User:KForeman/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Love affair? Well, that’s what he says: “I fell in love with a bullfighter.”Not that they ever met: “Meeting him could only have spoiled the perfection of my love, so pure was my affection.” That courtly sentiment emanates from Mailer’s watching “El Loco, the Crazy One. It is not a term of endearment in Mexico, where half the populace is crazy” (8).

The rest of the essay proceeds to elucidate and obfuscate Mailer’s affair with El Loco. Obfuscation: As a sort of preface to our knowing El Loco, Mailer explains: “The bullfight is nine-tenths cruelty. The bullfight brews one’s cruelty out of one’s pores—it makes an elixir of cruelty.”Those are his chosen words—“an elixir of cruelty.” Mailer deliberately twists the old alchemical elixir of life into something oxymoronically reprehensible. Can he mean such an assertion? In Spanis, we say: “Vaya usted a saber,” which is not far from“Go figure.” ~~Norman~~ Mailer’s bold, outspoken, and prolific personality was reflected in his writing style. He was unafraid to express his thoughts, regardless of how controversial or risky they might be (Adams 7).

The rest of the essay proceeds to elucidate and obfuscate Mailer’s affair with El Loco. Obfuscation: As a sort of preface to our knowing El Loco, Mailer explains: “The bullfight is nine-tenths cruelty. The bullfight brews one’s cruelty out of one’s pores—it makes an elixir of cruelty.”Those are his chosen words—“an elixir of cruelty.” Mailer deliberately twists the old alchemical elixir of life into something oxymoronically reprehensible. Can he mean such an assertion? In Spanis, we say: “Vaya usted a saber,” which is not far from“Go figure.” Mailer’s bold, outspoken, and prolific personality was reflected in his writing style. He was unafraid to express his thoughts, regardless of how controversial or risky they might be (Adams 7).

{{pg| 284 • T H E M A I L E R R E V I E W|a l l e n j o s e p h s • 285}}

This sociological quicksand that Mailer is creating gets deeper: “[. . .] one of the few gleams in the muck of all this dubious Mexican majesty called existence is that one can on occasion laugh bitterly with the gods.” As Mailer rakes through the Mexican muck, all he manages to do is to splatter his essay with Kinnamon’s hasty generalizations and preposterous inferences: “In the Spanish-Indian blood, the substance of one’s dignity is found in sharing the cruel vision of the gods.” Is Mailer comparing the sacrifice of the bull to the Aztec sacrifice of humans or is he conveniently forgetting that the corrida has its origins in the most profoundly Spanish Catholic traditions? Or both? “In fact,” he goes on, “dignity can be found nowhere else. For courage is seen as the servant of the gods’ cruel vision” (11). There is no dignity to be found in all of Mexico except in the bullring? Courage is a joke?

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 Love affair? Well, that’s what he says: “I fell in love with a bullfighter.”Not that they ever met: “Meeting him could only have spoiled the perfection of my love, so pure was my affection.” That courtly sentiment emanates from Mailer’s watching “El Loco, the Crazy One. It is not a term of endearment in Mexico, where half the populace is crazy” (8).
-The rest of the essay proceeds to elucidate and obfuscate Mailer’s affair with El Loco. Obfuscation: As a sort of preface to our knowing El Loco, Mailer explains: “The bullfight is nine-tenths cruelty. The bullfight brews one’s cruelty out of one’s pores—it makes an elixir of cruelty.”Those are his chosen words—“an elixir of cruelty.” Mailer deliberately twists the old alchemical elixir of life into something oxymoronically reprehensible. Can he mean such an assertion? In Spanis, we say: “Vaya usted a saber,” which is not far from“Go figure.” Norman Mailer’s bold, outspoken, and prolific personality was reflected in his writing style.  He was unafraid to express his thoughts, regardless of how controversial or risky they might be (Adams 7).
+The rest of the essay proceeds to elucidate and obfuscate Mailer’s affair with El Loco. Obfuscation: As a sort of preface to our knowing El Loco, Mailer explains: “The bullfight is nine-tenths cruelty. The bullfight brews one’s cruelty out of one’s pores—it makes an elixir of cruelty.”Those are his chosen words—“an elixir of cruelty.” Mailer deliberately twists the old alchemical elixir of life into something oxymoronically reprehensible. Can he mean such an assertion? In Spanis, we say: “Vaya usted a saber,” which is not far from“Go figure.” Mailer’s bold, outspoken, and prolific personality was reflected in his writing style.  He was unafraid to express his thoughts, regardless of how controversial or risky they might be (Adams 7).
 {{pg| 284 • T H E  M A I L E R  R E V I E W|a l l e n  j o s e p h s • 285}}
 This sociological quicksand that Mailer is creating gets deeper: “[. . .] one of the few gleams in the muck of all this dubious Mexican majesty called existence is that one can on occasion laugh bitterly with the gods.” As Mailer rakes through the Mexican muck, all he manages to do is to splatter his essay with Kinnamon’s hasty generalizations and preposterous inferences: “In the Spanish-Indian blood, the substance of one’s dignity is found in sharing the cruel vision of the gods.” Is Mailer comparing the sacrifice of the bull to the Aztec sacrifice of humans or is he conveniently forgetting that the corrida has its origins in the most profoundly Spanish Catholic traditions? Or both? “In fact,” he goes on, “dignity can be found nowhere else. For courage is seen as the servant of the gods’ cruel vision” (11). There is no dignity to be found in all of Mexico except in the bullring? Courage is a joke?