51.2

“Talk with Norman Mailer.” Interview by Harvey Breit. New York Times, 3 June, Sec. 7, p. 3. Important comment on the influence of Moby-Dick on The Naked and the Dead (48.2). Mailer says of 48.2: “I had Ahab in it, and I suppose the mountain was Moby Dick. Of course, I also think the book will stand or fall as a realistic novel.” Rpt: The Writer Observed, by Harvey Breit. Cleveland: World, 1956; 88.6. See Bernard Horn’s article, “Ahab and Ishmael at War: The Presence of Moby-Dick in The Naked and the Dead,” American Quarterly 34 (fall 1982), 379–95.