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| SOME PRELIMINARY SPECULATION ON NORMAN MAILER'S LEGACY reminds
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| me of a media-fixed auto derby that has already predetermined a Mailer finish as a questionable non-winner at the starting-gate.
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| Such derby flux began with the news of Mailer’s recent demise and
| | {{cite web |url= https://seminoles.com/brenda-cliette-bio/|title=Brenda Cliett Bio |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=September 19, 2014 |website=Seminoles.com|publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} |
| became fast-tracked into obvious truth that Mailer’s Legacy Quotient (LQ) is
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| unique in that his “character” supersedes and eclipses his canon of work A
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| writer’s behavior, in short, is all that matters to some critics. The LQ axiom,
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| in Mailer’s case, remains commonplace: character overshadows canon.
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| Imagine such absurdity, historically speaking. To hell with ''The Ring'',Wagner was such a rotter. And up the LQ of Will Shakespeare with his blank bio,
| | {{cite web |url= http://www.nolefan.org/summary/wtf1984.html |title= 1983-84 Women's Track and Field - Year In Review |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= nolefan.org |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} |
| but down the LQ of the thuggish Ben Jonson. And give a zero read to Ezra
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| Pound, that Fascist. And don’t forget that old goat, Theodore Dreiser, and his
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| whorehouse antics. And, yes, Papa Hemingway, that macho bundle of character flaws. Heraclitus said that “Character is Destiny.” Enter Norman Mailer,
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| a literary bundle of flux, perhaps destined to have his ego read more than his
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| books. Also enter the ubiquitous media that increasingly preside over a
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| nation of gawkers rather than readers.
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| In 1948, a curtain rose and out trots an unknown with a big war book, an
| | {{cite web |url= https://www.ghsa.net/sites/default/files/documents/Constitution/GHSA_RR_1981-1982.pdf |title= Results Of State Meet |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= gsha.net |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} |
| overnight best seller and a corresponding big-eyed media. What a readymade twosome, Mailer and the media, mutual enablers, and Norman Mailer
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| becomes America’s leading literary celebrity. Unlike his two nearest competitors, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal, Mailer was typecast as ruffian
| | {{cite web |url=http://georgiasportshalloffame.com/site/meet-the-inductees/meet-the-inductees-brenda-cliette/ |title= Meet the Inductees: Brenda Cliett|author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= georgiasportshalloffame.com|publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} |
| extraordinaire—a 24/7 bully-brawler in salons and saloons, the epitome of
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| egghead violence. Overnight, Mailer became the undisputed bad boy of
| | {{cite web |url=https://www.macon.com/news/local/article58377848.html |title= 33 Macon-Bibb firefighters promoted after exodus of officers |last= Fabian |first= Liz|date= February 4, 2016 |website= macon.com|publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} |
| American letters, so said the drooling, yet chiding media.
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