User:KWatson/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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cerebral palsy or some such thing”(A). Mailer’s voice, however, much like

his persona, is not at all God-given and never “is what it is.” Rather, Mailer’s

Page break

voice is a deliberate construction pieced together from bits of others’ voices

in order to mask the adenoidal voice of his childhood.

Mailer reflects briefly upon his voice in his chronicle of the October 1967 March on the Pentagon, ''The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History'', written in the third person with himself as its main character. Part IV of ''Armies'' begins with an apology from Mailer for bringing the story of the March on the Pentagon to a climax and then launching into a diversion about his relationship to film and the cameras following him through the melee of the march. Mailer writes of his relationship to film: “he had on screen in this first documentary a fatal taint, a last remaining speck of the one personality he found absolutely insupportable—the nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn. Something in his adenoids gave it away—he had the softness of a man early accustomed to mother-love” (Armies 152). For Mailer, the paradoxical experience of seeing his voice undermines the masculinities he works to materialize in his career as a writer and public intellectual, which he goes on to enumerate: “warrior, presumptive general, ex-political candidate, embattled aging enfant terrible of the literary world, wise father of six children, radical intellectual, existential philosopher, hard-working author, champion of obscenity, husband of four battling sweet wives, amiable bar

drinker, and much exaggerated street fighter, party giver, hostess insulter.” As

a result of feeling outed on film as a “nice Jewish boy,” “accustomed to mother love,” our presumptive general and champion of obscenity vows to “[stay] away from further documentaries of himself” (Armies 152).

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 cerebral palsy or some such thing”(A). Mailer’s voice, however, much like
 his persona, is not at all God-given and never “is what it is.” Rather, Mailer’s
+Page break
+voice is a deliberate construction pieced together from bits of others’ voices
+in order to mask the adenoidal voice of his childhood.
+Mailer reflects briefly upon his voice in his chronicle of the October 1967 March on the Pentagon, ''The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History'', written in the third person with himself as its main character. Part IV of ''Armies'' begins with an apology from Mailer for bringing the story of the March on the Pentagon to a climax and then launching into a diversion about his relationship to film and the cameras following him through the melee of the march. Mailer writes of his relationship to film: “he had on screen in this first documentary a fatal taint, a last remaining speck of the one personality he found absolutely insupportable—the nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn. Something in his adenoids gave it away—he had the softness of a man early accustomed to mother-love” (Armies 152). For Mailer, the paradoxical experience of seeing his voice undermines the masculinities he works to materialize in his career as a writer and public intellectual, which he goes on to enumerate: “warrior, presumptive general, ex-political candidate, embattled aging enfant terrible of the literary world, wise father of six children, radical intellectual, existential philosopher, hard-working author, champion of obscenity, husband of four battling sweet wives, amiable bar
+drinker, and much exaggerated street fighter, party giver, hostess insulter.” As
+a result of feeling outed on film as a “nice Jewish boy,” “accustomed to mother love,” our presumptive general and champion of obscenity vows to “[stay] away from further documentaries of himself” (Armies 152).