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The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-26T13:55:06Z

Wverna: corrected dinkus

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{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norman Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination.
<blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty-one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolph Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high‐level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist—as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolph Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

{{* * *}}

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

{{* * *}}

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony—evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-20T16:07:19Z

Wverna: /* Remediation, Vol. 4 & 5 */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

I have also fixed the quotations.

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
@Grlucs, per your suggestions, I've made the corrections. Please review. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} looking better. All parenthetical page numbers should be removed and added to the {{tl|sfn}}. Check your page numbers in {{tl|pg}}. Footnotes should have no spaces around them; periods and commas go ''inside'' quotation marks and before the footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:28, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Wverna}} I'm not sure what you're talking about. Perhaps if you included a link to the article? See [[w:Help:Talk pages|Talk page guidelines]] if you don't know how to use them. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
Just kidding, I responded to the wrong "Bell Tolls' article. I was referring to this one: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tolls_of_War:_Mailerian_Sub-Texts_in_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls sorry about that! [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 17:49, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

&

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

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

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

Link:

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

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

== E.Mosley ==

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

== Kynndra Watson ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

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

== Completed Additional Articles ==

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

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

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

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

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

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

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

== Red Error-Gone ==

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

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

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

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

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

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

== Mimi and Mercer ==

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

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

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

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

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

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

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

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

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

== Erros fixed ==

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

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

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

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

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

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Almost complete ==

@grlucas
I've made a ton of progress.
The only thing I have left is going through all of the links to do away with harvtxt and sfn target error and an error for extra text in the author section. I fixed the error about using an "en" dash between years.
I'll still be working on it until tomorrow night, but please take a look: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works

== Articles complete ==

@grlucas
I have also made a lot of progress with my articles and luckily received a last minute assit from a few of my class mates. I beleive both volumes to be complete: Vol 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D (Which I believe has already been submitted) and Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law (I just received the final error correction from a fellow student.

I also started working on this Vol 4 article once I got back into the system: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway%27s_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches in my sandbox https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:KWatson/sandbox but another user has already completed it.

Please review my articles and advise what else is needed from me. Thank you [[User:KWatson|KWatson]] ([[User talk:KWatson|talk]]) 15:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} OK, I already checked the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and the “Reds”|Peppard article]]. For [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law|the Cohen]], the notes are still not quite right. Citations must be logically inserted. Instead of <blockquote>Mary V. Dearborn writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}}</blockquote> it should be <blockquote>Mary V. {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}} writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” </blockquote> See the difference? Please be meticulous on these. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:57, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Additional edits ==

Hello! I reformatted all in text citations, did some editing, and added page numbers to [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]]- could you please take a look at the updated page and see if there's anything additional that it needs?

I was also wondering: on this page, I had also recieved confirmation from you that my [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|originally assigned article]] was complete, and the banner could be removed. However, it is still showing as an X on the page, and I am unable to find the comment from you! Could you please clarify if anything needs to be fixed? Thanks so much!
[[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 16:25, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KaraCroissant}} good! I was making quite a few corrections on “[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]],” but I stopped, figuring you might want to finish it. Put footnotes directly after the quotations, not all at the end of sentences. No spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}. Use <code>|author-mask=1</code> with repeated author names in works cited entries, titles of books must be italicized like they are in the original text, etc. Thanks. After a few fixes, I removed the banner for the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|Meredith article]]. Well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Civil War..Dispatched. ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I believe the Hemingway's Spanish Civil War is complete except the harvtext were not working. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 17:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} I made many small corrections. Please view them in the history and continue in the same way. This one just needs a bit more attention. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation, Vol. 4 & 5 ==

For your review,

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norris_Church_Mailer:_An_Artist_from_Arkansas

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Imagining_Evil:_The_Sardonic_Narrator_of_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Last_Novel (Wasn't sure whether or not to add the dinkus)

[[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 11:15, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-20T16:04:24Z

Wverna: /* Remediation, Vol. 4 */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

I have also fixed the quotations.

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
@Grlucs, per your suggestions, I've made the corrections. Please review. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} looking better. All parenthetical page numbers should be removed and added to the {{tl|sfn}}. Check your page numbers in {{tl|pg}}. Footnotes should have no spaces around them; periods and commas go ''inside'' quotation marks and before the footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:28, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Wverna}} I'm not sure what you're talking about. Perhaps if you included a link to the article? See [[w:Help:Talk pages|Talk page guidelines]] if you don't know how to use them. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
Just kidding, I responded to the wrong "Bell Tolls' article. I was referring to this one: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tolls_of_War:_Mailerian_Sub-Texts_in_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls sorry about that! [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 17:49, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

&

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

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

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

Link:

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

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

== E.Mosley ==

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

== Kynndra Watson ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

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

== Completed Additional Articles ==

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

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

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

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

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

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

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

== Red Error-Gone ==

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

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

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

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

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

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

== Mimi and Mercer ==

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

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

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

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

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

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

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

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

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

== Erros fixed ==

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

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

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

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

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

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Almost complete ==

@grlucas
I've made a ton of progress.
The only thing I have left is going through all of the links to do away with harvtxt and sfn target error and an error for extra text in the author section. I fixed the error about using an "en" dash between years.
I'll still be working on it until tomorrow night, but please take a look: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works

== Articles complete ==

@grlucas
I have also made a lot of progress with my articles and luckily received a last minute assit from a few of my class mates. I beleive both volumes to be complete: Vol 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D (Which I believe has already been submitted) and Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law (I just received the final error correction from a fellow student.

I also started working on this Vol 4 article once I got back into the system: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway%27s_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches in my sandbox https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:KWatson/sandbox but another user has already completed it.

Please review my articles and advise what else is needed from me. Thank you [[User:KWatson|KWatson]] ([[User talk:KWatson|talk]]) 15:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} OK, I already checked the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and the “Reds”|Peppard article]]. For [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law|the Cohen]], the notes are still not quite right. Citations must be logically inserted. Instead of <blockquote>Mary V. Dearborn writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}}</blockquote> it should be <blockquote>Mary V. {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}} writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” </blockquote> See the difference? Please be meticulous on these. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:57, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Additional edits ==

Hello! I reformatted all in text citations, did some editing, and added page numbers to [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]]- could you please take a look at the updated page and see if there's anything additional that it needs?

I was also wondering: on this page, I had also recieved confirmation from you that my [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|originally assigned article]] was complete, and the banner could be removed. However, it is still showing as an X on the page, and I am unable to find the comment from you! Could you please clarify if anything needs to be fixed? Thanks so much!
[[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 16:25, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KaraCroissant}} good! I was making quite a few corrections on “[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]],” but I stopped, figuring you might want to finish it. Put footnotes directly after the quotations, not all at the end of sentences. No spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}. Use <code>|author-mask=1</code> with repeated author names in works cited entries, titles of books must be italicized like they are in the original text, etc. Thanks. After a few fixes, I removed the banner for the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|Meredith article]]. Well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Civil War..Dispatched. ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I believe the Hemingway's Spanish Civil War is complete except the harvtext were not working. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 17:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} I made many small corrections. Please view them in the history and continue in the same way. This one just needs a bit more attention. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation, Vol. 4 & 5 ==

For your review,

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norris_Church_Mailer:_An_Artist_from_Arkansas

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Imagining_Evil:_The_Sardonic_Narrator_of_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Last_Novel

[[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 11:15, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T15:59:31Z

Wverna:

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{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norman Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination.
<blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty-one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolph Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high‐level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist—as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolph Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony—evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T15:30:40Z

Wverna: edited author name

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norman Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination.
<blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolph Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolph Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony—evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-20T15:15:58Z

Wverna: /* Remediation, Vol. 4 */ new section

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

I have also fixed the quotations.

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
@Grlucs, per your suggestions, I've made the corrections. Please review. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} looking better. All parenthetical page numbers should be removed and added to the {{tl|sfn}}. Check your page numbers in {{tl|pg}}. Footnotes should have no spaces around them; periods and commas go ''inside'' quotation marks and before the footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:28, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Wverna}} I'm not sure what you're talking about. Perhaps if you included a link to the article? See [[w:Help:Talk pages|Talk page guidelines]] if you don't know how to use them. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
Just kidding, I responded to the wrong "Bell Tolls' article. I was referring to this one: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tolls_of_War:_Mailerian_Sub-Texts_in_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls sorry about that! [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 17:49, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

&

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

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

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

Link:

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

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

== E.Mosley ==

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

== Kynndra Watson ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

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

== Completed Additional Articles ==

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

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

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

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

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

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

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

== Red Error-Gone ==

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

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

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

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

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

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

== Mimi and Mercer ==

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

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

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

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

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

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

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

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

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

== Erros fixed ==

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

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

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

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

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

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Almost complete ==

@grlucas
I've made a ton of progress.
The only thing I have left is going through all of the links to do away with harvtxt and sfn target error and an error for extra text in the author section. I fixed the error about using an "en" dash between years.
I'll still be working on it until tomorrow night, but please take a look: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works

== Articles complete ==

@grlucas
I have also made a lot of progress with my articles and luckily received a last minute assit from a few of my class mates. I beleive both volumes to be complete: Vol 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D (Which I believe has already been submitted) and Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law (I just received the final error correction from a fellow student.

I also started working on this Vol 4 article once I got back into the system: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway%27s_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches in my sandbox https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:KWatson/sandbox but another user has already completed it.

Please review my articles and advise what else is needed from me. Thank you [[User:KWatson|KWatson]] ([[User talk:KWatson|talk]]) 15:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} OK, I already checked the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and the “Reds”|Peppard article]]. For [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law|the Cohen]], the notes are still not quite right. Citations must be logically inserted. Instead of <blockquote>Mary V. Dearborn writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}}</blockquote> it should be <blockquote>Mary V. {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}} writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” </blockquote> See the difference? Please be meticulous on these. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:57, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Additional edits ==

Hello! I reformatted all in text citations, did some editing, and added page numbers to [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]]- could you please take a look at the updated page and see if there's anything additional that it needs?

I was also wondering: on this page, I had also recieved confirmation from you that my [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|originally assigned article]] was complete, and the banner could be removed. However, it is still showing as an X on the page, and I am unable to find the comment from you! Could you please clarify if anything needs to be fixed? Thanks so much!
[[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 16:25, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KaraCroissant}} good! I was making quite a few corrections on “[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]],” but I stopped, figuring you might want to finish it. Put footnotes directly after the quotations, not all at the end of sentences. No spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}. Use <code>|author-mask=1</code> with repeated author names in works cited entries, titles of books must be italicized like they are in the original text, etc. Thanks. After a few fixes, I removed the banner for the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|Meredith article]]. Well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Civil War..Dispatched. ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I believe the Hemingway's Spanish Civil War is complete except the harvtext were not working. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 17:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} I made many small corrections. Please view them in the history and continue in the same way. This one just needs a bit more attention. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation, Vol. 4 ==

For your review,

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norris_Church_Mailer:_An_Artist_from_Arkansas

[[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 11:15, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-20T15:13:39Z

Wverna: fixed typos

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Windchill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imagining outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>

To Barbara

Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>

Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learning the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non-survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-20T01:03:55Z

Wverna: corrected typos

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{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Windchill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>

To Barbara

Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>

Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learning the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T00:21:58Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination.
<blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolph Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolph Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony—evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T00:09:36Z

Wverna:

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{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination.
<blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T00:04:20Z

Wverna:

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{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-20T00:01:56Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious nation.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sounding cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husbandmen, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-19T23:58:17Z

Wverna: corrected typos

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This commingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsian hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie aeternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious na- tion.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sound- ing cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husband- men, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation- {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we cannot see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-19T22:30:56Z

Wverna:

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{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
'''READING SENTENCES IN ''THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST''''' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This com- mingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsean hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie eternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious na- tion.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sound- ing cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husband- men, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation— {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we can- not see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil:The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-19T22:25:04Z

Wverna:

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{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Wind- chill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>

To Barbara
Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>

Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learn- ing the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-19T22:22:56Z

Wverna: added notes/list

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{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
''READING SENTENCES IN THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST'' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This com- mingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsean hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie eternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious na- tion.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sound- ing cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husband- men, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation— {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.” {{efn|The Provincetown Arts interview of Lennon/Mailer appeared in Volume 22, 2007 on page 92 under the title “Hitler in My Mind: The Roots of The Castle in the Forest / An Interview by J. Michael Lennon.”}}

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.{{efn|www.digitaljournal.com/AgingMailerRecognizesGod.}} Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we can- not see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-19T22:10:35Z

Wverna: added pg #s

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{{Working}}
{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
''READING SENTENCES IN THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST'' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This com- mingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man {{pg|440|441}} or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsean hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie eternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish {{pg|441|442}} conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.” {{pg|442|443}}

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious na- tion.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To {{pg|443|444}} give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sound- ing cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husband- men, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—{{pg|444|445}}I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relation— {{pg|445|446}} ship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have {{pg|446|447}} among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

{{pg|447|448}} Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.”1

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes {{pg|448|449}} fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.2 Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a {{pg|449|450}} composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we can- not see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-19T21:49:02Z

Wverna: /* Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

I have also fixed the quotations.

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
@Grlucs, per your suggestions, I've made the corrections. Please review. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} looking better. All parenthetical page numbers should be removed and added to the {{tl|sfn}}. Check your page numbers in {{tl|pg}}. Footnotes should have no spaces around them; periods and commas go ''inside'' quotation marks and before the footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:28, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Wverna}} I'm not sure what you're talking about. Perhaps if you included a link to the article? See [[w:Help:Talk pages|Talk page guidelines]] if you don't know how to use them. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
Just kidding, I responded to the wrong "Bell Tolls' article. I was referring to this one: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tolls_of_War:_Mailerian_Sub-Texts_in_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls sorry about that! [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 17:49, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

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

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

Link:

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

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

== E.Mosley ==

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

== Kynndra Watson ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

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

== Completed Additional Articles ==

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

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

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

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

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

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

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

== Red Error-Gone ==

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

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

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

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

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

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

== Mimi and Mercer ==

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

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

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

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

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

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

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

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

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

== Erros fixed ==

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

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

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

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

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

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Almost complete ==

@grlucas
I've made a ton of progress.
The only thing I have left is going through all of the links to do away with harvtxt and sfn target error and an error for extra text in the author section. I fixed the error about using an "en" dash between years.
I'll still be working on it until tomorrow night, but please take a look: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works

== Articles complete ==

@grlucas
I have also made a lot of progress with my articles and luckily received a last minute assit from a few of my class mates. I beleive both volumes to be complete: Vol 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D (Which I believe has already been submitted) and Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law (I just received the final error correction from a fellow student.

I also started working on this Vol 4 article once I got back into the system: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway%27s_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches in my sandbox https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:KWatson/sandbox but another user has already completed it.

Please review my articles and advise what else is needed from me. Thank you [[User:KWatson|KWatson]] ([[User talk:KWatson|talk]]) 15:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Additional edits ==

Hello! I reformatted all in text citations, did some editing, and added page numbers to [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]]- could you please take a look at the updated page and see if there's anything additional that it needs?
[[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 16:25, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Civil War..Dispatched. ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I believe the Hemingway's Spanish Civil War is complete except the harvtext were not working. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 17:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-19T02:33:57Z

Wverna: /* Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

I have also fixed the quotations.

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

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

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

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

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

Link:

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

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

== E.Mosley ==

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

== Kynndra Watson ==

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

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

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

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

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

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

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

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

== Completed Additional Articles ==

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

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

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

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

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

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

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

== Red Error-Gone ==

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

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

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

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

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

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

== Mimi and Mercer ==

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

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

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

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

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

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

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

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

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

== Erros fixed ==

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

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

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

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

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

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

2025-04-19T01:59:03Z

Wverna: added long body

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{{MR05}}
{{BookReview
| title = The Castle in the Forest
| author = Norris Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House
| date = 2007
| pages = 477
| type = Cloth
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = Christopher
| last = Busa
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
''READING SENTENCES IN THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST'' is a fascinating pleasure, interrupted by involuntary eruptions of hilarity. Amusement does not depend on a lurid interest in Hitler’s perversities; rather it is won by the reader’s attention to the narrator’s measured, balanced, and calculated control of ''presenting'' Hitler’s perversities: scornfully cynical, derisively sneering, mockingly malicious, disdainfully disparaging, bitterly caustic, and acidly snarky. Mailer makes wickedly funny fun of woefully wicked people. He plants the seeds of bad deeds; he incites quarrels; he belittles and badmouths; he expands disconnections, facilitates discord, and enhances vanity, greed, envy, lust—and the rest of the “sacred seven” sins upon which the narrator concentrates.

Saint Augustine declared famously in his ''Confessions'' that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” This com- mingling of antagonistic forces may be the fundamental inspiration for art to absorb evil into the fuller context of human affairs. The narrator of ''Castle'' offers understandings yoked to a pair of opposites, as if the ox of evil and the ox of good were pulling in unison a cart we call history.

Mailer’s narrator, “without salient personality,” is possessed of the negative capability to dwell within some man or woman’s body, because “a man or woman’s presence is closely related to their body, and so offers a multitude of insights.” Dramatic tension is maintained by the squeezing and releasing of the flow of information, which the narrator reveals in successive approximations to the reader’s growing understanding. The act of the narrator in writing his own novel utilizes petty dilemmas as a means of comprehending a much vaster subject. His existential act of revealing the Devil’s trade secrets is a singular betrayal. Writing about Hitler was Mailer’s last temptation—the occasion to test the power of imaginary characters to function as agents of reincarnation, and there is a Keatsean hint of a living hand holding forth, speaking from beyond the grave. Mailer speaks in an echo chamber of eternity, living ''sub specie eternitatis'', a common post-traumatic afterthought resulting from boredom of political banter in the everyday press. Today, if you are a Republican, the Devil is a Democrat. If you are a Democrat, Republicans are forces of evil.

Mailer’s copious descriptions make real the sordid circumstances of Hitler’s family, and they prepare the reader for the plunge into the murky slather of intimate juices that is the future Fuehrer’s conception in the womb of his mother, his father’s own niece, and possibly his own daughter. In adopting the witnessing voice of a German SS officer, Mailer has found a persona in which he can whisper in the language of the enemy and gain subtle access to our consciousness. The narrator explains how he came to be present at the primal scene of Adolph’s conception, observing the act like a gynecologist performing artificial insemination <blockquote>

Some readers may notice that I first spoke of that exceptional event as if I were the one in the connubial bed. Now, I state that I was not. Nonetheless, in referring to my participation, I am still telling the truth. For even as physicists presently assume to their scientific confusion that light is both a particle and a wave, so do devils live in both the lie and the truth, side by side, and both can be seen with equal force.</blockquote>

The narrator demonstrates ability to live in duality, showing awareness that most decisions in life are closely akin to choices not taken. Any decision is laden with existential memory of times when there was a forty-nine to fifty- one percent split.

Evil entered Hitler’s being at the moment of conception. Mailer’s impish conceit (not infrequently uttered provocatively in the presence of women) is that two great births occurred in history: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler. The mass of women lived lives of less exaggerated glamour than either the immaculate Mary or the soiled and common Klara. Mailer extracts the lesson that every mother bears a genetic responsibility for the good or evil that manifests itself in their children—mothers pass on what was planted in them. Jesus was born from the seed of God, not that of her husband Joseph. Hitler was born of woman, but his mother, Klara, was suspected of being his father’s daughter. Complicated inbreeding influences the way psychic conceptions are read and remembered. These divergent conceptions occurred almost two thousand years apart; yet, they are linked by a Western consciousness capable of sustaining awareness of moments spread over a spectrum of time.

In ''Mein Kampf'', dictated while in prison early in his life, Hitler concluded that his life was and would be a “struggle.” He wrote in the first paragraph of chapter one: “Today it seems to me providential that Fate should have chosen Braunau on the Inn as my birthplace. For this little town lies on the boundary between two German states, which we of the younger generation at least have made it our life’s work to reunite by every means at our disposal.” Reunification was achieved in the phoenix nest of the funeral pyre of the Holocaust, a crazy paradox that yet animates the dynamics of regeneration from burned bodies.

Mailer draws hugely upon history, myth, and legend, combining these elements uniquely into a book that embodies the lingua franca of contemporary cultural memory. Hitler wounded the soul of the last century. His deeds invade our nightmares. Psychiatrists prosper because people’s wits are twisted.

Let us hear a string of utterances that summon the voice of the German intelligence officer, narrator of ''The Castle in the Forest:''<blockquote>

“Intelligence work can be understood as a contest between code and the obfuscation of a code.”

“Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.”

“He could shave a truth by a hair or subvert it altogether.”

“My art was to replace a true memory by a false one [like] removing an old tattoo in order to cover it with a new one.”

“If I draw upon reserves of patience, it is because time passes here without meaning for me.”</blockquote>

Metaphoric dazzle drives the narrator’s thinking, strangely animating the banal lives of the novel’s characters. In his opening line, the narrator establishes immediate ease with the reader, offering his nickname, and suggesting that he be considered a friend in need of understanding how to accomplish the complex task of plausibly telling a story that is, so frankly, based on the fiction that the narrator is an agent of the Devil costumed as a person, rather like an actor playing a role.

Using the creaky, horse-drawn carriage of an omniscient “nineteenth century novelist,” the narrator assumes a post-modern authorial voice of immense range and depth, on a scale that speaks across reaches of time and knowledge to Dante’s use of citizens from Florence as characters in the ''Inferno''; Milton, whose concept of evil was embodied in God’s finest angel and glamorous rebel; Goethe, whose Faustian pact with an eminent scholar made us understand the temptation of yearning for greatness; Nietzsche, whose psychological superman was warped into Nazi war slogans; Blake, who said, “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unsatisfied desire; and, in America, Melville. It is as if Melville had begun ''Moby-Dick'' with a diminutive of Ishmael’s name—“Call me Izzy.” If Melville commands, Mailer invites us to listen, and this intimacy of the narrator, always in the reader’s ear, makes the experience of reading an act of complicity. We are not asked to identify with Hitler or the Devil, but with a narrator whose relation with the reader becomes, by the book’s end, “as alone with each other as two souls out in the ocean on a rock not large enough for three.”

The question Mailer leaves us with in this farewell volume is ''curious'', and I use this open-ended word because Mailer’s narrator, having completed his European duties in shaping the first sixteen years of Adolf Hitler’s life, has been “demoted” to assignments in America, which he calls “this curious na- tion.” Following the time that the narrator has been “installed” in the “human abode” that was Dieter, an eerie voice speaks to us, the voice of the novelist speaking of his character in the past tense: “I was not without effect. Dieter had been a charming SS man, tall, quick, blond, blue eyed, witty. To give a further turn to the screw, I even suggested that he was a troubled Nazi. I spoke with a fine counterfeit of genuine feeling concerning the damnable excesses that were to be found in the Fuehrer’s achievements.” How subtle is the slither of this last snaking sentence!

A high-level counterpart to Dieter—an “American Jewish psychiatrist”— is assigned to interview Dieter as a war criminal. Even though a revolver sits on the table while they talk, the narrator suggests the doctor has little familiarity with firearms: “Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist— as one will inevitably discover—resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place. Now, given my subtle assault upon what he believed were ''his'' human values, the American picked up his .45, knew enough to release the safety, and shot me.”

In an earlier aside, the narrator prepared us for his casual way of sound- ing cruel: “If it is discomforting to the reader that I usually present myself as a calm observer, capable of a balanced narrative, and yet am also able to abet the most squalid acts without a moment of regret, let it not come as a surprise. Devils require two natures. In part, we are civilized.”

Yes, and so adept at glimpsing truths that obviate our belief in any truth that does not contain the memory of all that for which it is not true. The narrator’s tone navigates the most spontaneous kinds of sardonic irony, causing unbidden laughter verging on the death-causing convulsions resulting from eating the plant, grown in Sardinia, which gave sardonic laughter its name and a definition more deeply unsettling than mere sarcasm.

Dieter, speaking as a German, indicates how voice is visceral, and produced by the body:<blockquote>

If you are German and possessed of lively intelligence, irony is, of course, vital to one’s pride. German came to us originally as the language of simple folk, good pagan brutes and husband- men, tribal people, ready for the hunt and the field. So, it is a language full of the growls of the stomach, and the wind in the bowels of hearty existence, the bellows of the lungs, the hiss of the windpipe, the cries of command that one issues to domesticated animals, even the roar that stirs in the throat at the sight of blood. Given, however, the imposition laid on this folk through the centuries—that they enter the amenities of Western civilization before the opportunity passes away from them altogether—I did not find it surprising that many of the German bourgeoisie who had migrated into city life from muddy barnyards did their best to speak in voices as soft as the silk of a sleeve. Particularly, the ladies. I do not include long German words, which are often a precursor to our technological spirit today, no, I refer to the syrupy palatals, sentimental sounds for a low-grade brain. To every sharp German fellow, irony had become the essential corrective.</blockquote>

Mailer connects character to the intimate feeling of how the organs and chambers of the body produce the unique inflections that are ultimately articulated when air is shaped by the muscles in the lips. Mailer emphasizes the mouth-washing compulsion Hitler suffered from most of his life. He became a vegetarian because he was disgusted when he chewed sausage, which so reminded him of his childhood abuse by his father’s forced fellatio.

Even more curious is why Mailer should end his life writing about a tyrant who sickened his mother’s stomach, when he was a nine-year-old, while she listened to radio reports from Germany, during the prelude to the war. She could picture the trouble from far away because she had lived in Russia and had experienced the conditions that now frightened her more than if she had been in Vienna in the spring of 1938, when Germany “united” Austria by annexing it against the will of its most prominent citizens, mostly Jews like herself. Quite likely, Mailer’s mother saw shocking photographs published in the Brooklyn newspapers. And Mailer, early in ''The Castle in the Forest'', evokes the fading newsreel of this blurred black-and-white humiliation, where he imagined his kin on their knees—using a most diminutive tool to wash away anti-Nazi graffiti: “I remember on the first morning after the Brown Shirts marched into Vienna, that a squad of them—beer-hall types with big bellies—collected a group of old and middle-aged Jews, and put them to work scrubbing the sidewalk with toothbrushes. The Storm Troopers laughed as they watched. Photographs of the event were featured on the front pages of many a newspaper in Europe and America.”

Mailer’s narrator guides the meaning of what he shows in detailed scenes depicting three generations of the Hitler family. The skeletal family tree that spawned Adolf Hitler is fleshed out with more fullness than simple entry into adolescence; Mailer’s silence on the Holocaust makes kitchen table mutterings meaningful. In particular, Mailer explores the father/son relationship of Alois and Adolph to the extent that Alois’ lifespan is completed before Adolph’s life begins in earnest. The penultimate Book (Mailer’s chapters appear as books) is titled “Alois and Adolph”; the father’s concern is to pass on a career direction for his son. Adolph wants to be an artist, but his pictures of buildings, when he puts people in them, show people out of scale to their surroundings, in incorrect proportion to the buildings behind them. To make sure that Hitler would be rejected from art school in Vienna, Dieter induced a most severe migraine to the teacher assigned to assess his entrance portfolio.

Hitler’s father’s, born a bastard first named Alois Schicklgruber, was legitimized as the son of his uncle when the uncle died, leaving his property and surname to Alois Hitler. Alois married Klara Poelzl, his niece, when she was in her twenties, giving sanction to their sexual relationship, which began when she was nine. At the time, the age of consent in Germany and England was nine, yet people whispered.

The narrator, wryly, repeatedly, casually, charmingly explicates the very scenes he creates, irradiating them with insights achieved, seemingly at will, via metaphoric connections between the base and the noble. He shows by the telling of the teller that the most important connection between Mailer’s practice as a novelist and as a nonfiction writer is his utilization of a pseudonym. ''The Armies of the Night'' exemplified his use of the third-person as a stand-in for the first person, and the lesson of entering history via the mind of a novelist might prove useful to future historians and biographers of Hitler. Mailer raises questions that far transcend the issues he exposed in ''The Naked and the Dead''—concerning the fascist aspect of a military hierarchy, where the tyrant is armored, and unreachable.

Mailer has always maintained that the first duty of a novelist was not to write about himself, but about the other self with whom he feels “comfortable inhabiting.” The author of ''Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art'', Ernst Kris, observed, “The absolution from guilt for fantasy is complete if the fantasy one follows is not one’s own.” Mailer’s personas reveal his acting aspirations, and root his experience in theater as a key source in his novel writing. Mailer’s scenic sense is displayed in the block-by-block developments so keenly integrated into ordinary life that good and evil seem tainted with each other. Dieter, who follows Hitler’s father into beekeeping, gives credit to honey as a medium for absorbing a dose of his dark syrup: “We have among our gifts the power to invest many a substance with a trace of our presence.”

The novel’s Epilogue fast forwards through the rise of the Third Reich, skipping the Holocaust, and returns us to April 1945, forty years after the narrator’s duties attending little Adolph were completed. Germany has just been defeated. Dieter is present at a nearby concentration camp, which has just been liberated, called “The Castle in the Forest” or as the German translation of the novel has it, ''Das Schloss Im Wald''. Mailer’s title is pointedly ironic, since the “castle” is nonexistent, and the “forest” is a patch of barren land.

Dieter has nearly finished his book, and he considers the accumulated resentments that triggered his desire to write the book we are reading. Indeed, the narrator’s talents have been so aptly demonstrated by his success both in Germany and Russia—creating mischief most serious. The Devil has suppressed Dieter in order to take Hitler on as his exclusive client. The explosive situation made me think of the killings of U.S. Postal workers by fired employees. Mailer’s narrator absorbs primal rage, and uses it to fuel and authorize audacious inquiries into human psychology, and make real how blood is thicker than literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the novel’s “Epilogue,” the narrator once again addresses his motivation for writing his book: “Can it be that the Maestro, whom I served in a hundred roles while holding on to the pride that I was a field officer in the mighty eminence of Satan, had indeed deluded me? Was it now likely that the Maestro was not Satan, but only one more minion—if at a very high level?” This confusion opens up the possibility, Mailer suggests, that we have been reading “the sardonic insights of one more intermediary.”

When Mailer’s narrator is “shot,” the narrative voice persists in speaking, persuasively, in the ambiguity of history, showing self-doubt about his loyalty. The penultimate sentence of the novel is an ode to the author’s endurance: “I have come so far myself in offering this narration that I can no longer be certain whether I still look for promising clients or search for a loyal friend.”

∗ ∗ ∗

Mailer makes clear from the restrictions of his consistent choices that the roots of the man are fertilized by the dirt, soil, scraps, shames, shivering fears, which remain unforgettable, whatever disguises the adult fashions for mature identity. In a ''Provincetown Arts'' interview with J. Michael Lennon, following publication of the novel, Mailer said—echoing Wordsworth’s child being “father of the man”—“The man is in the early material.”1

The Hitler clan, its emergence, malignant flowering, and destruction of its illusion of power are absorbed into a balanced purchase upon which the narrator tells his story of the most diabolical of offspring. In Mailer’s density of detail, turbulent with sensations that are recurrently reconsidered in the fresh circumstances of later chapters, the organic connections of the Hitler lineage, so deeply imagined from mere hints in historical sources, will be read by future historians of the Holocaust for new directions in research. Mailer delineates who begat who with the scrupulous accounting found in biblical genealogies, where daily records become Holy Scripture—etched in memory.

In Mailer’s previous novel, ''The Gospel According to the Son'', Satan is smooth, polite, dripping with deviousness in offering to share a meal with Jesus, which He refuses. On parting, Satan asks permission to touch Jesus, and the son of God, accepting the Devil’s embrace, feels a “shudder of knowledge.” He knows He has been altered by this encounter and that knowledge of evil has lodged in his being.

The novel ends with Adolph entering the sixteenth year of his life, a confused adolescent. The conversation with the Jewish American psychiatrist and Dieter serves to isolate the bitter end point, embellishing the period with the ultimate defense against the futility of war: sardonic irony. As Paul Fussell showed in ''The Great War and Modern Memory'', irony became a mode of remembrance for events too terrible to recall without a divergent refraction of consciousness. Hitler remains Hitler, a mystery, and remains “unexplained”—to refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s book ''Explaining Hitler'', which so influenced Mailer to think of Hitler free of some definitive human flaw as the cause of the Holocaust. Rather, evil is a concept, not a person. The “I” of the novel is an imaginary force opposed to God, and its forces are mustered within a hierarchical system offering the military apparatus that insulates the tyrant’s power.

Mailer does not try to explain Hitler’s evil as a consequence of incest, his deformed testicles, or the brutal beatings of his father. Evil instead becomes fragmented into the dazzle patterns of camouflage, so the formal outline of the enemy is broken up and integrated with the background. Throughout, every event is measured for spiritual cost, calculated against future cost— weighing, balancing, comparing, assessing, and debating the fine equilibrium that is upset when games of random chance are played with loaded dice. The narrator ponders the natural division of human gender into male and female, and the random divisions offer a lesson in Mailer’s notion of “divine economy,” functioning as a kind of invisible hand regulating the free market of good and evil by analyzing the equation between risk and gain.

Mailer created an uncanny narrator who is also an active character; his protagonist, Dieter, at will, has the power to switch the narrative point of view so that antagonist and protagonist may appear as the other. In scene after scene, the reader witnesses sharp refractions that resonate with connections between sensations in the body and thoughts in a shared consciousness. In ''Castle'', the battle is between three players: God, the Devil, and each individual human being. Each possesses equal, if divergent, powers. The novel’s nodal point is positioned midway between three points of a triangle, and Mailer must have thought at least once about the CIA’s method of “triangulation” for sounding out the truth—taking the lies of three spies and finding the element of truth equidistant from each liar.

Speaking with a German journalist following publication of the novel, Mailer, a converted atheist many years ago, said just before he died, “Our existence on earth is much easier to explain if we use a creator.” This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.2 Here is a revision of the paragraph, paraphrased without a quotation:

Speaking with German journalists following publication of the novel, Mailer reflected on how his early atheism made it very difficult for him to explain how we came out of nothing. Existence was easier to understand if a creator existed. This is what I call a “utilitarian” theory of religion.

Let us close with a connection with Freud, the German thinker who charted individual evolution from infantile anality, through the lessons of the mouth in eating and speaking, to genital maturity. Mailer told his assistant, Dwayne Raymond, that he wanted the archway depicted on the book cover to be “symbolic for the birth canal. I know this absolutely,” he said, “because I sat with him while he did the actual color drawings, and these drawings—and he said it bluntly—were pictures of a vagina.” The stone arch that is pictured, however, is more labyrinth than labia. It was taken from a composite of the arches of a church and a school familiar to Hitler—arches that Hitler, and many others, passed through into darkness. “Darkness is large,” Mailer said in his introduction to a book of Provincetown photographs taken at night in low light with long exposures, allowing the camera to see what is invisible to the human eye in low light. In darkness, we can- not see color because the rods in our retinas can only see in black and white, and in low light they function more effectively than the cones that see color so well in daylight.

Freud considered religious thinking to be primitive—and that our conscious understandings would replace a dwindling mysticism. He predicted in one of his last books, ''The Future of an Illusion'', “Where id was, there shall ego go.” Mailer’s ego was enlarged by his confrontation with amoral impulses, the cause of so much human misery and so much damage. Irony seems always to be associated with injury: Octavio Paz said, “Irony is the wound through which analogy bleeds to death.”

Would this be why the banality of evil must be lacquered with irony— evincing the antique aspect of memory, which is essential for our belated understandings?

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-19T00:57:28Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Wind- chill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>

To Barbara
Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>

Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learn- ing the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-18T22:49:19Z

Wverna: added cate and footer

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Wind- chill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>To Barbara
Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>
Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learn- ing the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas}}
[[Category:Book Reviews (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-18T22:37:20Z

Wverna: added pg #s

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
{{dc|dc=W|}}hen you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Wind- chill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.{{pg|514|515}}

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.{{pg|515|516}}

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,{{pg|516|517}} but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>To Barbara
Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>
Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and {{pg|517|518}} small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learn- ing the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an {{pg|518|519}} ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel {{pg|519|520}} cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

2025-04-18T22:23:46Z

Wverna: added body

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{Working}}
{{MR04}}
{{BookReview
| title = A Ticket to the Circus
| author = Norris Church Mailer
| location= New York
| pub = Random House, Inc.
| date = 2010
| pages = 432
| type = Hardback
| price = 27.95
| note =
| first = John
| last = Bowers
| link = https://example.com/purchase
| url = https://example.com/full-review
}}
When you pick up this marvelous book and read its first pages, you feel you may be eavesdropping on more than you should, like finding someone’s private journal that’s been hidden away in a drawer. Shortly thereafter, you’ve forgotten eavesdropping, and find yourself in something more like a novel, a real page-turner, no holds barred. When you’ve finished you know you’ve read something that’s really something else again. Norris Church Mailer—or Barbara Davis or Barbara Norris as she was known before Norman Mailer stepped into the picture—stands tall and unbridled, an artist at the top of her game.

Life did not begin with Norris upon meeting Mailer. In fact, what has made her who she is, as well as having given her the temperament and ability of an artist, comes from Arkansas. In the now familiar story of her showing the famous novelist her first attempt at fiction, he said, “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” She is tough, whether by means of a hard scrabble Arkansas upbringing or by DNA, and she withdrew the pages from his hands and didn’t show him anything else until the galleys of her first novel, ''Wind- chill Summer'', appeared on the doorstep. He started in with corrections, for he was, by all accounts, a fine editor and instructor in writing and couldn’t stop his pencil moving once pages came before him, but she was having none of it. “It is ''my'' book,” she told him.

There were fights over many things; there was lovemaking that began in D.H. Lawrence fashion on the first evening she met him in Arkansas and continued on until frailty and illness closed the blinds but never dampened the warmth between them; and there were domestic moments in which the delicate-seeming, softly spoken girl took on the burden of holding a sprawling, diverse Mailer brood together in Brooklyn and Provincetown. But I get ahead of myself. Norris grew up a Baptist in Arkansas, believing and fearing the wrath of the Almighty if she went astray and sinned. She was submerged under water when baptized at 11 and took “Jesus Christ as her personal Savior,” as we say down there. (Full Disclosure: I was submerged myself in Tennessee.) Religion has had a lasting effect on her. Her febrile imagination conjured up terrifying vistas of a burning continuous hell that awaited one who saw a movie on the Sabbath or used the Lord’s name in vain.

Her inventive mind in this regard was one of the first indications of later interest, and ability, in creative ventures—such as this memoir. She is busily inventing things from the beginning, imaging outcomes, one of the first orders of business for a writer. What was she thinking when faced with moving to Brooklyn, taking up life with the Mailer and his clan and lifestyle? She simply did it. She has that quality of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. She made her first trip on an airplane to meet him for a rendezvous in Chicago when she was living in Arkansas. And she confesses—I guess that’s the word—that she had never said the word “fuck” out loud until Mailer brought it forth. What a combination they became: the author who used “fug” in his first novel for “fuck” and Norris that couldn’t say the word until he came along. Even today, with all the excuses for blowing her top, and there have been many, Norris has trouble swearing.

And she has gone after what she wanted, gritting her teeth, and jumping ahead. When she was three her mother entered her in a Little Miss Little Rock contest and her dramatic flair did not end with her winning the prize on stage. She wouldn’t leave. When a woman in a purple dress and high heels, the MC of the event, tried to take her by the hand and lead her off, Norris wouldn’t go. She had has a taste of the spotlight ever since. Her strong, silent and somewhat shy father had to come on stage and chase her down. She does not like to be left behind and unnoticed and is a natural mimic—a quality found in most actors. When the Baptist preacher was once ranting and raving at the pulpit, she writes, she ran up as a tot and began mimicking his hand gestures so that her father again had to race up and retrieve her.

To not go unnoticed, to act on impulse when the main chance arrives, to see that some situations are untenable and to flee from them no matter what others might think or even what her better judgment might say are constant occurrences in her life. She married Larry Norris whom she met in high school and is not shy about telling us the details of that early romance, which was typical of that Southern place and time. She lost her virginity at seventeen, presumably in the backseat, and writes about thinking, “Is that IT? I felt like I had gotten distracted for a moment and missed it.” They got better at it, married, and she followed him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the wife of an army officer. It turned out to be a bad situation. Not that he was a bad guy, but she felt hemmed in and restricted. She had a very brief affair (Norris opens the door to her life but never sensationally or ever for shock value), regrets it, and goes back to making do with Larry. Just before he shipped out for Vietnam she becomes pregnant and her son Matthew becomes an all important figure in her life. Larry only sees pictures of him. When he returns from Vietnam and they set up a life together, things begin to inexorably to fall apart. He teaches physics in high school and later sells insurance that puts him on the road a lot. She teaches art. And she now writes, “It was during this time, when I was all by myself, exhausted from lack of sleep and harried from working, taking care of the baby and dealing with the minutiae of life, when a little voice in my ear whispers, telling me I had missed the parade.”

Not quite yet. The big parade came to town when Norman Mailer arrived to visit an old Army buddy, Francis Irby Gwaltney, called “Fig” by intimates, who was the prototype for the Southerner Wilson in The ''Naked and the Dead''. By that time Norris was divorced from her husband Larry and was making ends meet as a single mom by teaching art in high school while hanging out with a small literary circle that read ''The New Yorker'' and, in Norris’ words, “considered ourselves to be intellectuals.” Gwaltney was part of the team and had himself written a memoir called ''Idols'' and ''Axle Grease'' that Norris illustrated. The stars were now aligning themselves for a cataclysmic event in Norris and Mailer’s lives. Norris inveigled her way into a party Gwaltney was throwing for his old Army buddy, and the narrative itself should best be left with Norris. She writes, “His clear blue eyes lit up when he saw me. He had broad shoulders, a rather large head (presumably to hold all those brains) with ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s, and he was chesty,but not fat, like a sturdy small horse. (I once drew him as a centaur, which delighted him.) He didn’t look old at all. Nor the least bit fatherly.”

The party continued, with many opportunities for both to call it a night, but neither would. It would not be over until it was over. Norris fought being left out and others taking the famous author away. Understandably and naturally, Mailer fought through party chatter and social protocol—torpedoes be damned!—and ended up taking Norris home. He was not one to miss the main chance either. Her account of their entwining finally on the floor of her living room has comic elements, with Norris receiving rug burns on her back and neither fully out of their clothes, but also the drama of much, much more to follow that neither recognized at the time. She pulls no punches and she leaves nothing out. Coming to Gwaltney’s party, Norris had brought a copy of Mailer’s book ''Marilyn'' for him to inscribe but thought better of it after their intimacy on the floor. Later, when she moved to Brooklyn to be with him, he signed it and wrote,
<blockquote>To Barbara
Because I knew when I wrote this book that someone I had
not yet met would read it and be with me. Hey, Baby, do you know how I love Barbara Davis and Norris Church?
Norman, Feb ’76</blockquote>

Norris and Mailer have the same birthday, almost down to the hour, and they became entwined in more ways than one. He was instrumental in her final name changes that began some time before as Barbara Davis, became Barbara Norris when she married her first husband, and then after she and Mailer got together turned into Norris Church (he liked the sound of it) and finally in later years into Norris Church Mailer. The changes clock her progression though life where Norris has proven to be her own person, someone who sticks to her guns, not ultimately malleable. She can’t be bullied around. It is ironic that Mailer liked being a director. It figured in his fantasy life and in reality. (He directed movies, one of which of course was ''Maidstone'' in which Rip Torn went famously off-script and struck him over the head with a hammer.)

So they began their acquaintance with almost immediate sex and went on from there. “Through the years,” she writes, “no matter the circumstances of our passions and rages, our boredoms, angers, and betrayals large and small, sex was the cord that bound us together; it was the thick wire woven from thousands of shared experiences that never broke, indeed was hardly frayed and only got stronger, no matter how the bonds of marriage were tested. Even in the worst times we had many years later, when we almost separated—somehow, inexplicably, the familiarity of our bodies putting salve on the wounds we had inflicted during the day, until over time the warring ended and the love remained . . .”

And up’s and down’s they certainly had in Norris’ chronicle. When she came to New York at his behest to take up residency she expected . . . what? She writes, “Norman had been regaling me with descriptions of the magnificent apartment he had there (it sounded like the Taj Mahal), with its soaring glass skylight, the view of the skyline of lower Manhattan, the harbor and the Statue of Liberty . . .” Her description of what she found shows a journalist’s (or novelist’s) eye for detail—among others: a climbing rope and ship’s ladder that led to a little room over the living room. Ladders everywhere. One went up to a sort of crow’s nest that you finally had to walk to across a naked plank, stretched over an abyss. The Taj Mahal was a mess. “The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in many months,” she writes. “Many.”

Norris set to work. She cleaned and scrubbed and put things in order, proving she is at home with making a home a home. She immediately bonded with Fanny, Mailer’s mother, and Barbara, his sister. They had seen wives and girlfriends come and go, so perhaps they were used to the drill. There were seven children to consider, ex-wives to contend with, and learn- ing the byways and subtleties of the imposing Big City. After all, she had been raised as a small town Arkansas girl. She wasn’t worried about it. Neither was Mailer. He thought, in Norris’s estimation, that he was about to inherit an Eliza Doolittle whom he was going to mold into a star. They did make the rounds of parties where she glittered with her flaming hair and tall lithe body and soft intelligent voice. Norris did get to mingle and size up those of celebrity status. But she remained who she was. No one changed the Arkansas girl whose mother opened a hair salon in their car port to bring in money. No one fundamentally changed her. Modeling jobs came her way because of her looks and grace. She painted, something she had always been good at back home where she taught art. She wrote novels without help or correction from the master. (She did collaborate on three film scripts with him.) She even acted in soap operas and appeared as Zelda Fitzgerald in an ensemble that included George Plimpton as Scott and Mailer as Hemingway, reading from the letters of those notables. She was Dona Ana in ''Don Juan in Hell'' (Mailer’s idea) with Gore Vidal as the Devil (big applause), Mailer as Don Juan and good friend Mike Lennon as the Commodore. (The book is filled with delightful anecdotes about such events.) She gave as much as she got. I believe she would have done very well by herself, thank you, if Mailer had never come along. But it was a match made by the gods, complete with thunder and lightning.

For awhile they did seem to have everything. They even had a fine son, John Buffalo, to cement their lives. But increasingly there were trips that Mailer took, never quite explained. There were charge card bills for restaurants and hotels in question. Strange women came up to him when they were out, acting a little too familiar for comfort. Norris woke up finally to the fact that the leopard had not changed his spots. Mailer was carrying on. Not with just one person but all over the place. She found a cache of letters and notes and pictures in a drawer that Mailer had, either subconsciously or on purpose, set her up to find. Maybe he was weary of his endless deceptions, wanting to be caught and stopped. Maybe. After much prodding and discomfort he began confessing. And then comes a most unusual turn of events, which some might find amusing. Norris may have thought she wanted a full confession and then they could go on, but I’m sure she didn’t realize how much detail and accounts of the past would follow. You can give her high marks for a sense of humor in the telling. She couldn’t get him to stop. They might be in a taxi cab, and he would confess to yet another. A high point was his introducing her to “the woman in Chicago,” someone he had had a long-term affair with. She had expected a vixen, a ''femme fatal''. She met a woman his age if not older, weighing at least 250 pounds. What was going on? Norris felt sorry for her. And Mailer said, when confronted with what one might imagine, to what was found, that sometimes he needed to be the good- looking one. You can’t forget that line.

No matter the pain and fireworks they remained in love. They made peace. It’s hard to imagine Mailer, at heart a family man, letting go of what he had found. Norris is a survivor and wouldn’t give up. And then the ravages of age and the body’s lack of endurance struck home. Mailer begins a slow but inevitable decline, using two canes, going through operations, getting exercise by slowly walking the deck of their home in Provincetown. And just as it seems the couple had taken a crippling blow, Norris suffers cruel cancer just as Mailer begins his descent. She gives a full account of its treachery. She undergoes chemo, she has surgery and more surgery, and at the last operation the family was told that there was a 99 percent chance of non- survival. At the end of an eight-hour surgery, she found a note on her pillow when she woke from her son John that read, “Mom, you’re the 1 percent!”

She outlived Mailer. His death is told about in a brief but highly effective way. His son Stephen was with him at in the hospital room, sleeping on a fold-out cot, when monitoring machines started going off around four in the morning. Stephen called for help, but before it arrived, Mailer sat up, eyes wide open . . . then, “. . . he looked away, toward the distance. His mouth spread in a huge smile, and his eyes were alive with excitement, as if he were seeing something amazing. Then he was gone.”

Read the book and pivotal events—those that made the papers, those that were meaningful but before now private and guarded—unfold without shame or apology. She is simply seeking the truth about one of the great love affairs of our time that fought against the odds of its ever happening. And while we see it documented by anecdotes and insights we also read about, for instance, Jack Henry Abbott coming into their lives and its aftermath. We find the smallest of gems that crop up unexpectedly but come with a wallop. I’m thinking of her account of Gore Vidal (the Devil) flying in to appear in ''Don Juan in Hell'' with them in Provincetown. He brought along only “a small duffel bag of the sort cosmetic companies give away with purchases of perfume and [when he turned in for the night], he brought out a framed photograph of himself and his parents taken when he was about nine. He looked at it for a moment and lovingly set it on the bedside table in a gesture that brought tears to my eyes.” It almost brought them to mine.

You can look at ''A Ticket to the Circus'' as Norris’ last will and testament to their union. You can also imagine, if you’re like me, Mailer gazing on from somewhere, a pencil in hand, making marks, but without doubt approving of the bravery and talent that made this book possible.

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

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The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Imagining Evil: The Sardonic Narrator of Mailer’s Last Novel

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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer: An Artist from Arkansas

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User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-09T01:37:47Z

Wverna: /* Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place */

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

== Final edits ==
Dr. Lucas I finished my remediation article https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 19:44, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I have finished my assigned remediation article: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Jive-Ass_Aficionado:_Why_Are_We_in_Vietnam%3F_and_Hemingway%27s_Moral_Code#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHemingway2003-24
Username ADear.

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

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

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

== Final Edit ==

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

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

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

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

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

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

I will also link the article below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

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

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

== I am done with this ==

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

== Final Review PM Article ==

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

== Remediation Project ==

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

Thanks,

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

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

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

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

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

== Remediation Submission ==

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

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

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

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

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

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

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

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

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

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

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

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

Hello Dr. Lucas,

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

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

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

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

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

Patrick Riley

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

Link:

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

Winnie Verna

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-09T01:37:07Z

Wverna: /* Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place */ new section

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-09T01:32:43Z

Wverna: added missing "year"

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the 1939 film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations—the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date= March–April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40-50 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T15:56:07Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date= March–April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40-50 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T15:43:22Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date=March-April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40-50 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}

{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T15:39:12Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date=March-April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40-50 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}

[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T15:19:26Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date=March-April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40-50 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T15:15:03Z

Wverna: added cit/works cited

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being got up in a "safari suit.” {{sfn|Begiebing|1983|p=40}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |date=March-April 1983 |title=Twelfth Round |url= |magazine=Harvard Magazine |pages=40 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-06T14:13:02Z

Wverna: corrected category

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T16:32:41Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

{{dc|dc=L|INDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM}}, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T16:25:41Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T16:25:12Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

''LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM'', writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T16:18:07Z

Wverna: added italics, bold, corrected errors from copy/paste

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

'''LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM''', writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film ''Winter Carnival'', we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at 10 East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, ''Les Miserables'' lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, ''A Prairie Home Companion’s'' author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no matter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of ''Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald'', Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye toward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T15:51:01Z

Wverna:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T15:43:55Z

Wverna: added category, revised refs

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite journal |last=Brown |first=Tina |title=Tribute To Mailer.|url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=2.1 |issue= |date=Fall 2008 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=3.1 |issue= |date=Fall 2009 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

{{Review}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place}}
[[Category:Miscellany (MR)]]

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T14:51:28Z

Wverna: added in-text cites

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar.” {{sfn|Miller|2009|p=299}} I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own.”
{{sfn|Brown|2008|p=20}}}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit.” {{sfn|Fitzgerald|2004|p=70}} He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”
{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Brown |first=Tina |date=Fall 2008 |title=Tribute To Mailer. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 2.1 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |date=Fall 2009 |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 3.1 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T02:34:22Z

Wverna: added notes

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar” (). I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures {{efn|Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own” ()..}} These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.{{efn|The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an international level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.}}

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit” (). He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”{{efn|My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.}}

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}

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

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Brown |first=Tina |date=Fall 2008 |title=Tribute To Mailer. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 2.1 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |date=Fall 2009 |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 3.1 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-04-01T01:28:58Z

Wverna: added pg #s

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar” (). I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of {{pg|408|409}} the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the {{pg|409|410}} Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit” (). He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged {{pg|410|411}} neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest,{{pg|411|412}} Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
=== Notes ===
{{notelist}}
. Tina Brown offers a similar view about Mailer saying, “He subscribed to the Hemingway model, but kicked it up a notch and made it his own” ().
. The production would continue past the Fitzgerald Theater performance, mostly at an interna- tional level with venues like Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Vienna, Berlin and London. In addition, a production entitled “One Sunday at the Fitzgeralds” and also co-authored by Terry Quinn and George Plimpton would take the stage featuring essentially the same set of players.
. My deep thanks to Cathy Barks for sharing this personal correspondence from Norris Church Mailer, and for her work in bringing forward the beautiful collection of Scott and Zelda’s love letters.
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Brown |first=Tina |date=Fall 2008 |title=Tribute To Mailer. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 2.1 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |date=Fall 2009 |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 3.1 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-03-31T23:09:47Z

Wverna: added ref

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar” (). I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit” (). He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest, Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Works Cited===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Brown |first=Tina |date=Fall 2008 |title=Tribute To Mailer. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 2.1 |pages=20-23 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=F. Scott |date=2004 |title=The Great Gatsby. |url= |location= |publisher=New York: Scribner. |pages= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=Linda Patterson |date=Fall 2009 |title=Woman Redux: De Kooning, Mailer and American Abstract Expression. |url= |magazine=The Mailer Review 3.1 |pages=299-306 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{Refend}}

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-03-30T18:05:34Z

Wverna: added body

{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} {{Working}} {{MR04}} {{Byline|last=Sinclair|first=Gail D.|url=|abstract=|note=}}

LINDA PATTERSON MILLER, A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE IN MODERNISM, writes about Mailer and artist Willem de Kooning in an insightful article that belies her proclamation, “I am not a seasoned Norman Mailer scholar” (). I am sadly much more qualified to make such a disclaimer, but like Miller as a “fellow” in Hemingway studies, I can’t help but acknowledge the comparisons made between him and Mailer on the literary and personal fronts. Both men were journalists as well as writers of fiction garnering popular and artistic acclaim, each gained fame early on through writing stemming from personal war experiences, both were men who avidly followed professional sport and sometimes participated in spontaneous pugilistic bouts to settle personal scores, and each man married and divorced multiple times, creating in the wake of those unions complicated family structures. These easily identifiable comparisons have already been explicated by others and I can add little to such discussions. My experience is a personal one, solidifying for me a view that Mailer, like Hemingway, often distanced himself from literary progenitors. Nonetheless, he was an avid Hemingway aficionado, and in this case a Hemingway impersonator.

The occasion for the Norman Mailer to Ernest Hemingway transformation was in itself an odd juxtaposition of contrasting entities. In September 2002 about one hundred and fifty F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world, along with non-academics sharing a love for the man who named and wrote beautifully about the Jazz Age, had gathered at the Sixth Biennial International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, hometown of the 1920s icon, to celebrate the author and his work. Rushing from the historic Landmark Center and an earlier afternoon plenary session featuring Frances Ring, Fitzgerald’s secretary at the time of his death, and Budd Schulberg with whom Fitzgerald had been hired and later jointly fired from writing the screenplay for the film Winter Carnival, we jaunted a few blocks and settled into seats of the nearly one hundred year old Sam S. Shubert Theater at East Exchange Street, now aptly renamed the Fitzgerald Theater, hoping to watch the resurrection of three figures who were such an integral part of our academic interests and intellectual curiosity.

Fitzgerald Society members and local St. Paul residents eagerly filled the audience that crisp fall afternoon. Of a more famous note in the crowd were Fitzgerald’s granddaughters Eleanor Lanahan and Cecilia Ross, memoirist Patricia Hample, Les Miserables lyricist Herbert Kretzmer and his wife Sybil, A Prairie Home Companion’s author/host Garrison Keillor who broadcast each week from this very stage, and the performance’s stars, Norman Mailer, Norris Church Mailer, and George Plimpton. But, most important, we had come to see, or maybe more appropriately to hear Ernest Hemingway and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The Mailer, Mailer, and Plimpton trio were in St. Paul at the invitation of the Fitzgerald Society to enact their dramatic dialogue co-written by Plimpton and Terry Quinn, although the text was predominantly an arrangement of letters by and between the famous Lost Generation triumvirate. Sitting near the Fitzgerald granddaughters, I heard them whisper to each other at some point in the reading, “Did you grant permission for them to use the Fitzgerald letters?” The response from both seemed to be “no,” but no mat- ter; the show was already in progress. Set on the stage were three stations— the table from which “Ernest” wrote and read his letters, “Scott’s” writing table, and a stool perch for “Zelda.”

This evening was by no means the inaugural performance of the Mailer/Plimpton trio. The troop had previously given readings in 2000 at such prestigious venues as The Getty Art Museum in Los Angeles, the Mercantile Library in New York City, and the Guild Hall in East Hampton. Between 2000 and 2002, in addition to their St. Paul performance, productions were held at the Provincetown Theater, The American Church in Paris, the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C., the Kaufmann Concert Hall at the Ninety-Second Street YMCA in New York City, the Savannah Arts Festival City Lights Theater, the Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver, and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, sometimes with substitutions in the central players filled by Timothy Hutton, Lee Grand, Terry Quinn, Mary Karr, Calvin Trillin, and Robert Stone.

For our afternoon’s edification Norman Mailer sat at the stage right table wearing, as I remember it, a rather stereotypical khaki flak jacket or maybe something more closely labeled pseudo hunting gear—what Robert J. Begiebing describes on another occasion as Mailer’s being “got up in a safari suit” (). He was decidedly non-representative of Hemingway’s physique, much shorter in stature, lacking the proper characteristic Hemingway beard, and sporting a more diminutive barrel chest perched atop a paunch belly. He was, however, exuding a sense of his Hemingwayness or as much as he could muster, and his pleasure in the pretense was evident. Norman Mailer clearly liked being Ernest Hemingway for the space of an afternoon’s entertainment.

Less convincing was the George Plimpton to F. Scott Fitzgerald transformation. Plimpton seemed too tall for the young co-ed, whose somewhat diminutive size contributed to his failure at Princeton football, too old for the man who died in his forties, too East Coast bred for the “Middle-wester” from St. Paul, and he was not sporting a Mid-western accent, whatever the machinations of that might be. Fitzgerald’s own dialect was hard to characterize, and in the one recording of him I’ve heard, his voice resonated a slightly affected British twang, obviously not indicative of St. Paul. There was, however, on Plimpton’s part little or no attempt to recreate the Fitzgerald look, even in something as relatively easy as 1920s clothing. He relied simply on the power of Fitzgerald’s words to weave the spell, and for lovers of the author’s highly poetic prose, perhaps that was enough.

Norris Church Mailer portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald, the complex woman with whom she had much in common. Like Zelda, Norris Mailer was Southern bred, although from Arkansas rather than Alabama, had married a Northerner, was known for her beauty, and was also like Mrs. F. Scott Fitzgerald, an artist, a novelist, and a multi-talented woman who played second fiddle to a famous literary husband. Bringing to life the voice that had drawn assorted comments in letters about its unique and engaging qualities and had no doubt inspired such famous lines as, “Her voice is full of money,” no easy task. Norris followed the usual route of actors playing Southern belles and attempting to recreate a dialect that becomes generic rather than particular to a distinctive region. Zelda’s voice exuded cigarette-smoking huskiness and a dialect most likely born and bred in the advantaged neighborhoods of Montgomery, Alabama. But like her husband, the passion and affinity Mrs. Mailer felt for the persona she inhabited was evident. Confirming that sense of sisterhood between herself and Zelda in correspondence with Cathy W. Barks, co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Norris penned a note of thanks for a photo of the youthful Zelda that Barks had sent her. She wrote, “I have Zelda’s photo in a little grouping of my ancestors, and she looks right at home!”

The context for the Hemingway/Fitzgerald exchange was excised primarily from their workaday correspondence, but the prose had many shadings of the more polished fiction each writer carefully crafted with a clear eye to- ward posterity. These men were after all great writers, and their letters demonstrated this prowess and provided us with multifaceted and valuable insights. They wrote about their craft, their relationship to shared editor Maxwell Perkins and to colleagues in the literary world, and about their families and the struggle to work under the burden of wives, children, and paying the bills. The tensions and rivalry that existed between them at some points was palpable, to be sure, but their bond and mutual respect shone through as well. They were two men in an exclusive, lonely, and hard-earned but highly coveted club.

The Fitzgerald epistles were something of a different note. These letters between Scott and Zelda were not filled with the mundane details of ordinary days and nights spent apart. The sense one always had when eavesdropping on this legendary couple’s correspondence, although at times rife with painful, angry, highly personal accusations, was that their letters were far more frequently emissaries of deeply embedded and lasting love. Regardless of the tragedies that befell their relationship, the bitterness of lost opportunities, self-indulgence at the expense of unity, or the alcoholism or mental breakdown that haunted their marriage, they maintained and professed their love to the end. Better drama than this couldn’t be written.

That September afternoon’s performance was what it was: three large personalities offering up homage to three larger than life figures from the golden era of modern American literature. Most all of the letters’ content we heard that afternoon was already well known to us. We had reveled in it before, scoured through accumulated volumes seeking this or that piece of information to explain something for which we had our own theories. We were not enlightened or presented with secrets previously unknown about Ernest, Scott, or Zelda. But we were, as always, enthralled to hear the spoken cadence of good writing, especially from people we had chosen to follow with such professional vigor that every two years we travel to a relevant part of the world to celebrate their work. For bringing Fitzgerald back to St. Paul along with his wife and their compatriot, Ernest Hemingway, we were grateful to our afternoon’s entertainers.

The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-03-23T19:32:14Z

Wverna: byline, author update

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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-03-23T19:17:48Z

Wverna: byline update

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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norman Mailer: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place

2025-03-23T18:55:05Z

Wverna: header/volume update

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