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The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Jive-Ass Aficionado: Why Are We in Vietnam? and Hemingway's Moral Code: Difference between revisions

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As Laura Adams observes, “three of the most powerful influences on Mailer’s scheme of things have been war and Ernest Hemingway and the intersection of the two” (173). Mailer told an interviewer that Hemingway’s death made him feel “a little weaker” (''Conversations'' 71), no doubt because he had felt a connection. Like Hemingway, Mailer wrote about boxing, he
As Laura Adams observes, “three of the most powerful influences on Mailer’s scheme of things have been war and Ernest Hemingway and the intersection of the two” (173). Mailer told an interviewer that Hemingway’s death made him feel “a little weaker” (''Conversations'' 71), no doubt because he had felt a connection. Like Hemingway, Mailer wrote about boxing, he
wrote about bullfighting, he talked tough, he hung out with tough friends, he went to war, he wrote about war, he backed the underdog, he infuriated feminist#|195#}}
wrote about bullfighting, he talked tough, he hung out with tough friends, he went to war, he wrote about war, he backed the underdog, he infuriated feminist#{{pg 194 #|pg 195#}}
take special delight in writing fiction that shocked readers or showcased his “insider” knowledge. “Hemingway and Fitzgerald are important imaginative figures in my life,” Mailer told the ''Washington Post Book World'' in 1971, explaining that “in Hemingway and Fitzgerald, it’s the sensuous evocation of things. The effect on the gut is closer to poetry” (''Conversations'' 189).
take special delight in writing fiction that shocked readers or showcased his “insider” knowledge. “Hemingway and Fitzgerald are important imaginative figures in my life,” Mailer told the ''Washington Post Book World'' in 1971, explaining that “in Hemingway and Fitzgerald, it’s the sensuous evocation of things. The effect on the gut is closer to poetry” (''Conversations'' 189).


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it in detail” (Hemingway, ''Ernest'' 128).
it in detail” (Hemingway, ''Ernest'' 128).


That’s exactly how Why Are We in Vietnam? is structured with similar effects that it has on the reader. Just as Hemingway’s short stories focused onNick and the personal lives of people “in his time,”while the vignettes served as newspaper-headline reminders of the violent, larger world that was affecting individual psyches, so, too, Mailer’s highly personalized and detailed narrative of sixteen-year-old D.J.’s hunting trip with his father, his father’s business associates, and his best friend Tex in the rugged Brooks Range of Alaska is intercut with “Intro Beeps” that serve the same function and add “rhythm” as did Hemingway’s vignettes. The chapters in ''Why Are We in''
That’s exactly how Why Are We in Vietnam? is structured with similar effects that it has on the reader. Just as Hemingway’s short stories focused onNick and the personal lives of people “in his time,”while the vignettes served as newspaper-headline reminders of the violent, larger world that was affecting individual psyches, so, too, Mailer’s highly personalized and detailed narrative of sixteen-year-old D.J.’s hunting trip with his father, his father’s business associates, and his best friend Tex in the rugged Brooks Range of Alaska is intercut with “Intro Beeps” that serve the same function and add “rhythm” as did Hemingway’s vignettes. The chapters in ''Why Are We in''{{pg 195 #|pg 196 #}}
 
{{pg|195 #|196 #}}


''Vietnam?'' focus on the story of the hunting trip, while the Intro Beeps are digressively vocal ''tour de forces'' that give Mailer the chance to evoke a broader world by allowing D.J. the freedom to rant about things outside the constraints of narrative. For one thing, the Intro Beeps feature the narrator as an eighteen-year-old, so there is a broader prospective already involved. D.J. at eighteen is wiser than D.J. at sixteen, who is recalled in the main narrative. In the Intro Beeps D.J. thinks and “speaks” in an even more pronounced stream-of-consciousness while at a dinner party his parents throw for him the night before he and Tex are scheduled to ship out to fight in Vietnam. It is in these numbered Intro Beeps where D.J., unfettered by storytelling, can rant and ramble about more general and abstract topics like the teachings of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher who warned that the media and the constant bombardment of pop culture messages would have a deleterious effect on the human condition (Mailer, ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' 8).
''Vietnam?'' focus on the story of the hunting trip, while the Intro Beeps are digressively vocal ''tour de forces'' that give Mailer the chance to evoke a broader world by allowing D.J. the freedom to rant about things outside the constraints of narrative. For one thing, the Intro Beeps feature the narrator as an eighteen-year-old, so there is a broader prospective already involved. D.J. at eighteen is wiser than D.J. at sixteen, who is recalled in the main narrative. In the Intro Beeps D.J. thinks and “speaks” in an even more pronounced stream-of-consciousness while at a dinner party his parents throw for him the night before he and Tex are scheduled to ship out to fight in Vietnam. It is in these numbered Intro Beeps where D.J., unfettered by storytelling, can rant and ramble about more general and abstract topics like the teachings of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher who warned that the media and the constant bombardment of pop culture messages would have a deleterious effect on the human condition (Mailer, ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' 8).
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ape in the mind from outrageous frustrates wasting him and so
ape in the mind from outrageous frustrates wasting him and so
now living in an imaginary white brain. . . .(Mailer, ''Why Are We
now living in an imaginary white brain. . . .(Mailer, ''Why Are We
in Vietnam?'' 58)
in Vietnam?'' 58)</blockquote>{{pg 196 #|pg 197 #}}
 
{{pg|196 #|197 #}}


As Adams notes,“Although D.J. can ‘see right through shit’[49], he is not
As Adams notes,“Although D.J. can ‘see right through shit’[49], he is not
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used up, and there’s a hint of garlic or onion, and tobacco, and
used up, and there’s a hint of garlic or onion, and tobacco, and
twenty years of booze gives a little permanent rot to the odor
twenty years of booze gives a little permanent rot to the odor
coming off the lining of the stomach. . . . (133)
coming off the lining of the stomach. . . . (133)</blockquote> {{pg 197 #|pg 198 #}}
 
{{pg|197 #|198 #}}


That the multiple voices and structure of ''Why Are We in Vietnam''? derive from ''In Our Time'' seems even more likely when one considers Mailer’s ending. Curiously, like Hemingway, Mailer also breaks his final narrative installment—Chapters Ten and Eleven—into two, although there is no logical reason for doing so. The tenth chapter ends, “And the boys slept” (197); the eleventh begins, “And woke up in three hours. And it was black, and the fire near to out” (199), in what is most probably a reference to Hemingway’s narrative divisions for “Big-Two Hearted River”—inexplicable to the reading public unless, of course, one considers Hemingway’s desire to incorporate all of the vignettes from ''in our time''. Here, Mailer apparently has a little joke at Hemingway’s expense, breaking up the narrative but then actually drawing attention to the break by juxtaposing the two chapters with no Intro Beep between them, using conjunctions to show they should or could have been one, and positioning the final Intro Beep at the very end of the novel, the way that Hemingway ended his book. By so doing, Mailer engages in an intertextual dialogue with his literary “papa,” as he does with other literary forebears in the interlocutory sections.
That the multiple voices and structure of ''Why Are We in Vietnam''? derive from ''In Our Time'' seems even more likely when one considers Mailer’s ending. Curiously, like Hemingway, Mailer also breaks his final narrative installment—Chapters Ten and Eleven—into two, although there is no logical reason for doing so. The tenth chapter ends, “And the boys slept” (197); the eleventh begins, “And woke up in three hours. And it was black, and the fire near to out” (199), in what is most probably a reference to Hemingway’s narrative divisions for “Big-Two Hearted River”—inexplicable to the reading public unless, of course, one considers Hemingway’s desire to incorporate all of the vignettes from ''in our time''. Here, Mailer apparently has a little joke at Hemingway’s expense, breaking up the narrative but then actually drawing attention to the break by juxtaposing the two chapters with no Intro Beep between them, using conjunctions to show they should or could have been one, and positioning the final Intro Beep at the very end of the novel, the way that Hemingway ended his book. By so doing, Mailer engages in an intertextual dialogue with his literary “papa,” as he does with other literary forebears in the interlocutory sections.
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likelihood that In Our Time is a “sardonic allusion to a well-known phrase
likelihood that In Our Time is a “sardonic allusion to a well-known phrase
from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer: ‘Give peace in our
from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer: ‘Give peace in our
time, O Lord’” (5)—Mailer took the title of an address that President Lyndon Johnson gave at Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 1965 (“Why We Are inVietnam”), in which Johnson presented his case for American involvement, then turned Johnson’s explanatory title into a question . . .which, of course, it was becoming by the spring of 1966 when Mailer began ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' Why was America in Vietnam, and more importantly,
time, O Lord’” (5)—Mailer took the title of an address that President Lyndon Johnson gave at Johns Hopkins University in the spring of 1965 (“Why We Are inVietnam”), in which Johnson presented his case for American involvement, then turned Johnson’s explanatory title into a question . . .which, of course, it was becoming by the spring of 1966 when Mailer began ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' Why was America in Vietnam, and more importantly,{{pg 198 #|pg 199 #}}
 
{{pg|198 #|199 #}}


why would there be, at the time Mailer was inspired to write this novel, still such flag-waving support for Johnson’s war?
why would there be, at the time Mailer was inspired to write this novel, still such flag-waving support for Johnson’s war?
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If Mailer found such early support for the war maddening, in this antiwar novel he again takes his cue from Hemingway, whose famous “iceberg
If Mailer found such early support for the war maddening, in this antiwar novel he again takes his cue from Hemingway, whose famous “iceberg
theory” dictated, “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them” (Hemingway, ''Death'' 192). Hemingway felt that the writing becomes more powerful by omitting things you know, and the quintessential examples of the theory in practice are to be found in the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” in which a couple avoids talk of a pregnancy and abortion, and the final story from ''In Our Time.'' Of “Big Two-Hearted River, Pts. I & II,”Hemingway wrote, “The Story was about coming back from the war but there was no mention of the war in it” (Moveable 76). Nick is a young veteran who not only finds no hero’s welcome; his favorite wilderness fishing area looks like a war zone, blackened by fire. And that
theory” dictated, “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them” (Hemingway, ''Death'' 192). Hemingway felt that the writing becomes more powerful by omitting things you know, and the quintessential examples of the theory in practice are to be found in the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” in which a couple avoids talk of a pregnancy and abortion, and the final story from ''In Our Time.'' Of “Big Two-Hearted River, Pts. I & II,”Hemingway wrote, “The Story was about coming back from the war but there was no mention of the war in it” (Moveable 76). Nick is a young veteran who not only finds no hero’s welcome; his favorite wilderness fishing area looks like a war zone, blackened by fire. And that{{pg 199 #|pg200 #}}
 
{{pg 199 #|200 #}}


external devastation mirrors the interior landscape of his war-ravaged soul. No mention of the war is necessary.
external devastation mirrors the interior landscape of his war-ravaged soul. No mention of the war is necessary.
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had created a consciousness wiser, drier, purer, more classic,
had created a consciousness wiser, drier, purer, more classic,
more sophisticated and more graceful than his own. He was still
more sophisticated and more graceful than his own. He was still
gauche in relation to his creation. (''Pieces'' 91)
gauche in relation to his creation. (''Pieces'' 91)</blockquote>


Partly that is because Hemingway, through his narrative personae, was
Partly that is because Hemingway, through his narrative personae, was
determined not to describe “or depict life—or criticize it—but to actually
determined not to describe “or depict life—or criticize it—but to actually
make it alive. So that . . . you actually experience the thing” (Hemingway, ''Ernest'' 153). Laura Adams was the first to see a similar technique at work in ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', although she stopped short of drawing the connection to Hemingway in identifying the “radical promise” of Mailer’s novel, which is that the reader will not only receive an adequate account of the way things are in America (“know what it’s all about”), but also experience at the level of sensibility remission from the cultural plague that is “an ultimate disease against which all other diseases are in design to protect us” (Adams 124). Adams concludes, in language that makes us think of Hemingway’s goals, “The radicalized or ‘shamanized’ reader, whose silence has been rewarded, participates in Mailer’s attempt to reintegrate the old, now suppressed, human circuitry with the baneful new” (124). And this happens, as it does in Hemingway, through detailed description and a compelling new narrative voice. As one critic astutely observes, D.J. makes us experience the
make it alive. So that . . . you actually experience the thing” (Hemingway, ''Ernest'' 153). Laura Adams was the first to see a similar technique at work in ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'', although she stopped short of drawing the connection to Hemingway in identifying the “radical promise” of Mailer’s novel, which is that the reader will not only receive an adequate account of the way things are in America (“know what it’s all about”), but also experience at the level of sensibility remission from the cultural plague that is “an ultimate disease against which all other diseases are in design to protect us” (Adams 124). Adams concludes, in language that makes us think of Hemingway’s goals, “The radicalized or ‘shamanized’ reader, whose silence has been rewarded, participates in Mailer’s attempt to reintegrate the old, now suppressed, human circuitry with the baneful new” (124). And this happens, as it does in Hemingway, through detailed description and a compelling new narrative voice. As one critic astutely observes, D.J. makes us experience the{{pg 200 #|pg 201 #}}
 
{{pg 200 #|pg 201 #}}
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