User:MerAtticus/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Mailer's rationalizations are unconvinicing and his sordid and sensational section of ''Of Women and Their Elegance'' is a prime example of Mailer's "piling on." To demonstrate the appropriateness of this football metaphor, at the point in her life at which Mailer claims to need a defining episode, like a downed quarterback, Marilyn's background of illegitimacy, foster homes, absent father, family insanity, and a remembered attempted strangling in her crib have effectively already left her "sacked." Any one or any combination of the events of her childhood could more than adequately explain why she would be the unahappy and disturbed person Mailer portrays. Dumping more excrement on her can serve little purpose other than to warrant the author's desire to give license to his lascivious imagination. The pictures he paints are almost cliché in their pornographic purpose. For Marilyn's first Hollywood party Mailer evokes rooms of filthy pictures filled with naked people and the imaginary Bobby "naked except for cowboy boots and a Stetson hat," walking a Doberman named Romulus who tries to get in on the sexual action of the lustful couples.{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=130}}

But the party is only the destination point for the heart of this imaginary episode. Traveling to this party, Mailer indulges his fantasy by having Marilyn engage in a brief fling with a fictional "Rod" (the double entendre is almost funny). They ride to the party on his motorcycle, all the while having sexual intercourse at eighty miles an hour. Making the most of his imaginary license, Mailer has Marilyn explain how she had only "to lean up on the handlebars a little, and he was in the proper place, if from behind, my dear. I could have become an addict".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=129}} The situation only gets more sordid after that.{{efn|Stephan Morrow writes of Shelley Winters getting up and objecting when he played that scene in ''Strawhead''}} As if picturing Marilyn as so dissolute that she rides to the party on a motorcycle having sex with the fictional Rod, after which she gives him {{pg|271|272}}

But the party is only the destination point for the heart of this imaginary episode. Traveling to this party, Mailer indulges his fantasy by having Marilyn engage in a brief fling with a fictional "Rod" (the double entendre is almost funny). They ride to the party on his motorcycle, all the while having sexual intercourse at eighty miles an hour. Making the most of his imaginary license, Mailer has Marilyn explain how she had only "to lean up on the handlebars a little, and he was in the proper place, if from behind, my dear. I could have become an addict".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=129}} The situation only gets more sordid after that.{{efn|Stephan Morrow writes of Shelley Winters getting up and objecting when he played that scene in ''Strawhead''}} As if picturing Marilyn as so dissolute that she rides to the party on a motorcycle having sex with the fictional Rod, after which she gives him {{pg|271|272}} a "blow-job" only to spend the night in an orgy with Bobby is not enough, Mailer also givees her murderous inclinations. When the nefarious Bobby suggests they go over and cut his wife's throat, Mailer's Marilyn creation responds with "excitement." The prospect of murder stimulates her to the declaration that "I was nearer to myself than I ever wanted to be".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=137}} She relishes the idea that "everyone would talk of me," seeing it as "beautiful".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|pp=137-8}} She acknowledges that she is "ready to commit murder."{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=138}} Murder is so appealing to her that it vanquishes her headache. If Mailer's excuse for this sensationalism is that he had to create something awful in her past to explain her future bad behavior, his is a sharply flawed argument. In this fictional episode, Mailer's Marilyn is already so lacking in any moral compass that she goes through all the motions of participating in murder, only prevented from the act because it turns out that the designated victim is not there. She is willing to commit murder with a man who does not even know her "phone number or my address, or even my last name".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=142}} Logically, whatever brought her to this morally bankrupt state had happened earlier and Mailer's invention should be flagged by the referee as unnecessary roughness. Two days after this imaginary episode, Mailer adds the information that she has an abortion. Cleverly, in his self-defense before the imaginary literary bar, Mailer has the Prosecutor question him about the factual basis for Bobby de Peralta and the murder plot. He acknowledges that he has none and even allows his Prosecutor creation to describe is actions as "outrageous" ("Before" 40). And I would add self-indulgent.

Even on his own terms, with himself as judge and jury, Mailer's defense rings hollow. He claims that without such an episode the reader would be left with a characterization of Marilyn that presents only her "sweet, charming, madcap" side, thereby unable to understand why on so attractive would end so badly. Acknowledging what might have been "a failure of invention," he concedes that it is difficult "to conceive of one powerful dramatic episode that will substitute satisfactorily for the sum of a thousand smaller episodes".{{sfn|Mailer|10 Nov 1980|p=45}} And that is, I would argue, because the thousand smaller episodees are more than sufficient explanation by themselves. Mailer, on the basis of what he calls "general knowledge" about the life of a Hollywood starlet.{{sfn|Mailer|10 Nov 1980|p=33}}, gives Marilyn the kind of demeaning and humiliating experiences that, along with her genetic and childhood history, could adequately explain her later behavior. Mailer has her remember being sent to perform fellatio on three executives in a row, on the half hour, before going to acting class. He even {{pg|272|273}}

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 Mailer's rationalizations are unconvinicing and his sordid and sensational section of ''Of Women and Their Elegance'' is a prime example of Mailer's "piling on." To demonstrate the appropriateness of this football metaphor, at the point in her life at which Mailer claims to need a defining episode, like a downed quarterback, Marilyn's background of illegitimacy, foster homes, absent father, family insanity, and a remembered attempted strangling in her crib have effectively already left her "sacked." Any one or any combination of the events of her childhood could more than adequately explain why she would be the unahappy and disturbed person Mailer portrays. Dumping more excrement on her can serve little purpose other than to warrant the author's desire to give license to his lascivious imagination. The pictures he paints are almost cliché in their pornographic purpose. For Marilyn's first Hollywood party Mailer evokes rooms of filthy pictures filled with naked people and the imaginary Bobby "naked except for cowboy boots and a Stetson hat," walking a Doberman named Romulus who tries to get in on the sexual action of the lustful couples.{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=130}}
-But the party is only the destination point for the heart of this imaginary episode. Traveling to this party, Mailer indulges his fantasy by having Marilyn engage in a brief fling with a fictional "Rod" (the double entendre is almost funny). They ride to the party on his motorcycle, all the while having sexual intercourse at eighty miles an hour. Making the most of his imaginary license, Mailer has Marilyn explain how she had only "to lean up on the handlebars a little, and he was in the proper place, if from behind, my dear. I could have become an addict".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=129}} The situation only gets more sordid after that.{{efn|Stephan Morrow writes of Shelley Winters getting up and objecting when he played that scene in ''Strawhead''}} As if picturing Marilyn as so dissolute that she rides to the party on a motorcycle having sex with the fictional Rod, after which she gives him {{pg|271|272}}
+But the party is only the destination point for the heart of this imaginary episode. Traveling to this party, Mailer indulges his fantasy by having Marilyn engage in a brief fling with a fictional "Rod" (the double entendre is almost funny). They ride to the party on his motorcycle, all the while having sexual intercourse at eighty miles an hour. Making the most of his imaginary license, Mailer has Marilyn explain how she had only "to lean up on the handlebars a little, and he was in the proper place, if from behind, my dear. I could have become an addict".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=129}} The situation only gets more sordid after that.{{efn|Stephan Morrow writes of Shelley Winters getting up and objecting when he played that scene in ''Strawhead''}} As if picturing Marilyn as so dissolute that she rides to the party on a motorcycle having sex with the fictional Rod, after which she gives him {{pg|271|272}} a "blow-job" only to spend the night in an orgy with Bobby is not enough, Mailer also givees her murderous inclinations. When the nefarious Bobby suggests they go over and cut his wife's throat, Mailer's Marilyn creation responds with "excitement." The prospect of murder stimulates her to the declaration that "I was nearer to myself than I ever wanted to be".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=137}} She relishes the idea that "everyone would talk of me," seeing it as "beautiful".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|pp=137-8}} She acknowledges that she is "ready to commit murder."{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=138}} Murder is so appealing to her that it vanquishes her headache. If Mailer's excuse for this sensationalism is that he had to create something awful in her past to explain her future bad behavior, his is a sharply flawed argument. In this fictional episode, Mailer's Marilyn is already so lacking in any moral compass that she goes through all the motions of participating in murder, only prevented from the act because it turns out that the designated victim is not there. She is willing to commit murder with a man who does not even know her "phone number or my address, or even my last name".{{sfn|Mailer|1980|p=142}} Logically, whatever brought her to this morally bankrupt state had happened earlier and Mailer's invention should be flagged by the referee as unnecessary roughness. Two days after this imaginary episode, Mailer adds the information that she has an abortion. Cleverly, in his self-defense before the imaginary literary bar, Mailer has the Prosecutor question him about the factual basis for Bobby de Peralta and the murder plot. He acknowledges that he has none and even allows his Prosecutor creation to describe is actions as "outrageous" ("Before" 40). And I would add self-indulgent.
+Even on his own terms, with himself as judge and jury, Mailer's defense rings hollow. He claims that without such an episode the reader would be left with a characterization of Marilyn that presents only her "sweet, charming, madcap" side, thereby unable to understand why on so attractive would end so badly. Acknowledging what might have been "a failure of invention," he concedes that it is difficult "to conceive of one powerful dramatic episode that will substitute satisfactorily for the sum of a thousand smaller episodes".{{sfn|Mailer|10 Nov 1980|p=45}} And that is, I would argue, because the thousand smaller episodees are more than sufficient explanation by themselves. Mailer, on the basis of what he calls "general knowledge" about the life of a Hollywood starlet.{{sfn|Mailer|10 Nov 1980|p=33}}, gives Marilyn the kind of demeaning and humiliating experiences that, along with her genetic and childhood history, could adequately explain her later behavior. Mailer has her remember being sent to perform fellatio on three executives in a row, on the half hour, before going to acting class. He even {{pg|272|273}}