The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Visionary Hermeneutic Appropriation: Meditations on Hemingway’s Influence on Mailer: Difference between revisions
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Thus, one needs to be cautious in accusing Mailer of impersonating Hemingway or directly imitating him. As a writer he was interested in understanding the violence and brutality in such war and the so-called “contact sports.” For the trajectory of imitative behavior covers large and varied expanses, some of which are grounded in spirituality, which everyday language pejoratively relegates to “aping.” Imitation as a legitimate, indeed essential,{{pg|176|177}} | Thus, one needs to be cautious in accusing Mailer of impersonating Hemingway or directly imitating him. As a writer he was interested in understanding the violence and brutality in such war and the so-called “contact sports.” For the trajectory of imitative behavior covers large and varied expanses, some of which are grounded in spirituality, which everyday language pejoratively relegates to “aping.” Imitation as a legitimate, indeed essential,{{pg|176|177}} | ||
activity persists, as strongly in childhood echolalia as it does on the mystical level that Thomas à Kempis accords it in his ''Imitation of Christ.'' In its profoundest sense, imitation may lead to a visionary conversion that I attribute to Mailer’s relation to Hemingway as visionary hermeneutic appropriation. Imitation would then come forth as transformative action in the process of forming new a new identity. I believe that was one of the contemplative aims that the writer of ''Imitation of Christ'' had in mind. In this light, the true imitation would appear to be seeking a truth not available otherwise, either to the imitated or the imitator. | |||
Contemporary critical thought habitually disregards such imitative efforts as ultimately derivative, producing no more than redundant, second-hand truth, hardly expected to provide original knowledge and understanding. It is because we often forget that our primordial inclination toward imitative behavior serves us as a catalyst at all levels of human educative processes. To be totally impervious to imitation is to be ''uneducable.'' To imitate is to change, and, strictly speaking, no change is death in the midst of life. A s transient as it often proves to be, what makes imitative behavior possible is the freedom to change, to be, with intelligence and luck, betterthan one might have been otherwise. It implies freedom that solely change can elicit, asis evident in the early games in which children dress up and act as grownups. | |||
Hemingway often serves Mailer as a trampoline for further conceptual and creative modifications of his own desires, conscious or otherwise. In general, perhaps the meditative attitude I have adopted in this essay is in and of itself an imitative example to the degree that it draws from the patterns of traditional meditative literature in general. I would like to end this section by citing a fine story Mailer recounts about Nelson Algren giving a class on writing and inviting Mailer to sit in. Mailer recalls, | |||
<blockquote> | |||
He [Algren] read a story by one of the kids. Third-rate Papa.Afterward, I said to Nelson, “Why did you pay that much attention? He was just copying Hemingway.”And Algren,who was ten years older than me and knew that much more,said,“You know, these kids are better off if they attach themselves to a writer and start imitating him, because they learn a lot doing that.If they’re any good at all, sooner or later they’ll get rid of the influence. But first, they have to get attached to somebody.” That was useful.{{sfn|Mailer|2003|p=76}} | |||
</blockquote>{{pg|177|178}} | |||
=== Notes === | === Notes === | ||