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Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Mailer’s autobiographical protagonist in The Deer Park, quoted above in the epigraph, tries to write about a Mexican torero but finds that his novel was “[. . .] not very good. It was inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway, and I [SO’S] was learning that it is not creatively satisfying to repeat the work of a good writer”(353), which is to say that O’Shaughnessy also suffers from the problem of Hemingway’s shadow. O’Shaugnessy ceases work on the taurine novel and writes (the first-person) The Deer Park instead; however, without having left himself an escape: “I tried for a long time to write that novel, and someday maybe I will” (352).

That novel, the one Sergius O’Shaugnessy did not write, was to be about an apprentice torero, a novillero, who resembles physically, as well as in time and in place and in character, especially in his wildly vacillating bravery and cowardice, the real Amado Ramírez, El Loco, the subject of Mailer’s essay. There can be little doubt that SO’S’s character in the fictitious novel would have been based on Ramírez, especially since Ramírez was the only torero Mailer saw often enough to write about with any confidence. In the essay, Mailer tells us that he is writing about “the origin of an addiction,” then“ the history of a passion,” and finally that in that summer of 1954, “I was going to write the novel about a bullfight, dig, digary” (sic, 6; Mailer’s emphasis). Mailer, like SO’S, never wrote “The Novel about Bullfight,” or any novel about it, and the essay itself seems a kind of surrogate piece for the novel neither of them wrote. (Perhaps I should mention that Mailer had published an earlier, prize-winning version of this essay—virtually identical—in the October 1967 issue of Playboy, in which he does not mention “the novel about bullfight”).

That novel, the one Sergius O’Shaugnessy did not write, was to be about an apprentice torero, a novillero, who resembles physically, as well as in time and in place and in character, especially in his wildly vacillating bravery and cowardice, the real Amado Ramírez, El Loco, the subject of Mailer’s essay. There can be little doubt that SO’S’s character in the fictitious novel would have been based on Ramírez, especially since Ramírez was the only torero Mailer saw often enough to write about with any confidence. In the essay, Mailer tells us that he is writing about “the origin of an addiction,” then“ the history of a passion,” and finally that in that summer of 1954, “I was going to write the novel about a bullfight, dig, digary” (sic, 6; Mailer’s emphasis). Mailer, like SO’S, never wrote “The Novel about Bullfight,” or any novel about it, and the essay itself seems a kind of surrogate piece for the novel neither of them wrote. (Perhaps I should mention that Mailer had published an earlier, prize-winning version of this essay—virtually identical—in the October 1967 issue of Playboy, in which he does not mention “the novel about bullfight”). For years, Mailer has worked to develop his prose to become a prized writer (Gutierrez 5)

The real question becomes: What was Mailer trying to do with his so-called footnote? With only the minor nod to Hemingway noted above, it certainly was not an overt homage. So was he coat-tailing? Merely being cheeky? Was he justifying not having written “The Novel on Bullfight”? How is the essay meant to be a footnote to Death in the Afternoon when Death in the Afternoon is only mentioned in the title, and Hemingway himself only in passing? Is it a footnote because it couldn’t rise to a level of competence equal to anything greater? These are not idle questions and the answers are not readily forthcoming.

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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.”

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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Form is the record of a war: On the 6th of February, 1955, Amado Ramírez, El Loco, took the alternative to become a full matador. He was unable to kill any of his three bulls and subsequently renounced the alternative and ended his career as a professional matador. Norman Mailer would not write “the novel about the bullfight.”

Since the identification of the writer and torero, as well as the larger context of war, came first from Hemingway, Mailer’s ultimate insight—his fleeting recognition of himself in the other, of the other in himself, and of both of them as one with Hemingway and his taurine shadow—was derivative in its source, yet original in its vision, adding another layer in its peculiar confirmation to Hemingway’s discovery of the literary value of toreo. Thanks to the clue Amado Ramírez had given him through his erratic performances (clue harks back to the ball of thread Theseus used to escape the labyrinth, after killing them in Otaur), Mailer’s eureka-like moment helps turn a messy essay in an unfortunate tome into an intricately conceived footnote to Death in the Afternoon.

Since the identification of the writer and torero, as well as the larger context of war, came first from Hemingway, Mailer’s ultimate insight—his fleeting recognition of himself in the other, of the other in himself, and of both of them as one with Hemingway and his taurine shadow—was derivative in its source, yet original in its vision, adding another layer in its peculiar confirmation to Hemingway’s discovery of the literary value of toreo. Thanks to the clue Amado Ramírez had given him through his erratic performances (clue harks back to the ball of thread Theseus used to escape the labyrinth, after killing them in Otaur), Mailer’s eureka-like moment helps turn a messy essay in an unfortunate tome into an intricately conceived footnote to Death in the Afternoon. Mailer’s fascination with Hemingway’s works inspired him to pursue similar ambitions in his writing (Rodriquez 97).

{{pg| 292 • 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 • 293}}

===Works Cited===

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<ref>Messenger, Christian K. "Norman Mailer: Boxing and the Art of His Narrative." MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 33 no. 1, 1987, p. 85-104. Project MUSE</ref>

<ref>Adams, Laura Gail. Norman Mailer's Aesthetics of Growth. Diss. 1972.</ref>

<ref>Rodríguez, Emilio Cañadas. "Norman Mailer and Truman Capote: A Brief Account of Parallel Lives." 2008,</ref>

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Mailer’s autobiographical protagonist in The Deer Park, quoted above in the epigraph, tries to write about a Mexican torero but finds that his novel was “[. . .] not very good. It was inevitably imitative of that excellently exiguous mathematician, Mr. Ernest Hemingway, and I [SO’S] was learning that it is not creatively satisfying to repeat the work of a good writer”(353), which is to say that O’Shaughnessy also suffers from the problem of Hemingway’s shadow. O’Shaugnessy ceases work on the taurine novel and writes (the first-person) The Deer Park instead; however, without having left himself an escape: “I tried for a long time to write that novel, and someday maybe I will” (352).
-That novel, the one Sergius O’Shaugnessy did not write, was to be about an apprentice torero, a novillero, who resembles physically, as well as in time and in place and in character, especially in his wildly vacillating bravery and cowardice, the real Amado Ramírez, El Loco, the subject of Mailer’s essay. There can be little doubt that SO’S’s character in the fictitious novel would have been based on Ramírez, especially since Ramírez was the only torero Mailer saw often enough to write about with any confidence. In the essay, Mailer tells us that he is writing about “the origin of an addiction,” then“ the history of a passion,” and finally that in that summer of 1954, “I was going to write the novel about a bullfight, dig, digary” (sic, 6; Mailer’s emphasis). Mailer, like SO’S, never wrote “The Novel about Bullfight,” or any novel about it, and the essay itself seems a kind of surrogate piece for the novel neither of them wrote. (Perhaps I should mention that Mailer had published an earlier, prize-winning version of this essay—virtually identical—in the October 1967 issue of Playboy, in which he does not mention “the novel about bullfight”).
+That novel, the one Sergius O’Shaugnessy did not write, was to be about an apprentice torero, a novillero, who resembles physically, as well as in time and in place and in character, especially in his wildly vacillating bravery and cowardice, the real Amado Ramírez, El Loco, the subject of Mailer’s essay. There can be little doubt that SO’S’s character in the fictitious novel would have been based on Ramírez, especially since Ramírez was the only torero Mailer saw often enough to write about with any confidence. In the essay, Mailer tells us that he is writing about “the origin of an addiction,” then“ the history of a passion,” and finally that in that summer of 1954, “I was going to write the novel about a bullfight, dig, digary” (sic, 6; Mailer’s emphasis). Mailer, like SO’S, never wrote “The Novel about Bullfight,” or any novel about it, and the essay itself seems a kind of surrogate piece for the novel neither of them wrote. (Perhaps I should mention that Mailer had published an earlier, prize-winning version of this essay—virtually identical—in the October 1967 issue of Playboy, in which he does not mention “the novel about bullfight”). For years, Mailer has worked to develop his prose to become a prized writer (Gutierrez 5)
 The real question becomes: What was Mailer trying to do with his so-called footnote? With only the minor nod to Hemingway noted above, it certainly was not an overt homage. So was he coat-tailing? Merely being cheeky? Was he justifying not having written “The Novel on Bullfight”? How is the essay meant to be a footnote to Death in the Afternoon when Death in the Afternoon is only mentioned in the title, and Hemingway himself only in passing? Is it a footnote because it couldn’t rise to a level of competence equal to anything greater? These are not idle questions and the answers are not readily forthcoming.
@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 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.”
+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?
@@ Line 101: / Line 101: @@
 Form is the record of a war: On the 6th of February, 1955, Amado Ramírez, El Loco, took the alternative to become a full matador. He was unable to kill any of his three bulls and subsequently renounced the alternative and ended his career as a professional matador. Norman Mailer would not write “the novel about the bullfight.”
-Since the identification of the writer and torero, as well as the larger context of war, came first from Hemingway, Mailer’s ultimate insight—his fleeting recognition of himself in the other, of the other in himself, and of both of them as one with Hemingway and his taurine shadow—was derivative in its source, yet original in its vision, adding another layer in its peculiar confirmation to Hemingway’s discovery of the literary value of toreo. Thanks to the clue Amado Ramírez had given him through his erratic performances (clue harks back to the ball of thread Theseus used to escape the labyrinth, after killing them in Otaur), Mailer’s eureka-like moment helps turn a messy essay in an unfortunate tome into an intricately conceived footnote to Death in the Afternoon.
+Since the identification of the writer and torero, as well as the larger context of war, came first from Hemingway, Mailer’s ultimate insight—his fleeting recognition of himself in the other, of the other in himself, and of both of them as one with Hemingway and his taurine shadow—was derivative in its source, yet original in its vision, adding another layer in its peculiar confirmation to Hemingway’s discovery of the literary value of toreo. Thanks to the clue Amado Ramírez had given him through his erratic performances (clue harks back to the ball of thread Theseus used to escape the labyrinth, after killing them in Otaur), Mailer’s eureka-like moment helps turn a messy essay in an unfortunate tome into an intricately conceived footnote to Death in the Afternoon. Mailer’s fascination with Hemingway’s works inspired him to pursue similar ambitions in his writing (Rodriquez 97).
 {{pg| 292 • 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 • 293}}
 ===Works Cited===
@@ Line 253: / Line 253: @@
 <ref>Messenger, Christian K. "Norman Mailer: Boxing and the Art of His Narrative." MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 33 no. 1, 1987, p. 85-104. Project MUSE</ref>
+<ref>Adams, Laura Gail. Norman Mailer's Aesthetics of Growth. Diss. 1972.</ref>
+<ref>Rodríguez, Emilio Cañadas. "Norman Mailer and Truman Capote: A Brief Account of Parallel Lives." 2008,</ref>
 {{Reflist}}