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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/On Reading Mailer Too Young: Difference between revisions

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OK. But it’s not Hearn. It’s not Forster. It’s not literature that’s got this little thirteen-year-old guy reading Mailer too young, turning page-by-page through the longest book he’s ever read. No, the clincher comes earlier — it’s on page 150. It’s when Mailer’s recon platoon suddenly comes under {{pg|413#|414#}}  Japanese machine gun fire, and we read: “BEE-YOWWWW!... BEE-YOWWWW!” and on and on and on.
OK. But it’s not Hearn. It’s not Forster. It’s not literature that’s got this little thirteen-year-old guy reading Mailer too young, turning page-by-page through the longest book he’s ever read. No, the clincher comes earlier — it’s on page 150. It’s when Mailer’s recon platoon suddenly comes under {{pg|413#|414#}}  Japanese machine gun fire, and we read: “BEE-YOWWWW!... BEE-YOWWWW!” and on and on and on.
Those fantastic machine gun sounds were written out right there on the page. It’s not literature that brought him to Mailer. It’s comic books. Now, the discovery of Mailer is an eureka moment that’s built out of a truckload of mental prep. What’s got this little guy hooked on Mailer (though it’s a few years yet before he’ll use that phrase) is that Mailer is the only great writer around, the only living major public author, who comes busting off of an operatic stage in total exuberance, to fall right into the laps of this thirteen-year-old boy and his reading pals. Because, with their own struggling hands, they’ve hammered together two unlikely mind-bending standards: ''Mad Magazine'' and the world of Batman, Superman, Capt. America, and Sgt. Rock of Easy Co. (OK, also the blessed Classics Illustrated, one of the finest series of comics ever in those terrible days before Cliff’s Notes.) So, for the first time, our young man and his reading buddies are convinced they’re being exposed to an adult author who can live up to this incredible mind-melt of Mad, Marvel, National Periodicals... I’m telling you, reading this Mailer guy is like being on a rocket even if half the time, you have no idea what he’s talking about.
Those fantastic machine gun sounds were written out right there on the page. It’s not literature that brought him to Mailer. It’s comic books. Now, the discovery of Mailer is an eureka moment that’s built out of a truckload of mental prep. What’s got this little guy hooked on Mailer (though it’s a few years yet before he’ll use that phrase) is that Mailer is the only great writer around, the only living major public author, who comes busting off of an operatic stage in total exuberance, to fall right into the laps of this thirteen-year-old boy and his reading pals. Because, with their own struggling hands, they’ve hammered together two unlikely mind-bending standards: ''Mad Magazine'' and the world of Batman, Superman, Capt. America, and Sgt. Rock of Easy Co. (OK, also the blessed Classics Illustrated, one of the finest series of comics ever in those terrible days before Cliff’s Notes.) So, for the first time, our young man and his reading buddies are convinced they’re being exposed to an adult author who can live up to this incredible mind-melt of Mad, Marvel, National Periodicals... I’m telling you, reading this Mailer guy is like being on a rocket even if half the time, you have no idea what he’s talking about.
<blockquote>In the literary eye of the thirteen-year-old boy, this is the highest compliment. Forget the studied sincerity of, say, ''To Kill A Mockingbird.''.Down with the ''The Old Man and The Sea'', too, (which even at thirteen we thought was enough to put you off Hemingway before you discover the good stuff.)This Mailer, he was Good vs. Evil, world catasrophe, official lies, violence, sex, madness, the whole crazy, lurid world was there in Mailer's pages, and even better, this was a guy who was respected and could write like a son of bitch.</blockquote>
<blockquote>In the literary eye of the thirteen-year-old boy, this is the highest compliment. Forget the studied sincerity of, say, ''To Kill A Mockingbird.''.Down with the ''The Old Man and The Sea'', too, (which even at thirteen we thought was enough to put you off Hemingway before you discover the good stuff.)This Mailer, he was Good vs. Evil, world catasrophe, official lies, violence, sex, madness, the whole crazy, lurid world was there in Mailer's pages, and even better, this was a guy who was respected and could write like a son of bitch.
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  </blockquote> And if a “real writer” could put something like “BEE-YOWWWW! . . .BEE-YOOWWWW!” in his book, if he could huddle so dangerously close to
  </blockquote> And if a “real writer” could put something like “BEE-YOWWWW! . . .BEE-YOOWWWW!” in his book, if he could huddle so dangerously close to
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