodying elements of Mailer’s worldview. Kittredge, a woman agent married to both Harry and Harlot at different times in the novel, is a career psychologist and theorist for the CIA, and she also articulates a theory of personality that shares much in common with Mailer’s views. (Mailer’s worldview is frequently given voice in almost all of his novels since ''An American Dream''.) Her explanations of human behavior are direct articulations of Mailer’s theories of the human personality, to the degree that her theories seems straight out of Mailer’s essays on [[w:Henry Miller|Henry Miller]], collected in the anthology ''Genius and Lust'', or even Mailer’s last collection of reflections, ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation''.{{efn|See {{harvtxt|Mailer|1976}}.}} She articulates, in great detail, Mailer’s oft-stated theory of the dual nature of the human personality and the concept of the “Alpha and Omega” of the psyche; the two-sided, male-female, divided nature of the human personality. She explains that when one acts in a destructive or ineffective manner, this should be understood as the inability to reconcile two sides of an individual’s personality. Although she has had a successful career as the CIA’s in-house psychologist and philosopher, she has a problem: her career is failing. In fact, it is an interesting fact that despite her championing of Mailer’s views, she is in despair. It is a sign of Mailer’s own self-critical ability to question his own perspective that characters fail and flounder despite articulating views close to Mailer’s. She writes:

<blockquote>
Harry, for the last five years, I have carried this burden of woe, doubt, misery, and burgeoning frustration...

Harry, life has always treated me as a darling, and for much too long. If my mother merely adored me my father more than made up for it.... My brain was so fertile that I could have gone off to a desert island and been deliriously happy with myself. The only pains I knew were the ferocious congestions attendant on new ideas.{{sfn|Mailer|1991|pp=556-557}}</blockquote>

Mailer has described feeling as if he were the literary darling of critics after his early success with ''The Naked and The Dead'', which was extravagantly praised, but followed by harshly treated subsequent novels, ''The Deer Park'' and ''Barbary Shore''. Clearly, Mailer knew what it felt like to have incredibly “fertile” periods of creativity accompanied by frustration. Mailer has shown a repeated willingness to air publicly the frustrations of being a writer in his writing. Kittredge ends her despair, as Mailer so often has, by resolving to “find a way to renew oneself.”

Despite her articulation of Mailer’s theories, she, like all the characters, is unable ultimately to account for her sense of failure, and the theory fails. What makes this reading important about ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is that the novel functions as a testing ground for Mailer’s ideology, yet reveals the possibility of deconstructing that ideology. Mailer has stressed, in his essays and fiction, his conviction that courage and will determine success and that we must be “existentially” responsible for the conditions of our life. Bravery and honesty must be summoned and maintained and then we will be successful, Mailer claims. Mailer’s conviction is represented in ''An American Dream'' when Stephen Rojack walks around an apartment building balcony ledge, staving off the attempt of a devil-like character to push him off. After this act, Rojack, achieves inner peace and the novel resolves (unpersuasively, in my view).

The problem of failure, therefore, is a problem in Mailer’s worldview. This may explain the persistence of the supernatural in Mailer’s writings with the frequent presence of powerful forces, pressures, and “ghosts” that serve to constrict or destroy. The pseudo-metaphoric struggle between the individual spirit and supernatural forces (in all their murky strangeness and mystery) is central in almost all of Mailer’s writing. These “ghosts” seem to serve the function of calling upon individuals to achieve inner courage and strength, and also, to explain the failure of these values. What must be noticed is that all the agents in ''Harlot’s Ghost'' seem headed toward failure, precisely because of intangible conditions that cannot be dealt with or understood—then the novel’s abrupt ending leaves their lives and history suspended, with Kittredge either speaking to Harlot or his ghost. Why doesn’t the novel resolve this? It is as if Mailer stands at the abyss of a logic he will not face, namely that courage and spiritual development cannot provide success in the face of the impersonal forces of American society, and turns away out of fear and frustration. But this turning away is actually supreme honesty for Mailer’s project since it reveals the true unresolved state of American society.

In Mailer’s writing, dualism has not been enough to explain away the prevalent dread of failure. He has repeatedly supplemented his dualist explanation with “ghosts” and references to the battle between God and the Devil. What are these strange powers that move and slip in all realms of Mailer’s literary life? The unknowable and the supernatural in ''Harlot’s Ghost'' is manifest in the character of Harlot himself. Harlot is the God-like figure of the novel as Hubbard explains, “Harlot [is] a manifest of the Lord,”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=75}} or when he believes Harlot is dead Hubbard poses the question, “What would you do if you received incontrovertible news that the Lord had died?”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=45}} However literally we take this, it is clear by the end of the novel that Harlot’s status as a character who will reveal the mysteries of the novel is made problematic by his uncertain status as either dead, alive, or a ghost. History as an absolute truth is blocked by the structure of American society in ways so effectively represented in this novel, yet history itself is experienced as an inexplicable failure by Mailer’s characters. They fail to effectively intervene in history, most clearly in their efforts to defeat the Cuban revolution. This explains the mysteries around Harlot and his “ghost”; how else to explain heroic efforts that fail, if you believe, like Harry Hubbard that “love [is] a reward [for courage]. One could find it only after one’s virtue, or one’s courage, or self-sacrifice, or generosity or loss, had succeeded in stirring the
power of creation.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=54}} Harlot, is amongst all else, the rival for Kittredge’s affections, whom she seems to be talking with toward the end of the novel’s chronology. Mailer himself states in ''On God'', “my own experience tells me that the degree one is brave, one finds more love than when one is cowardly.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=29}} The mysterious and ghostly is precisely the failure of ambition, of courage and the American dream (if you work hard and persevere, you succeed—if you fail it is your own fault). Mailer, like his characters, is caught in this duality: he subscribes to the American dream, yet realizes his own experience doesn’t correspond to it. This requires mysticism to sustain the dream. If you are worthy, the “powers of creation” will be stirred, but if you fail the same powers will block you.

There is one other “author” who functions with a formal similarity to Mailer in ''Harlot’s Ghost'', namely Harlot. He is the master spy that is expected to tell the truth and reveal all in the sequel. He has been the guiding influence on events, the person Hubbard describes as his own personal “master in the only spiritual art that American men and boys respect—machismo” who “gave life courses in grace under pressure.”{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=17}} He is the author of the ideology of courage that Hubbard develops. Of course, it must be stressed that Harlot tests his willingness to face absolutes, to push beyond the limits, and he fails during a rock climbing accident which reduces him to a wheelchair and literal and symbolic impotence (Kittredge leaves him after the accident and marries Hubbard), killing their son, and damaging his career. This suggests the limitations of Harlot’s framework and, by extension, Mailer’s.

Harlot, however, remains the author of the various plots that drive the novel. In this sense, he is again like Mailer. He is expected to answer the questions that have been left unanswered and provide historical truth. Harlot is the godfather to Hubbard, the god-like figure who would be in a position to tell the truth and rise above the fray of conflicting interests and perspectives, but he is left fundamentally unknowable as a character.

===The Novelist as the God that Fails and the Novel as Disinformation===
Close to the end of the novel, Hubbard has some disconcerting thoughts. In a conversation with Bill Harvey (a fictional character based on the real CIA station chief) suspicion is cast upon the loyalty of Hugh Montague, a.k.a. Harlot, who has been the primary influence over Harry’s career. Could Harlot, one of the most powerful leaders of the CIA, actually be a Soviet agent? This would make Harlot the complete opposite of everything he appears to be and would call into question all the values and ideology that Harry Hubbard assumes. In addition, since Harlot explains all of his efforts in [[w:Manichaeism|Manichean]] terms of serving God against the Devil (echoes of Mailer), and ''if'' Harlot is a Soviet agent, then the absolute values assumed throughout the novel, and taught by Harlot, either collapse into nihilism and become self-serving or reverse their position: God representing democracy and capitalism is really evil and the Devil of Communism is really good. This has become a possibility that Harry’s experience with the CIA, particularly his truly disastrous efforts to overthrow the Cuban revolution and assassinate Fidel Castro, makes him inclined to consider seriously if the God of Capitalism is really the God or the Devil. How the entire novel is to be understood rests upon what side, if any, Harlot really serves.

Harry remembers a conversation with Harlot about God and Evolution. Evolution threatens the theory of divine creation. In response, Harlot proposes the theory that God tricks man by setting up false appearances for God’s protection to secure his function. Evolution explains things, but is a “cover story” designed by God to confuse man. Harlot reasons: “ ‘You can say the universe is a splendidly-worked up system of disinformation calculated to make us believe in evolution and so divert us away from God. Yes, that is exactly what I would do if I were the Lord and could not trust My own creation.{{' "}}{{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=1281}} This disconcerts Harry considerably since ''he'' is Harlot’s creation. Has the entire Cold War, or at least his part of it, been a massive disinformation campaign? If so, has Hubbard been serving good (God) or the (Devil), and do these values reside in capitalism or communism, or some third way? Also, the discourse of deception should make readers of this novel suspicious since it suggests the novel itself might be a complex piece of trickery, precisely what the incomplete ending of the novel also suggests. If we go back to an early Mailer interview, “Hip, Hell, and the Navigator” in ''Advertisements for Myself'', we find Mailer talking about God in terms of the future of the novel and creativity more broadly. In this interview, Mailer disarmingly jumps from conceptions of God, to conceptions of individual freedom, to the place of the writer in history. In an interesting way, these levels of concern shift and alter into a common concern. He explains his conception of God as “divided, not-all powerful; He exists as a warring element” and claims “we are a part—perhaps the most important part—of His great expression.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=380}} Mailer makes humans into characters in God’s great novel. In both cases, language such as “God,” “His great expression” and “creation” directly connects God and the universe with the novelist and his novel. In the interview Mailer goes on to make explicit this connection by stressing the implications of his Gnostic brand of theology:

<blockquote>
It [God as the source of expression] opens the possibility that the novel, along with many other art forms may be growing into something larger rather than something smaller, and the sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=380}}</blockquote>

The divine and mystical power of God allows new reservoirs of creative energy for aesthetic expression. If, however, we compare Harlot’s statement with Mailer’s earlier claims above, we detect an important shift. In both conceptions God is divided and warring, like a writer struggling to create works that are true to personal vision but facing critical rejection. However, Harlot’s theology is based on a God that is a losing force and that does not trust his audience. God needs to produce disinformation or his rule will be threatened by his creations. I suggest that Mailer’s theology, and Harlot’s, helps us understand how to read ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and probe beneath appearances. Harlot, who plots Hubbard’s fate and orchestrated history, manipulates because, like God, he needs to face the conditions of things becoming “smaller” and “less important.” Therefore, what is at stake in this novel is precisely the possibility of the novel, in general, as a creative form which can reveal understanding about history and society (which has always been Mailer’s stated objectives), or novels reduced to a minor expressive form. Mailer’s youthful optimism and confident rebellion against shrinkage of human and expressive potential seem lost: as God, Harlot and the novel are in danger of being revealed as weak frauds. If Harlot, who plays God with his Godson Harry, not to mention the CIA as a whole with its missions and history, is really part of an elaborate hoax, then the novel itself, by extension, threatens to be revealed as inadequate to represent history. However, perhaps Mailer’s strategy is similar to what he projected onto a threatened God; the grand novel that resolves history is disinformation. The lapse in this novel’s ending becomes full of implications for novel writing at large. Perhaps just this deception is necessary since the novel is not expanding and growing larger in our world of the television and the Internet but needs to be fought for in new ways.

To pursue this idea further, it is necessary to return to a scene early in the novel,(but late in Harry’s life) before he decides to travel to Russia, when the news has come that Harlot is dead. Harry, after deceiving Kittredge with an affair, and before she explains she will leave him for someone else, comes upon Kittredge talking to Harlot. Since Harlot is thought to be dead, this is quite strange. She is either delusional, talking to his ghost, or talking to the real Harlot. However, Harry can never know or obtain answers, short of finding Harlot, and the entire meaning of all that will come (or has come depending on the chronology taken in terms of Harry’s life or the narrative structure of the novel) revolves around this ghost. Is it real or not? The implications fundamentally shape the meaning of the entire novel and Harry’s relation with history. If Harlot is dead, then there can be no answers to motivations, loyalties, and the meaning of historical actions. The only meaning Harlot can retain in the “death of God” scenario is as a figure in the personal memories of Kittredge and Harry. Further, Kittredge’s talking with Harlot is madness, a delusion that truth can be revealed through communication. Harlot’s death is the end of the dream of making sense of history and of the novel’s mysteries. If Harlot is alive, on the other hand, then meaning can be made of his historical interventions (he can be asked for the truth in Moscow) and of history proper. If so, however, then his ghostly visage is illusory, a deception and fraud and the personal relations between Kittredge and Harlot become thoroughly subjective and unreliable. Take your choice, Harlot can seemingly only function as truth on the personal level or on the political level—but not both.

To make sense of this ending, it is useful to return to Walter Benjamin. In his essay on authors in capitalism, he claims that the true revolution that writers can affect is one in terms of “technique”:

<blockquote>
Before I ask: what is a work’s position ''vis-à-vis'' the production relations of its time, I should like to ask: what is its position ''within'' them? This question concerns the function of a work within the literary production relations of its time. In other words, it is directly concerned with literary ''technique''.{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=87}}</blockquote>

This emphasis on “technique” is further explained by the claim that a progressive “technique” is defined as a type of writing which “will be better, the more consumers it brings in contact with the production process—in short, the more readers or spectators it turns into collaborators.”{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=98}}

This framework of Benjamin’s sheds new light on what can be made of the apparent failure of the novel to resolve. Mailer himself has given two explanations. At the time of the novel’s publication, Mailer promised to complete the work after some time went by, but recently has stated that he won’t revisit the novel because technology has dehumanized espionage. This doesn’t seem persuasive to me because the novel’s scope is not contemporary espionage but historical episodes revealed through the voice of a fictional spy positioned to discover truth. Interestingly, in an earlier interview for BBC, Mailer defends the form of the novel in a way that directly echoes Benjamin’s concept of a transformation in technique, which transforms authors into producers. He says:

<blockquote>
The reader having been given the end and the beginning will conceive of that ‘middle’; they know that the middle takes place in Vietnam, and Watergate, and that the love affair between Harry Hubbard and Kittredge ... was consummated in that ‘middle’ and they will think about it, and in their own mind—if they like the book—they’ll come to the point where they conceive of that middle novel. Now, if I come along and write it in the next few years, they’ll then be able to check their version of the novel against mine.{{sfn|Glenday|1995|p=135}}</blockquote>

From the vantage point of “telling” the “truth of our times,” and on the level of crafting an explicit plot resolution, the novel fails. The position of the author is in decline—at least in terms of the author as the “hero” who reveals history. Could the novel be taken as an elaborate hoax? Mailer, himself, at some level, recognizes that there is no novelistic resolution to the level of questions he poses. Even though Mailer planned to write a sequel, the results remain: the incomplete novel becomes a radical formal experiment and gesture of making the readers into the “authors” of the sequel. Mailer stresses the value of readers who “conceive” the ending. Given that the ending revolves around the nature of the Cold War and the value of the relative sides, making the readers interpret the future “ending” means placing the readers as judges of history. Perhaps Mailer’s attachment to radical individualism and existential courage is shown inadequate in the face of “ghosts”; that is, the collective, overpowering force of history that cannot be revealed by an “author” because they are beyond the purview of an individual. On the other hand, out of this failure, meaningful truth is produced and revealed, precisely out of abandoning the position of the author who tells all. Any answers given by Mailer to the questions at the end of the novel would ring hollow since they would force him to stand for or against the U.S. role in the Cold War by making Harlot a hero or villain. True, the reader cannot end this novel with the sense of completion or satisfaction traditional novels provide. Instead, we are left to become the writers and producers—speculating and arguing about how the novel that wasn’t written should end. We may consider whether the public media-driven faith in the God-like claims about capitalism and so-called democracy, which are supposedly outside of time and history and beyond challenge are an elaborate hoax. Harlot may be alive or dead, and like a possible “God” and “Devil” we cannot know, but we are put in the writer’s place free from the authority of any divine will. It would be ironic if Mailer, who, like his fictional CIA agents, has spent a career attempting to write the great novel, decided not to, precisely so that by turning away from this project and refusing a sequel, he forces us to rethink our relationship to novels and history. This is where his great contribution can reside.

===Back to the Future===
There is one other way that the novel offers knowledge about history. The novel was written before the end of the Cold War. Since this point, we, the readers of history, have been told the story that we are at the “end of history” where the great dualistic struggle between capitalism (as represented by America) and communism (represented by the Soviet bloc) is over, goodness has won, and the era of peace and prosperity is awaiting.{{efn|The most famous version of this comes from {{harvtxt|Fukiyama|1998}}. He has since basically abandoned his thesis and now warns of the dangers to civilization by “radical Islamist” forces.}} This suggests that the truth of the Cold War was revealed and it can be seen clearly what was at stake—the benefits of liberal democracy or the necessarily evil nature of communism or any attempt to challenge the market system. In a sense, history seemed to provide the answer to the question of Mailer’s novel. A sense of euphoria and moral certitude swept over the victors of the Cold War as they proclaimed with religious ferocity the advent of the American Century and the “new world order.” However, quickly this resolution of the plot dissolved. From the vantage point of distance, the choice God or the Devil, the Soviet Union or America, victory or defeat seems a strange piece of “disinformation.” Despite America’s victory, like Norman Mailer’s unfinished novel, all of the dangers and possibilities, the ambiguities and contradictions, seem still unresolved. Mailer turns out to be prescient; the novel is not over. There still has been no way to end, for good or bad, the plot twists and surprises, the unexplained betrayals and crimes of recent history. Any answers to history that seemed written by the end of the Cold War turn out to be incomplete and faulty, ideological and short-sighted as capitalist America continues to engender conflict and confusion, dangers and resistance. The truth of these events will not be given to us by some expert with words. We are still left to create the story that will tell the truth of our times, but it won’t be written on paper.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite book |last=Adorno |first=Teodor |date=1978 |title=Aesthetics and Politics |url= |location=New York |publisher=Verso |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Benjamin |first=Walter |translator-last1=Bostock |translator-first1=Anna |chapter=The Author as Producer |date=1998 |title=Understanding Brecht |url= |location=New York |publisher=Verso |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= |first= |editor1-last=Bloom |editor1-first= Harold |date=1986 |title=Norman Mailer: Modern Critical Views |url= |location=New York |publisher=Chelsea House Publishers |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last= |first= |editor1-last=Bloom |editor1-first= Harold |editor-mask=1 |date=2003 |chapter=Norman in Egypt |title=Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Norman Mailer |url= |location=Philadelphia |publisher=Chelsea House Publishers |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Brecht |first=Bertolt |translator-last1=Willet |translator-first1=John |date=2001 |title=Brecht on Theater: the Development of an Aesthetic. |url= |location=New York |publisher=Hill and Wang |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Coover |first=Robert |date=1977 |title=The Public Burning |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove Press |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Dearborn |first=Mary |date=1999 |title=Mailer a Biography |url= |location=New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=DeLillo |first=Don |date=1997 |title=Underworld |url= |location=New York |publisher=Simon and Shuster |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Doctorow |first=E. |date=1996 |title=The Book of Daniel |url= |location=New York |publisher=Plume Penguin Press |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fukiyama |first=Francis |date=1998 |title=The End of History and the Last Man |url= |location=New York |publisher=Avon Books |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Glenday |first=Michael |date=1995 |title=Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Jameson |first=Fredric |date=1991 |title=Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism |url= |location=Durham |publisher=Duke UP |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. |date=1977 |title=Selected Works in 3 Volumes |url= |location=Moscow |publisher=International Press |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1959 |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1965 |title=An American Dream |url= |location= |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1955 |title=The Deer Park |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1976 |title=Genius and Lust: A Journey through the Major Writings of Henry Miller |url= |location=New York |publisher=Grove |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1991 |title=Harlot's Ghost |url= |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=2007 |title=On God: An Uncommon Conversation |location=New York |publisher=Random House |author-link=Norman Mailer |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |author-mask=1 |date=1982 |title=Pieces and Pontifications |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=McHale |first=Brian |date=1992 |title=Constructing Postmodernism |url= |location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Nielson |first=Heather |title=Jack's Ghost: Reappearances of John Kennedy in the work of Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer |url= |journal=American Studies International |volume=35 |issue=3 |date=1997 |pages=23-41 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Rollyson |first=Carl |date=1991 |title=The Lives of Norman Mailer |url= |location=New York |publisher=Paragon House |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Whalen-Bridge |first=John |title=The Myth of American Adam in Late Mailer |url= |journal=Connotations |volume=5 |issue=2-3 |date=1995 |pages=304-321 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Whalen-Bridge |first=John |author-mask=1 |date=1998 |title=Fiction and the American Self |url= |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois P |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Politics of Form in Harlot's Ghost, A}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

User:JREubanks

2020-09-28T21:49:41Z

JREubanks: Created user profile.

'''Joshua R Eubanks''' is a student at Middle Georgia State University. He hopes to learn all that he can from Project Mailer so that he can start and maintain his own wiki projects in the future. Aside from this goal, he also hopes to work in the field of radio or television after graduation, which should occur sometime in 2022.

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-22T22:23:01Z

JREubanks: changed "sfn" to "harvtxt"

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
{{Working}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{harvtxt|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=37}} Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self.{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss. {{efn|My use of Nietzsche’s abyss here refers to the anxiety associated with endless falling as conceived by Nietzsche in ''Beyond Good and Evil'' (New York: Boni and Liveright, no date), Chapter IV, aphorism 146: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”}} Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=224}}

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood.” {{efn|It is interesting to compare D.J.’s decision to obey his instinctive impulses to Emil Sinclair’s decision to accept the “wisdom of the blood” in Herman Hesse’s classic ''Demian''. Though both Enoch of ''Wise Blood'' and D.J. of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ultimately become less than human by accepting their instinctive “wisdom,” Emil Sinclair becomes more than
human.}} By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=200}} And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=156}} Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=157}}

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys. {{efn| It is possible that Mailer was heavily influenced by the anthropological theories popularized by the late Robert Ardrey in his 1965 best seller ''African Genesis'' (New York: Dell, 1961), in which it was postulated that mankind evolved from “killer apes.”}}

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=197}} {{efn| It is significant that Mailer uses the word “castrating” in reference to “mother” Nature. Without his rifle, D.J. is no longer dominant over Nature, and thereby sexually impotent.}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

This would partially explain the apparent contradiction occurring in the subsequent episode. When night comes, D.J. and Tex form camp and try to sleep. As D.J. lays next to his friend, he is immersed in the grandeur and majesty of the night time mountain forest. In his own words, D.J. “could have wept for a secret was near, some mystery in the secret of things, of trees and forest all in dominion to one another.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=211}} At last he seems to be understanding the wild!

Up until this moment Mailer’s novel has been written in an obsessive stream of obscene language and electronic-media jargon. The description of
the night, however, is delivered in a reverent, almost corny, passage of classical Nature writing worthy of a Thoreau or Wordsworth.

But the similarity to other books about Nature ends abruptly, changing into a strange and ominous parody. As D.J. experiences the “secret” drawing nearer, he simultaneously feels a sexual desire for Tex. This odd dealing with latent homosexuality at first seems to destroy the sense of serenity Mailer has so painstakingly described.

At first glance, he seems to have thrown in an innocuous homosexual scene just to meet some politically correct requisite. But on second glance, this sexuality comes into focus as a natural force within D.J.—and by inference, all the sons of the American State. As might be expected, it is a violent sexual urge and D.J. considers the dominancy he would prove over Tex if he forced his friend into a role of subservient sexual partner. He is refrained from action only by the fear of failure to dominate. By now, it should be obvious that Mailer equates sex and violence as forever spliced in the American mind. They are two branches with the same root mired in the psychology of the beast.

Up until this very moment, there seems to have been hope for D.J. He has seen through the hypocrisy of his father, rejected the Darwinian biological imperatives of his country, proven his personal courage in the face of death, and found a type of grace in Nature.

But with the welling up of his violent and sexual “urges” comes the end of hope for D.J. He never grasps the full meaning of his experiences. Instead of recognizing that he is tyrannized by his own “wise blood” (or “urges”), he mistakenly assumes that he is receiving messages from a God of the cosmos. Instead of understanding that his violence is something to be overcome, he accepts it as not only natural but divine. He comes within a hair of finding the true meaning of his experience, only to misinterpret the entire lesson. D.J. finally finds God, but instead of psalms, he hears the command,“Go out and kill—fulfill my will, go and kill.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=219}} God is not there for him—only the Beast.

And for that reason, all the violence and domineering sex in him seems to be justified and affirmed. Like the Nazi gunners with ''Gott mit uns'' inscribed on their belts, D.J. believes that God is “on his side” so long as he follows his natural impulses, even if it means constant fighting and killing if necessary to remain on top of the human herd and get what he wants in the sexual and material sense.

In this sad way, D.J. becomes his own father, with the same sad hypocrisies and the same sad justifications. The book ends with D.J. and Tex waiting to go to war in a fever of happy anticipation. Their last words are “Vietnam, hot dam.” {{efn|Compare this to the last line of Mailer’s 1948 war novel, ''The Naked and the Dead'', which exclaims, “Hot dog!” A good argument could be drawn that the two books convey the same message: naturalistic forces so overwhelm the individual that willed action is futile and pointless.}}

Why Are We in Vietnam? is Mailer’s most profoundly pessimistic book. Mankind as allegory fails to realize that he has a choice to lift himself
above the brutishness of raw Nature. Instead, he allows himself to be a subject of Nature, thus becoming just another brute. He fails to discern good from evil. He fails to understand that he—personifying mankind—is becoming a force as powerful as God and the Devil because he can
choose.

This was Mailer’s maturing perception of a “good” God and an “evil” Devil in the late sixties. Perhaps the root of this belief can be found in this statement in ''Advertisements for Myself'', from an essay written a few years earlier: <blockquote>God’s destiny is flesh and blood with ours, and so, far from conceiving of a God who sits in judgment and allows souls, lost souls, to leave purgatory and be reborn again, there is the greater agony of God at the mercy of man’s fate, God determined by man’s efforts, man who has a free will....{{harvtxt|Mailer|1959|p=91}}</blockquote> {{efn|Norman Mailer, “A Public Notice on ''Waiting for Godot'',” essay in ''Advertisements for Myself''(New York: Putnam, 1959).}} This conception is precisely the one presented in Mailer’s 1968 bear hunt and his 2007 portrait of Adolf Hitler as a boy. God, Man, and Nature are not one, not made up of the same substance. Man is neither the consciousness nor the conscience of God. Mankind is a third determining force in the Universe.

Mankind can and must realize itself as a determining factor in the development of life. Curiously, all of Mailer’s literary work, except ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', emphasizes the moral responsibility of the individual to fight the suffocating restrictions of society, especially when society is dominated by the laws of Nature, not man. This more than anything illustrates Mailer’s abhorrence of American interference in Vietnam. “We did it to prove we are the meanest, biggest, baddest dog on the block,” he seems to be saying. We were allowing our natural instincts to rule our actions. Thus, Mailer is not concerned with the destruction of another country so much as he is concerned with our self-destruction. {{efn| This quotation from ''Cannibals and Christians'' may help clarify Mailer’s position: “[T]he only explanation I can find for the war in Vietnam is that we are sinking into the swamps of a plague and the massacre of strange people seems to relieve this plague. If one were to take the patients in a hospital, give them guns and let them shoot on pedestrians down from hospital windows you may be sure you would find a few miraculous cures”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1966|p=91}}}}

If his allegory holds true throughout the novel, we must conclude that America as a society failed to will itself more sophisticated than the beasts in the woods when it sent its army to Vietnam. America failed to choose attainment of universal justice and compassion. In Mailer’s terminology, especially now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must conclude that our attempted bullying of Vietnam was nothing less than demonic, as it represented the antithesis of divine.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-22T22:20:20Z

JREubanks:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
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{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{harvtxt|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{harvxt|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=37}} Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self.{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss. {{efn|My use of Nietzsche’s abyss here refers to the anxiety associated with endless falling as conceived by Nietzsche in ''Beyond Good and Evil'' (New York: Boni and Liveright, no date), Chapter IV, aphorism 146: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”}} Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=224}}

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood.” {{efn|It is interesting to compare D.J.’s decision to obey his instinctive impulses to Emil Sinclair’s decision to accept the “wisdom of the blood” in Herman Hesse’s classic ''Demian''. Though both Enoch of ''Wise Blood'' and D.J. of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ultimately become less than human by accepting their instinctive “wisdom,” Emil Sinclair becomes more than
human.}} By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=200}} And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=156}} Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=157}}

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys. {{efn| It is possible that Mailer was heavily influenced by the anthropological theories popularized by the late Robert Ardrey in his 1965 best seller ''African Genesis'' (New York: Dell, 1961), in which it was postulated that mankind evolved from “killer apes.”}}

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=197}} {{efn| It is significant that Mailer uses the word “castrating” in reference to “mother” Nature. Without his rifle, D.J. is no longer dominant over Nature, and thereby sexually impotent.}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

This would partially explain the apparent contradiction occurring in the subsequent episode. When night comes, D.J. and Tex form camp and try to sleep. As D.J. lays next to his friend, he is immersed in the grandeur and majesty of the night time mountain forest. In his own words, D.J. “could have wept for a secret was near, some mystery in the secret of things, of trees and forest all in dominion to one another.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=211}} At last he seems to be understanding the wild!

Up until this moment Mailer’s novel has been written in an obsessive stream of obscene language and electronic-media jargon. The description of
the night, however, is delivered in a reverent, almost corny, passage of classical Nature writing worthy of a Thoreau or Wordsworth.

But the similarity to other books about Nature ends abruptly, changing into a strange and ominous parody. As D.J. experiences the “secret” drawing nearer, he simultaneously feels a sexual desire for Tex. This odd dealing with latent homosexuality at first seems to destroy the sense of serenity Mailer has so painstakingly described.

At first glance, he seems to have thrown in an innocuous homosexual scene just to meet some politically correct requisite. But on second glance, this sexuality comes into focus as a natural force within D.J.—and by inference, all the sons of the American State. As might be expected, it is a violent sexual urge and D.J. considers the dominancy he would prove over Tex if he forced his friend into a role of subservient sexual partner. He is refrained from action only by the fear of failure to dominate. By now, it should be obvious that Mailer equates sex and violence as forever spliced in the American mind. They are two branches with the same root mired in the psychology of the beast.

Up until this very moment, there seems to have been hope for D.J. He has seen through the hypocrisy of his father, rejected the Darwinian biological imperatives of his country, proven his personal courage in the face of death, and found a type of grace in Nature.

But with the welling up of his violent and sexual “urges” comes the end of hope for D.J. He never grasps the full meaning of his experiences. Instead of recognizing that he is tyrannized by his own “wise blood” (or “urges”), he mistakenly assumes that he is receiving messages from a God of the cosmos. Instead of understanding that his violence is something to be overcome, he accepts it as not only natural but divine. He comes within a hair of finding the true meaning of his experience, only to misinterpret the entire lesson. D.J. finally finds God, but instead of psalms, he hears the command,“Go out and kill—fulfill my will, go and kill.”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1967|p=219}} God is not there for him—only the Beast.

And for that reason, all the violence and domineering sex in him seems to be justified and affirmed. Like the Nazi gunners with ''Gott mit uns'' inscribed on their belts, D.J. believes that God is “on his side” so long as he follows his natural impulses, even if it means constant fighting and killing if necessary to remain on top of the human herd and get what he wants in the sexual and material sense.

In this sad way, D.J. becomes his own father, with the same sad hypocrisies and the same sad justifications. The book ends with D.J. and Tex waiting to go to war in a fever of happy anticipation. Their last words are “Vietnam, hot dam.” {{efn|Compare this to the last line of Mailer’s 1948 war novel, ''The Naked and the Dead'', which exclaims, “Hot dog!” A good argument could be drawn that the two books convey the same message: naturalistic forces so overwhelm the individual that willed action is futile and pointless.}}

Why Are We in Vietnam? is Mailer’s most profoundly pessimistic book. Mankind as allegory fails to realize that he has a choice to lift himself
above the brutishness of raw Nature. Instead, he allows himself to be a subject of Nature, thus becoming just another brute. He fails to discern good from evil. He fails to understand that he—personifying mankind—is becoming a force as powerful as God and the Devil because he can
choose.

This was Mailer’s maturing perception of a “good” God and an “evil” Devil in the late sixties. Perhaps the root of this belief can be found in this statement in ''Advertisements for Myself'', from an essay written a few years earlier: <blockquote>God’s destiny is flesh and blood with ours, and so, far from conceiving of a God who sits in judgment and allows souls, lost souls, to leave purgatory and be reborn again, there is the greater agony of God at the mercy of man’s fate, God determined by man’s efforts, man who has a free will....{{harvtxt|Mailer|1959|p=91}}</blockquote> {{efn|Norman Mailer, “A Public Notice on ''Waiting for Godot'',” essay in ''Advertisements for Myself''(New York: Putnam, 1959).}} This conception is precisely the one presented in Mailer’s 1968 bear hunt and his 2007 portrait of Adolf Hitler as a boy. God, Man, and Nature are not one, not made up of the same substance. Man is neither the consciousness nor the conscience of God. Mankind is a third determining force in the Universe.

Mankind can and must realize itself as a determining factor in the development of life. Curiously, all of Mailer’s literary work, except ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', emphasizes the moral responsibility of the individual to fight the suffocating restrictions of society, especially when society is dominated by the laws of Nature, not man. This more than anything illustrates Mailer’s abhorrence of American interference in Vietnam. “We did it to prove we are the meanest, biggest, baddest dog on the block,” he seems to be saying. We were allowing our natural instincts to rule our actions. Thus, Mailer is not concerned with the destruction of another country so much as he is concerned with our self-destruction. {{efn| This quotation from ''Cannibals and Christians'' may help clarify Mailer’s position: “[T]he only explanation I can find for the war in Vietnam is that we are sinking into the swamps of a plague and the massacre of strange people seems to relieve this plague. If one were to take the patients in a hospital, give them guns and let them shoot on pedestrians down from hospital windows you may be sure you would find a few miraculous cures”{{harvtxt|Mailer|1966|p=91}}}}

If his allegory holds true throughout the novel, we must conclude that America as a society failed to will itself more sophisticated than the beasts in the woods when it sent its army to Vietnam. America failed to choose attainment of universal justice and compassion. In Mailer’s terminology, especially now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must conclude that our attempted bullying of Vietnam was nothing less than demonic, as it represented the antithesis of divine.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

User talk:JREubanks

2020-09-21T21:58:33Z

JREubanks:

== Just a Note ==

Great work on your remediation article! Just a note: footnotes should appear ''after'' the punctuation, like in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/From Monroe to Picasso: Norman Mailer and the Life-Study|this article]]. I thought you might want to fix them yourself. —[[User:Jules Carry|Jules Carry]] ([[User talk:Jules Carry|talk]]) 18:20, 15 September 2020 (EDT)

Thanks for the compliment, and the information. I appreciate the opportunity to make these corrections. [[User:JREubanks|JREubanks]] ([[User talk:JREubanks|talk]]) 19:22, 15 September 2020 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JREubanks}} Good job, but now get rid of the spaces. They need to be right up against the word or punctuation. Again, see the example. ;-) —[[User:Jules Carry|Jules Carry]] ([[User talk:Jules Carry|talk]]) 22:04, 15 September 2020 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Jules Carry}} Thanks for your help in cleaning those spaces up. I signed in today to do some work on the entry, and I saw your last note too late to follow the helpful instructions you gave me. I am going to try to work some more on the citations and notes today and tomorrow. [[User:JREubanks|JREubanks]] ([[User talk:JREubanks|talk]]) 17:57, 21 September 2020 (EDT)

User talk:JREubanks

2020-09-15T23:22:14Z

JREubanks: /* Just a Note */

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-15T23:14:08Z

JREubanks: corrected placement of punctuation with regard to citation numbers. (thanks for the heads-up!)

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{sfn|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=37}} Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self. {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss. {{efn|My use of Nietzsche’s abyss here refers to the anxiety associated with endless falling as conceived by Nietzsche in ''Beyond Good and Evil'' (New York: Boni and Liveright, no date), Chapter IV, aphorism 146: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”}} Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=224}}

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood.” {{efn|It is interesting to compare D.J.’s decision to obey his instinctive impulses to Emil Sinclair’s decision to accept the “wisdom of the blood” in Herman Hesse’s classic ''Demian''. Though both Enoch of ''Wise Blood'' and D.J. of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ultimately become less than human by accepting their instinctive “wisdom,” Emil Sinclair becomes more than
human.}} By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=200}} And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=156}} Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=157}}

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys. {{efn| It is possible that Mailer was heavily influenced by the anthropological theories popularized by the late Robert Ardrey in his 1965 best seller ""African Genesis"" (New York: Dell, 1961), in which it was postulated that mankind evolved from “killer apes.”}}

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=197}} {{efn| It is significant that Mailer uses the word “castrating” in reference to “mother” Nature. Without his rifle, D.J. is no longer dominant over Nature, and thereby sexually impotent.}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

This would partially explain the apparent contradiction occurring in the subsequent episode. When night comes, D.J. and Tex form camp and try to sleep. As D.J. lays next to his friend, he is immersed in the grandeur and majesty of the night time mountain forest. In his own words, D.J. “could have wept for a secret was near, some mystery in the secret of things, of trees and forest all in dominion to one another.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=211}} At last he seems to be understanding the wild!

Up until this moment Mailer’s novel has been written in an obsessive stream of obscene language and electronic-media jargon. The description of
the night, however, is delivered in a reverent, almost corny, passage of classical Nature writing worthy of a Thoreau or Wordsworth.

But the similarity to other books about Nature ends abruptly, changing into a strange and ominous parody. As D.J. experiences the “secret” drawing nearer, he simultaneously feels a sexual desire for Tex. This odd dealing with latent homosexuality at first seems to destroy the sense of serenity Mailer has so painstakingly described.

At first glance, he seems to have thrown in an innocuous homosexual scene just to meet some politically correct requisite. But on second glance, this sexuality comes into focus as a natural force within D.J.—and by inference, all the sons of the American State. As might be expected, it is a violent sexual urge and D.J. considers the dominancy he would prove over Tex if he forced his friend into a role of subservient sexual partner. He is refrained from action only by the fear of failure to dominate. By now, it should be obvious that Mailer equates sex and violence as forever spliced in the American mind. They are two branches with the same root mired in the psychology of the beast.

Up until this very moment, there seems to have been hope for D.J. He has seen through the hypocrisy of his father, rejected the Darwinian biological imperatives of his country, proven his personal courage in the face of death, and found a type of grace in Nature.

But with the welling up of his violent and sexual “urges” comes the end of hope for D.J. He never grasps the full meaning of his experiences. Instead of recognizing that he is tyrannized by his own “wise blood” (or “urges”), he mistakenly assumes that he is receiving messages from a God of the cosmos. Instead of understanding that his violence is something to be overcome, he accepts it as not only natural but divine. He comes within a hair of finding the true meaning of his experience, only to misinterpret the entire lesson. D.J. finally finds God, but instead of psalms, he hears the command,“Go out and kill—fulfill my will, go and kill.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=219}} God is not there for him—only the Beast.

And for that reason, all the violence and domineering sex in him seems to be justified and affirmed. Like the Nazi gunners with ''Gott mit uns'' inscribed on their belts, D.J. believes that God is “on his side” so long as he follows his natural impulses, even if it means constant fighting and killing if necessary to remain on top of the human herd and get what he wants in the sexual and material sense.

In this sad way, D.J. becomes his own father, with the same sad hypocrisies and the same sad justifications. The book ends with D.J. and Tex waiting to go to war in a fever of happy anticipation. Their last words are “Vietnam, hot dam.” {{efn|Compare this to the last line of Mailer’s 1948 war novel, ''The Naked and the Dead'', which exclaims, “Hot dog!” A good argument could be drawn that the two books convey the same message: naturalistic forces so overwhelm the individual that willed action is futile and pointless.}}

Why Are We in Vietnam? is Mailer’s most profoundly pessimistic book. Mankind as allegory fails to realize that he has a choice to lift himself
above the brutishness of raw Nature. Instead, he allows himself to be a subject of Nature, thus becoming just another brute. He fails to discern good from evil. He fails to understand that he—personifying mankind—is becoming a force as powerful as God and the Devil because he can
choose.

This was Mailer’s maturing perception of a “good” God and an “evil” Devil in the late sixties. Perhaps the root of this belief can be found in this statement in ''Advertisements for Myself'', from an essay written a few years earlier: <blockquote>God’s destiny is flesh and blood with ours, and so, far from conceiving of a God who sits in judgment and allows souls, lost souls, to leave purgatory and be reborn again, there is the greater agony of God at the mercy of man’s fate, God determined by man’s efforts, man who has a free will.... {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=91}}</blockquote> {{efn|Norman Mailer, “A Public Notice on ''Waiting for Godot'',” essay in ''Advertisements for Myself''(New York: Putnam, 1959).}} This conception is precisely the one presented in Mailer’s 1968 bear hunt and his 2007 portrait of Adolf Hitler as a boy. God, Man, and Nature are not one, not made up of the same substance. Man is neither the consciousness nor the conscience of God. Mankind is a third determining force in the Universe.

Mankind can and must realize itself as a determining factor in the development of life. Curiously, all of Mailer’s literary work, except ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', emphasizes the moral responsibility of the individual to fight the suffocating restrictions of society, especially when society is dominated by the laws of Nature, not man. This more than anything illustrates Mailer’s abhorrence of American interference in Vietnam. “We did it to prove we are the meanest, biggest, baddest dog on the block,” he seems to be saying. We were allowing our natural instincts to rule our actions. Thus, Mailer is not concerned with the destruction of another country so much as he is concerned with our self-destruction. {{efn| This quotation from ''Cannibals and Christians'' may help clarify Mailer’s position: “[T]he only explanation I can find for the war in Vietnam is that we are sinking into the swamps of a plague and the massacre of strange people seems to relieve this plague. If one were to take the patients in a hospital, give them guns and let them shoot on pedestrians down from hospital windows you may be sure you would find a few miraculous cures” {{sfn|Mailer|1966|p=91}}}}

If his allegory holds true throughout the novel, we must conclude that America as a society failed to will itself more sophisticated than the beasts in the woods when it sent its army to Vietnam. America failed to choose attainment of universal justice and compassion. In Mailer’s terminology, especially now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must conclude that our attempted bullying of Vietnam was nothing less than demonic, as it represented the antithesis of divine.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-15T22:49:51Z

JREubanks: added end note citations.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{sfn|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=37}}. Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self. {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss {{efn|My use of Nietzsche’s abyss here refers to the anxiety associated with endless falling as conceived by Nietzsche in ''Beyond Good and Evil'' (New York: Boni and Liveright, no date), Chapter IV, aphorism 146: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”}}. Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=224}}.

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood” {{efn|It is interesting to compare D.J.’s decision to obey his instinctive impulses to Emil Sinclair’s decision to accept the “wisdom of the blood” in Herman Hesse’s classic ''Demian''. Though both Enoch of ''Wise Blood'' and D.J. of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ultimately become less than human by accepting their instinctive “wisdom,” Emil Sinclair becomes more than
human.}} By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=200}}. And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=156}}. Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=157}}.

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys. {{efn| It is possible that Mailer was heavily influenced by the anthropological theories popularized by the late Robert Ardrey in his 1965 best seller ""African Genesis"" (New York: Dell, 1961), in which it was postulated that mankind evolved from “killer apes.”}}

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=197}} {{efn| It is significant that Mailer uses the word “castrating” in reference to “mother” Nature. Without his rifle, D.J. is no longer dominant over Nature, and thereby sexually impotent.}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

This would partially explain the apparent contradiction occurring in the subsequent episode. When night comes, D.J. and Tex form camp and try to sleep. As D.J. lays next to his friend, he is immersed in the grandeur and majesty of the night time mountain forest. In his own words, D.J. “could have wept for a secret was near, some mystery in the secret of things, of trees and forest all in dominion to one another” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=211}}. At last he seems to be understanding the wild!

Up until this moment Mailer’s novel has been written in an obsessive stream of obscene language and electronic-media jargon. The description of
the night, however, is delivered in a reverent, almost corny, passage of classical Nature writing worthy of a Thoreau or Wordsworth.

But the similarity to other books about Nature ends abruptly, changing into a strange and ominous parody. As D.J. experiences the “secret” drawing nearer, he simultaneously feels a sexual desire for Tex. This odd dealing with latent homosexuality at first seems to destroy the sense of serenity Mailer has so painstakingly described.

At first glance, he seems to have thrown in an innocuous homosexual scene just to meet some politically correct requisite. But on second glance, this sexuality comes into focus as a natural force within D.J.—and by inference, all the sons of the American State. As might be expected, it is a violent sexual urge and D.J. considers the dominancy he would prove over Tex if he forced his friend into a role of subservient sexual partner. He is refrained from action only by the fear of failure to dominate. By now, it should be obvious that Mailer equates sex and violence as forever spliced in the American mind. They are two branches with the same root mired in the psychology of the beast.

Up until this very moment, there seems to have been hope for D.J. He has seen through the hypocrisy of his father, rejected the Darwinian biological imperatives of his country, proven his personal courage in the face of death, and found a type of grace in Nature.

But with the welling up of his violent and sexual “urges” comes the end of hope for D.J. He never grasps the full meaning of his experiences. Instead of recognizing that he is tyrannized by his own “wise blood” (or “urges”), he mistakenly assumes that he is receiving messages from a God of the cosmos. Instead of understanding that his violence is something to be overcome, he accepts it as not only natural but divine. He comes within a hair of finding the true meaning of his experience, only to misinterpret the entire lesson. D.J. finally finds God, but instead of psalms, he hears the command,“Go out and kill—fulfill my will, go and kill” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=219}}. God is not there for him—only the Beast.

And for that reason, all the violence and domineering sex in him seems to be justified and affirmed. Like the Nazi gunners with ''Gott mit uns'' inscribed on their belts, D.J. believes that God is “on his side” so long as he follows his natural impulses, even if it means constant fighting and killing if necessary to remain on top of the human herd and get what he wants in the sexual and material sense.

In this sad way, D.J. becomes his own father, with the same sad hypocrisies and the same sad justifications. The book ends with D.J. and Tex waiting to go to war in a fever of happy anticipation. Their last words are “Vietnam, hot dam.” {{efn|Compare this to the last line of Mailer’s 1948 war novel, ''The Naked and the Dead'', which exclaims, “Hot dog!” A good argument could be drawn that the two books convey the same message: naturalistic forces so overwhelm the individual that willed action is futile and pointless.}}

Why Are We in Vietnam? is Mailer’s most profoundly pessimistic book. Mankind as allegory fails to realize that he has a choice to lift himself
above the brutishness of raw Nature. Instead, he allows himself to be a subject of Nature, thus becoming just another brute. He fails to discern good from evil. He fails to understand that he—personifying mankind—is becoming a force as powerful as God and the Devil because he can
choose.

This was Mailer’s maturing perception of a “good” God and an “evil” Devil in the late sixties. Perhaps the root of this belief can be found in this statement in ''Advertisements for Myself'', from an essay written a few years earlier: <blockquote>God’s destiny is flesh and blood with ours, and so, far from conceiving of a God who sits in judgment and allows souls, lost souls, to leave purgatory and be reborn again, there is the greater agony of God at the mercy of man’s fate, God determined by man’s efforts, man who has a free will.... {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=91}}</blockquote> {{efn|Norman Mailer, “A Public Notice on ''Waiting for Godot'',” essay in ''Advertisements for Myself''(New York: Putnam, 1959)}} 289.This conception is precisely the one presented in Mailer’s 1968 bear hunt and his 2007 portrait of Adolf Hitler as a boy. God, Man, and Nature are not one, not made up of the same substance. Man is neither the consciousness nor the conscience of God. Mankind is a third determining force in the Universe.

Mankind can and must realize itself as a determining factor in the development of life. Curiously, all of Mailer’s literary work, except ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', emphasizes the moral responsibility of the individual to fight the suffocating restrictions of society, especially when society is dominated by the laws of Nature, not man. This more than anything illustrates Mailer’s abhorrence of American interference in Vietnam. “We did it to prove we are the meanest, biggest, baddest dog on the block,” he seems to be saying. We were allowing our natural instincts to rule our actions. Thus, Mailer is not concerned with the destruction of another country so much as he is concerned with our self-destruction.{{efn| This quotation from ''Cannibals and Christians'' may help clarify Mailer’s position: “[T]he only explanation I can find for the war in Vietnam is that we are sinking into the swamps of a plague and the massacre of strange people seems to relieve this plague. If one were to take the patients in a hospital, give them guns and let them shoot on pedestrians down from hospital windows you may be sure you would find a few miraculous cures” {{sfn|Mailer|1966|p=91}}

If his allegory holds true throughout the novel, we must conclude that America as a society failed to will itself more sophisticated than the beasts in the woods when it sent its army to Vietnam. America failed to choose attainment of universal justice and compassion. In Mailer’s terminology, especially now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must conclude that our attempted bullying of Vietnam was nothing less than demonic, as it represented the antithesis of divine.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-15T22:05:43Z

JREubanks: added remainder of text from the body of the article.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{sfn|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=37}}. Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self. {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss. Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=224}}.

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood.” By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=200}}. And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=156}}. Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=157}}.

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys.

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=197}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

This would partially explain the apparent contradiction occurring in the subsequent episode. When night comes, D.J. and Tex form camp and try to sleep. As D.J. lays next to his friend, he is immersed in the grandeur and majesty of the night time mountain forest. In his own words, D.J. “could have wept for a secret was near, some mystery in the secret of things, of trees and forest all in dominion to one another” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=211}}. At last he seems to be understanding the wild!

Up until this moment Mailer’s novel has been written in an obsessive stream of obscene language and electronic-media jargon. The description of
the night, however, is delivered in a reverent, almost corny, passage of classical Nature writing worthy of a Thoreau or Wordsworth.

But the similarity to other books about Nature ends abruptly, changing into a strange and ominous parody. As D.J. experiences the “secret” drawing nearer, he simultaneously feels a sexual desire for Tex. This odd dealing with latent homosexuality at first seems to destroy the sense of serenity Mailer has so painstakingly described.

At first glance, he seems to have thrown in an innocuous homosexual scene just to meet some politically correct requisite. But on second glance, this sexuality comes into focus as a natural force within D.J.—and by inference, all the sons of the American State. As might be expected, it is a violent sexual urge and D.J. considers the dominancy he would prove over Tex if he forced his friend into a role of subservient sexual partner. He is refrained from action only by the fear of failure to dominate. By now, it should be obvious that Mailer equates sex and violence as forever spliced in the American mind. They are two branches with the same root mired in the psychology of the beast.

Up until this very moment, there seems to have been hope for D.J. He has seen through the hypocrisy of his father, rejected the Darwinian biological imperatives of his country, proven his personal courage in the face of death, and found a type of grace in Nature.

But with the welling up of his violent and sexual “urges” comes the end of hope for D.J. He never grasps the full meaning of his experiences. Instead of recognizing that he is tyrannized by his own “wise blood” (or “urges”), he mistakenly assumes that he is receiving messages from a God of the cosmos. Instead of understanding that his violence is something to be overcome, he accepts it as not only natural but divine. He comes within a hair of finding the true meaning of his experience, only to misinterpret the entire lesson. D.J. finally finds God, but instead of psalms, he hears the command,“Go out and kill—fulfill my will, go and kill” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=219}}. God is not there for him—only the Beast.

And for that reason, all the violence and domineering sex in him seems to be justified and affirmed. Like the Nazi gunners with ''Gott mit uns'' inscribed on their belts, D.J. believes that God is “on his side” so long as he follows his natural impulses, even if it means constant fighting and killing if necessary to remain on top of the human herd and get what he wants in the sexual and material sense.

In this sad way, D.J. becomes his own father, with the same sad hypocrisies and the same sad justifications. The book ends with D.J. and Tex waiting to go to war in a fever of happy anticipation. Their last words are “Vietnam, hot dam.”

Why Are We in Vietnam? is Mailer’s most profoundly pessimistic book. Mankind as allegory fails to realize that he has a choice to lift himself
above the brutishness of raw Nature. Instead, he allows himself to be a subject of Nature, thus becoming just another brute. He fails to discern good from evil. He fails to understand that he—personifying mankind—is becoming a force as powerful as God and the Devil because he can
choose.

This was Mailer’s maturing perception of a “good” God and an “evil” Devil in the late sixties. Perhaps the root of this belief can be found in this statement in ''Advertisements for Myself'', from an essay written a few years earlier: <blockquote>God’s destiny is flesh and blood with ours, and so, far from conceiving of a God who sits in judgment and allows souls, lost souls, to leave purgatory and be reborn again, there is the greater agony of God at the mercy of man’s fate, God determined by man’s efforts, man who has a free will.... {{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=91}}</blockquote> This conception is precisely the one presented in Mailer’s 1968 bear hunt and his 2007 portrait of Adolf Hitler as a boy. God, Man, and Nature are not one, not made up of the same substance. Man is neither the consciousness nor the conscience of God. Mankind is a third determining force in the Universe.

Mankind can and must realize itself as a determining factor in the development of life. Curiously, all of Mailer’s literary work, except ''The Naked and the Dead'' and ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', emphasizes the moral responsibility of the individual to fight the suffocating restrictions of society, especially when society is dominated by the laws of Nature, not man. This more than anything illustrates Mailer’s abhorrence of American interference in Vietnam. “We did it to prove we are the meanest, biggest, baddest dog on the block,” he seems to be saying. We were allowing our natural instincts to rule our actions. Thus, Mailer is not concerned with the destruction of another country so much as he is concerned with our self-destruction.

If his allegory holds true throughout the novel, we must conclude that America as a society failed to will itself more sophisticated than the beasts in the woods when it sent its army to Vietnam. America failed to choose attainment of universal justice and compassion. In Mailer’s terminology, especially now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we must conclude that our attempted bullying of Vietnam was nothing less than demonic, as it represented the antithesis of divine.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

2020-09-15T21:44:09Z

JREubanks: added text from pages 341 through 343

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?''}}
{{MR02}}
{{Byline|last=Fulgham|first=Richard Lee|abstract=''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is a novel that calls for reassessment four decades after its appearance, particularly as a work of satiric allegory.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08fulg|}}
{{dc|dc=A|mong the imperceptive and raucous}} commentaries on Mailer’s novels, this remark by [[w:Anatole Broyard|Anatole Broyard]] stands out as refreshingly clear: “the rock he throws usually has a message tied to it.”{{sfn|Broyard|1967|p=4}} In the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', the rock has been given much more attention than the message because it hit us at the wrong time and in an extraordinarily sensitive spot.

When the novel appeared in 1967 we were freshly engaged in a frightening confrontation between what we perceived as the primitive savagery of an undeveloped nation and the sophisticated savagery of our so-called developed one. We were simply too busy analyzing our moral integrity to pay heed to a warning that we had collectively embarked on a bizarre “bear hunt.”

Most of us who read the novel at the time of its publication were properly stunned by the impact; but few of us, if any, fully comprehended the tragic implications hidden within. Perhaps at the time it was most convenient not to understand this darkest of Mailer’s satiric allegories.

In retrospect, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Mailer is worth the extra thought it takes to interpret his writing. This is particularly true in the case of ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' because its fundamental point is hidden beneath an obvious and simplistic plot. Even the most casual reader can immediately spot the parallel between [[w:Vietnam War|our military adventure in Vietnam]] and the hunting trip of Mailer’s characters. And it is even easier to presume Mailer is blaming our presence in Southeast Asia on our collective heart of the hunter. But this is seeing only the reflection on the surface of the well. The actual waters run much much deeper.

Before our descent into these depths, however, it will pay us to take a quick look at the basic story. Two Texas teenagers, D.J. and Tex, fly to Alaska’s frigid [[w:Brooks Range|Brook’s Range]] with D.J.’s father, Rusty, and two “yes men.”

Rusty is a corporate executive, ruling a vast conglomerate based on the manufacture of plastic cigarette filters. He is ultra-aggressive, bullying, pompous, territorial, and boastful. His code of conduct is comparable to that of an alpha male in a baboon troop.

He brings along the two “yes men”—called “medium asses” in the book—to act as witnesses when he slaughters a bear. His only motive for the hunt is to ensure that he is respected and feared as a sexually superior and merciless leader. In order to impress his prowess upon his peers, he must bring back a “grizzer.” Concepts like “sporting chance” and “grace under pressure” have no meaning to him. He operates on a grossly animalistic level, considering ruthlessness and sexual domination as supreme virtues.

In D.J.’s words, “He sings the song of the swine.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=34}} And in Mailer’s estimation, Rusty is analogous to the American corporate mind which would seek out a Vietnam to attack in order to release an explosive, repressed sexuality and reaffirm its status as pack leader of the world.{{efn|This metaphor is further expounded in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1971|}}, in which the author suggests that the American expedition to the moon was analogous to an ejaculation of spermatozoa towards the waiting egg cell.}} In Rusty—and the American corporate mind—Mailer sees the worst kind of genetic tyranny and conditioning by tribal mores.

His son, D.J. (self proclaimed “disk jockey to the world”) stands in great contrast to the uncompromising animal values embraced by Rusty. Sixteen at the beginning of the hunt, his mind has been so riddled and scrambled by the constant electronic chatter of modem media that he can only think in a non-stop breathless stream of obscene monologue.

As he is telling the story, we are bombarded by a curious, often annoying, adolescent style and a series of naive boasts. (This may be the one most disturbing aspect of an otherwise well-conceived satire.) In certain ways he does resemble his father: sneering boastfulness, shallow sexuality, arrogance, domineering stance. But he differs in a drastic way that forever separates the two from each other. D.J. knows the anxiety of self-awareness. As he puts it, he is a victim of “Herr Dread.”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=122}}{{efn|Though Mailer refers to his personal concept of dread, he apparently obtained his basic idea of “Herr Dread” from [[w:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]’s dark philosophical classic, ''The Concept of Dread''. It is this awareness of spiritual emptiness which separates D.J. from his father.}} His intimacy with his own rationality produces a free-floating fear which plagues him constantly, nibbling at his confidence like a rat trapped within his chest. In his own words, D.J. “sees through to the stinking root of things” and “can watch his own ass being created. . . . ”{{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=35}}

He neither admires nor loves his father, feeling instead a horror when he looks into Rusty’s eyes. There he sees “voids, man, and gleams of yellow fire....” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=37}}. Students of Mailer will quickly recognize D.J. as the personification of “The White Negro.” He is a hipster, a sensitive psychopath who operates only in the present, with no precedents, no preconceptions.

Mailer had used this theme before. Virtually all of his fiction up till and including ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' is centered on this one fixed idea: <blockquote>If the fate of twentieth-century man is to live with death from adolescence to premature senescence, then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger, to divorce oneself from society, to exist without roots, to set out on that uncharted journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self. {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=304}}</blockquote>

D.J. is so different from his father primarily because he grew up in a super-accelerated society where no sooner is one standard established than it is destroyed and superseded by another. No value system lasts for more than a few months before it must be dismantled and replaced. To infinitely compound matters, he must exist in a society that is literally held hostage by its own government, with the subsequent threat of impending annihilation.

To exist as a free individual in such a society means waging eternal war against the rigid conformity imposed by the state and corporate bosses. D.J., if he is to retain his personal integrity, has to face American life as a “white Negro,” forever on the edge of life, tottering as it were on the brink of Nietzsche’s abyss. Though this interpretation of D.J. might be debatable, Mailer himself hints at such a relationship between D.J. and the existential hipster. Many times D.J. interrupts his monologue to suggest that he is not really a “Texas Wasp,” but rather a “black-ass cripple Spade and sending from Harlem” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=224}}.

This singular literary device not only accentuates the existential state of D.J., it implies that American youth as personified by D.J. is hopelessly divided in half, with two separate and distinct personalities. In this sense especially, D.J. becomes a valid microcosm of the macrocosmic youth rebellion of the 1960s, where even the most bitter protester was torn between love of country and love of individual freedom. We who have survived long enough to peer into the twenty-first century can still relate. We love the country but hate the scene.

We have spent so much space on D.J. with good reason. He represents more than the divided youth of high-technology America in the 1960s. Indeed, he represents more than Mailer’s embattled existential hero. He represents as well the inescapable Catch-22 of modem times: divorcing one’s self from society means loss of security. But being part of society means loss of freedom, because society is still ruled by the dictates of other people or of Nature. You’re either in lock-step with humanity or you’re all alone. One means a loss of self; the other means to live in perpetual anxious isolation.

It is only with Mailer’s maturing mind that we find a third possibility— that the individual can be free without alienating himself from human society. This freedom comes with the understanding that humanity is not necessarily in the dictates of Nature. Mankind can choose between good and evil. (Hence the importance of democracy.) Mailer’s variance from the existentialism of the post war French intellectuals is profound. Man is not alone in the Universe. Morals are not moot. Good and Evil not only exist in the eternal moment, they suggest the existence of a not allegorical God and Devil!

This astonishing conclusion can be seen in Mailer’s 2007 novel ''The Castle in the Forest'' (New York: Random House, 2007) and his nonfiction interview about God with his authorized biographer Dr. Michael Lennon, appropriately entitled ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' (New York: Random House, 2007). We have to pay attention because Norman Mailer’s genius cannot be denied.

But there is no such realization seen in Mailer’s 1968 novel ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' In it, protagonist D.J. gives up his freedom of choice by acquiescing to the “wisdom of the blood.” By submitting to the dictates of Nature (that is,“instinct”), D.J. loses all control of the hunt, to say nothing of his life. He learns nothing from his encounter with “that Cannibal Emperor of Nature’s Psyche” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=200}}. And having learned nothing, he is subsequently doomed perforce to confronting life with the animalistic shallowness of his father. In the end, he lacks the courage to be free and voluntarily gives his will over to instinct.

Returning to the basic story, Rusty and D.J. arrive at the Brooks Range with the two “medium asses” and Tex Hyde, D.J.’s best friend. They are met by a half-breed Indian guide named Big Luke and his assistant Ollie. Big Luke warns them that the exposure to modem technology has driven the big grizzlies mad; now they are doubly wily and dangerous.

None of the American group is particularly impressed by this. They are equipped with rifles powerful enough to down rhinoceros. (This of course
refers to the overmatching of American weapons against those of the North Vietnamese.) And predictably, the large animals encountered are mown
down without the slightest chance given to the animal. A helicopter is used to frighten them to a spot where hunters lay in wait. The slaughter is described without sentiment from Mailer; but it is obvious enough that the Americans brought with them some virulent, malignant evil. The savagery of Nature seems real only as it festers within the armored hearts of men.

This intentional parody of Hemingway’s claim that killing a big animal was somehow noble is one of the most vital messages Mailer gives us. As we experience the mindless slaughter, we are aware only of the cold insensibility of the killers. The animals—wolves, caribou, bear—show agonizing emotion as they die, peering at their executors through fading yellow eyes. But the emotion we are told wells up in the hunters is just the smug satisfaction of proving one’s sexual supremacy in the presence of one’s friends.

A wolf is killed and its blood becomes the beverage of ritual as the two boys and guide drink it from a cup. Oh well, they tried. The magic does not work and they remain alienated by both Nature and humanity. Thus another wolf killed with neither ceremony nor feeling, not even a pretense. A majestic caribou is shot off of a ridge and the hunters are angry because the necessity of gutting it spoils their killing spree for the rest of the day.

The next day, with the use of the helicopter (a “Cop Turd” in D.J.’s lingo), a bear couple is spotted, male and female. Both are riddled with massive bullets from every rifle. Big Luke grants the credit of the kill to Tex and “one of the medium asses.” The female has twelve slugs in her. D.J. is pleased to see her covered with “her last shit.” But Rusty is hardly pleased. He is furious and panicky. He will look and feel ridiculous if a “medium ass” brings home a kill and he does not.

The next day Rusty and D.J. go hunting without the others. They track down a huge grizzly and D.J. shoots it twice. The bear has enough anger and energy left to charge the terrified D.J., stopping only ten yards away. The teenager has “faced death and acted with great courage, again parodying Hemingway. But he does not experience a “cold moment in time.” For him the moment is all too hot. He trembles and sweats, having stepped “into dark and smelling pig shit ....” We realize that D.J. has defecated in his pants. It was not nobility that enabled him to face the charging bear. It was sheer panic. D.J. had frozen.

But this is a small revelation compared to the next. When the grizzly proves to be alive and escapes into the forest, the father and son have to follow it. Neither would go if they had been alone; together they are shamed into pursuing the wounded bear. They find it where it lies dying and helpless. As D.J. approaches, Rusty nervously and cowardly lags behind. He is all too willing to allow his son the dubious pleasure of confronting the unknown.

But if Rusty is ultimately a coward he is nevertheless a determined one. Rusty not only has his honor at stake; he has invested over six thousand dollars! When D.J. is only a few yards away, Rusty lifts his rifle and places a sad and pointless round between the dead bear’s eyes. There is one last spasmodic paroxysm, “legs thrashing, brain exploding from new galvanizing and
overloadings of massive damage report, and one last heuuuuuuuuu, all forgiveness gone.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=156}}. Back at the camp of Big Luke, D.J. has to admit that Rusty indeed placed the last shot. Rusty is silent for a few moments, perhaps embarrassed, but then says, “Yeah, I guess it’s mine, but one of its sweet legs belongs to D.J.” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=157}}.

In the early 1960s, Vietnam was still seen as a technologically primitive country that would fall like a wild animal under the vastly superior weapons of the United States. The corporate mind of America presumed itself intellectually and morally so far above the Vietnamese that the war was not even considered a real war, but only a minor “police action,” which was undertaken ostentatiously for the good of civilized mankind. Mailer’s bizarre bear hunt took this red-herring justification of the fathers, turned it inside out, and revealed that it was red from the bloodiest kind of deceptions.

The result of such probing insight is the realization of an exquisite irony. While the corporate minded fathers spoke of civilization and technology, their true motives lay in the coarsest kind of savagery: animal instinct. Just as Rusty must slaughter a grizzly to reaffirm his dominancy among his “tribal” peers, so must corporate America reaffirm its dominancy among its global peers. And just as Rusty intentionally sacrifices the honor of his son to maintain his dominancy, so the corporate state willingly sacrifices its young citizens for the same bestial purpose.

In the end, Mailer implies and perhaps confesses that there is nothing civilized about violence. The roots of murder and warfare are imbedded in the soil of our animal ancestry. As long as we justify our blood lust and hunger for sexual dominancy, we are not civilized men, but baboons and hyenas and wolves—at the best, monkeys.

Rusty and his group do not find savagery and slaughter in the “wilds” of Alaska. Rather, they bring savagery and slaughter with them. They do not absorb some natural energy that forces them to live on “bestial” terms with a cruel Nature. Rather, they bring with them a distinctly human violence, a cultivated horror of human hubris and an inability to empathize with living creatures.

If ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' ended at this point, the allegory would stand as beautifully elegant and simple. But Mailer, unlike his predecessor Ernest Hemingway, has always preferred to elaborate upon his elaborations. Having made his two fundamental points, he continues to extend his allegorical bear hunt into more mysterious, even occult, areas.

Feeling poisoned and contaminated by his father’s betrayal, D.J. sets out with Tex to confront Nature without weapons. They leave early in the morning without telling the others of their intentions. Alone and unarmed they experience a humbling fear, a shocking revelation of their own nakedness. When the earlier hunting party had spotted a wolf, the animal had been quickly shot and its blood drunk. When the unarmed boys spot a wolf, they are paralyzed with fright.

In the Freudian sense, they have been emasculated and incapable of violence without their huge guns. They’ve lost their erection for life. But
in a more mundane sense, without their technological superiority, they sink even lower than the animals they disdain. A bear is heard in the
brush and the boys climb a tree. They sense their loss of power over Nature without their big guns because “this mother nature is as big and dangerous and mysterious as a beautiful castrating cunt when she’s on the edge between murder and love” {{sfn|Mailer|1967|p=197}} (Mailer’s distrust and downright hatred of technology comes through—his point is clarified perhaps more than is necessary.)

Here we have a clue into the disturbing and unhealthy attitude toward animals (that is, “Nature”), shown by not only the boys but Rusty and his
group as they personify the attitude of their country. Though the boys, when alone in the forest, experience a fear of a “red in tooth and claw” Nature, they experience neither understanding nor compassion for its purity and beauty. As from the beginning, the animals are only a means to easing inner tensions through violence. In fact, both boys regret not being armed in order to kill while they are “loving” Nature. Mailer seems to suggest that what hunters experience through Nature is not love at all, but rather a tremendously satisfying justification of one’s instinctive and overwhelming need for violence.

===Notes===
{{Notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|15em}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin|indent=yes|30em}}
* {{cite news |last=Broyard |first=Anatole |date=September 17, 1967 |title=A Disturbnce of the Peace |url= |work=New York Times |location=3, 4–5 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |date=1966 |title=Cannibals and Christians |url= |location=New York |publisher=Dial |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1971 |title=Of a Fire on the Moon |url= |location=Boston |publisher=Little, Brown |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959 |chapter=The White Negro |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages=357–358 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1967 |title=Why Are We in Vietnam? |url= |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?, The}}
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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/The Wise Blood of Norman Mailer: An Interpretation and Defense of Why Are We in Vietnam?

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