User:KForeman/sandbox: Difference between revisions

In any case, Farbar had charge of the book. It was his project. The overriding impression that Daley left me with was that Farbar was difficult to work with, did not know what he was doing, taurinely speaking, and was responsible in large part for the haphazardness of the book’s production. To what extent Mailer was aware of how bad the final product was I cannot say, but in subsequent publications, no listing of this item appears on the “Books by Norman Mailer” page.

But what part of the essay, of Norman Mailer’s “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon”? Aside from the obvious allusion to Hemingway’s book in his title, Mailer only mentions Hemingway once. On the first page he avers: “In Mexico, the hour before the fight is always the best hour of the week. It would be memorable not to sound like Hemingway, but you would get happy the night before just thinking of that hour the next day.”That does sound something like Hemingway, but after that first mention, there is no more Hemingway, except perhaps that shadow of his that hovers, sometimes nearer and sometimes farther, but always there, over every word written in English on the subject since 1932. That shadow is one of Mailer’s problems and he not unwisely chooses to go with Hemingway in his tone and title instead of against him, at least in principle.