User:Kamyers/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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{{Byline|last=Toback|first=James|note=This essay first appeared in ''Commentary'' magazine in 1967}}

But what if, unlike Mailer and Rojack, one is ''not'' obsessed with psychopathic extremes? What if one’s patience expires at exhibitions of braggadocio? What if one appreciates wit (of which there is some) but loves humor (of which there is none)? Probably one would call ''An American Dream'' a joke, and a bad joke at that. The infantile demand for intermediate and complete attention; the insistence on being taken seriously, literally, and on his own terms at all times; the inability to treat his agony with even a suggestion of laughter or a trace of irony; the sloppy inconsistency of much of the dialogue; and, finally, the sheer loudness that informs the whole novel, a tone alternating between agitation and hysteria—all this works to tire, frustrate, and, at times, infuriate even the most sympathetic reader.

And yet somehow exasperation yields to the suspicion that Mailer’s is a mind which understands as much about the quality of contemporary American life as any now active, a mind which could well represent the last intellectually significant and articulate thrust of an eschatological and religious fervor that may be sorely missed once it is gone. So one is willing to indulge Mailer further, even to thank him once again. And one is willing to accept Rojack’s vision of himself as a fair description of Mailer:

~~{{quote|I had leverage; I was one of the more active figures of the city—no one could be certain finally that nothing large would come to me.}}~~

In 1960 there was reason to hope for a dramatic rebirth of energy and heroism; even the darkest passages of ''The Presidential Papers'' were balanced by intimations that America was not yet doomed. A man could function in society and still find opportunity to grow. By 1966, dream had at last soured into nightmare. ''Cannibals and Christians'', a collection of essays, “poems” (or, more accurately, epigrams and graffiti), and interviews (both real and imaginary), is a sermon whose vision of hell has become dire and inevitable. From Mailer’s pulpit comes a most disconcerting premonition:

{{quote|The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again; it has perhaps not been here so intensely in thirty years, not since the Nazis were prospering, but it is coming . . . . The world is entering a time of plague.}}

Totalitarianism has suffocated individuality; the Hilton in San Francisco is emulated before the Plaza in New York; housing projects look like nurseries and nurseries look like hospitals; appliances are plastic rather than metal; vile bully tactics in Vietnam have developed from simple occupation of Southeast Asia; the psychotic has taken over from the psychopath; pornography has gained another step on sexuality. In a word, Lyndon Johnson has replaced John Kennedy.

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 {{Byline|last=Toback|first=James|note=This essay first appeared in ''Commentary'' magazine in 1967}}
-But what if, unlike Mailer and Rojack, one is ''not'' obsessed with psychopathic extremes? What if one’s patience expires at exhibitions of braggadocio? What if one appreciates wit (of which there is some) but loves humor (of which there is none)? Probably one would call ''An American Dream'' a joke, and a bad joke at that. The infantile demand for intermediate and complete attention; the insistence on being taken seriously, literally, and on his own terms at all times; the inability to treat his agony with even a suggestion of laughter or a trace of irony; the sloppy inconsistency of much of the dialogue; and, finally, the sheer loudness that informs the whole novel, a tone alternating between agitation and hysteria—all this works to tire, frustrate, and, at times, infuriate even the most sympathetic reader.
-And yet somehow exasperation yields to the suspicion that Mailer’s is a mind which understands as much about the quality of contemporary American life as any now active, a mind which could well represent the last intellectually significant and articulate thrust of an eschatological and religious fervor that may be sorely missed once it is gone. So one is willing to indulge Mailer further, even to thank him once again. And one is willing to accept Rojack’s vision of himself as a fair description of Mailer:
-{{quote|I had leverage; I was one of the more active figures of the city—no one could be certain finally that nothing large would come to me.}}
-In 1960 there was reason to hope for a dramatic rebirth of energy and heroism; even the darkest passages of ''The Presidential Papers'' were balanced by intimations that America was not yet doomed. A man could function in society and still find opportunity to grow. By 1966, dream had at last soured into nightmare. ''Cannibals and Christians'', a collection of essays, “poems” (or, more accurately, epigrams and graffiti), and interviews (both real and imaginary), is a sermon whose vision of hell has become dire and inevitable. From Mailer’s pulpit comes a most disconcerting premonition:
-{{quote|The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again; it has perhaps not been here so intensely in thirty years, not since the Nazis were prospering, but it is coming . . . . The world is entering a time of plague.}}
 Totalitarianism has suffocated individuality; the Hilton in San Francisco is emulated before the Plaza in New York; housing projects look like nurseries and nurseries look like hospitals; appliances are plastic rather than metal; vile bully tactics in Vietnam have developed from simple occupation of Southeast Asia; the psychotic has taken over from the psychopath; pornography has gained another step on sexuality. In a word, Lyndon Johnson has replaced John Kennedy.