User:Amylhester/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Norman Mailer was one of the most ambitious writers of our time. He had enormous faith in the power of writing to influence and change society and to alter the quality of human life. Despite the controversies that swirled around his public figure, he should be more recognized for the scope of his efforts to use his writing to transform America. With bravado, courage, and a bit of recklessness, he has repeatedly proclaimed his ''personal'' ambition to place himself, as a writer, in the company of literary giants and thereby remedy what he believes are America’s literary deficiencies, while also promising that he is about to write a novel that will create the “revolution in consciousness” (''Advertisements 17'') which he believes is necessary to rejuvenate a stagnant America,{{efn|1. See again ''Advertisements'' as well as essays in ''Cannibals and Christians'' and Norman Mailer, ''Pieces and Pontifications'' (Boston: Little Brown, 1982). This point recurs throughout his writing.}} through writing the “great American novel” which will “tell the truth of our times.” Undoubtedly, however, this effort has been fraught with difficulties; as Carl Rollyson explains in his biography of Mailer: “In the forty years since The Naked and the Dead Mailer has been searching for a way to write the great panoramic American novel.... America had seemed too complex for any single novelist—no matter how mature—to take on (359).” His last, sustained effort to reveal America through a work of fiction is the long historical novel about the CIA, ''Harlot’s Ghost''. However, this novel has been overlooked as the culmination of Mailer’s project of a fictional representation of America and therefore largely ignored as the important work of politically engaged fiction that I believe it is.{{efn|2. One of the many critics who argue this way is Heather Nielson (pp. 23–41), who sums up her conclusion about Mailer’s politics based on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and ''Oswald’s Tale'' by stating, “What an examination of the persistent presence of Kennedy in their writings tends to suggest is that, for all Mailer’s non-conformism, his oeuvre serves to ultimately uphold the defining myths of the society which he describes, while that of Vidal works to undermine them” (23). While her analysis of the episodes featuring Kennedy in Mailer’s work and Vidal’s is persuasive in showing that Mailer’s writings on Kennedy are more positive than Vidal’s, this doesn’t justify, in my opinion, the broad conclusions she draws. On the other hand, the major critic who has treated ''Harlot’s Ghost'' as a whole, John Whalen-Bridge argues persuasively in “The Myth of American Adam in Late Mailer” that Mailer’s novel debunks the “myth of the American Adam.” This “myth” described by R.W.B. Lewis (and others) concerns alleged American “innocence” which Whalen-Bridge convincingly demonstrates is undermined by the novel. Whalen-Bridge is the major scholar that has written in detail on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and draws the conclusion that “His [Mailer’s

in a form they can master” (Aesthetics and Politics 81){{efn|7. This phrase comes from Brecht’s polemic around the ''nature'' of realism with Georg Lukács “Against Lukács” in ''Aesthetics and Politics'' (NY: Verso, 1978 p. 81).}} seems the prerequisite for any politically useful fiction and sets up relevant criteria for evaluating ''Harlot’s Ghost''. Therefore, Mailer’s unwillingness or inability to write an ending or sequel to ''Harlot’s Ghost'' will be considered in light of such Brechtian goals. This paper will show that the novel’s lack of resolution is best understood not as a personal failure, or as symptomatic of the impossibility of political writing at the present time, but rather represents a new and valuable strategy in Mailer’s efforts to present unpleasant realities of American society. It should be noted, in passing, that my argument is not based on Mailer’s conscious ''intention'', which cannot be definitively ascertained, but rather on the logic of the novel in relation to its historical and political subject matter and Mailer’s stated objectives. These objectives are derived from Mailer’s career-long writings, interviews and public pronouncements and, in my view, form a clear and definable worldview and approach to human existence and human freedom.

With a few notable exceptions, this novel hasn’t fared well among critics and readers because it has been taken as conservative and sympathetic to the CIA, and because of its lack of an ending. These reactions need to be reconsidered. The novel is not a flattering portrait of the CIA, as we shall see, despite the tendency of some commentators to conflate the politics of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' with that of its narrator and protagonist, Harry Hubbard who, at least initially, views the CIA as a noble organization.{{efn|8. Mary Dearborn in her recent biography of Norman Mailer takes this view of the work. She writes, “To Hubbard, America is a country that ‘had God’s sanction’ and he is privileged and honored to serve it” and concludes from her reading of the novel that “Norman’s admiration for the CIA, and his approval of what he takes to be its patrician ways, is obvious in Harlot’s Ghost” (p. 409). This seems to me to miss the ambiguity and tension that drive the novel and represents a too simplistic conflation of the framework of the protagonist with the logic of the novel.}} ''Harlot’s Ghost'' presents a damning vision of contemporary American society that fits into an alternative canon of politically engaged, Cold War literature that find traditional modes of representation inadequate for conditions of late capitalism. The novel’s lack of closure, although frustrating to many readers, reflects an unwillingness to artificially resolve the real historical conditions and conflicts depicted in the novel—even if this is a post-facto explanation. This refusal of premature closure represents a new politics of form for Mailer. To understand the novel’s lack of ending, we need to consider the subtle and unexpected affinities between Mailer’s performance and the Brechtian concepts of how political art should function as elaborated by Walter Benjamin.{{efn|9. See Brecht, “The Modern Theater is the Epic Theater” in Brecht on Theater.}} The novel’s lack of closure is best understood by considering it in light of Walter Benjamin’s famous essay, influenced by Brecht, “The Author as Producer.”{{efn|10. See Benjamin pp. 85–105. I wish to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Mailer was influenced by this essay directly but rather that it helps us understand the functioning and logic of the structure of the novel. While Mailer never cites Benjamin or Brecht, in relation to this novel or in any of his writings (that I know of), his explanation for the structure of the novel, quoted towards the end of this essay (see footnote 45) echoes their approach.}} Benjamin confronts the question that has haunted Mailer for years—namely, how can authors effectively and meaningfully use their writing to expand creativity and human freedom{{efn|11. Benjamin pp. 85–105.}} in the face of the de-personalizing effects of modern capitalism. It is often the case that the politics of a work of fiction is reduced to its explicit political content but Benjamin, in contrast makes the claim, still radical in current circumstances, that “the tendency of a work of literature can be politically correct only if it is also correct in the literary sense,” (86) inextricably linking political content to form. Therefore, by Benjamin’s criteria the politics of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' do not reside in what it overtly tells us about the politics of the CIA, but rather through a more complex dialectic between the novel’s form and content. The justification for Benjamin’s assertion lies in his description of a situation in which,“we are in the midst of a vast process in which literary forms are being melted down, a process in which many of the contrasts in terms of which we have been accustomed to think may lose their relevance” (87), which is more true in the contemporary media and information explosion that accompanies late capitalism than when Benjamin wrote. Mailer’s incomplete novel can be taken as coherent if, despite the belief that we live in a post-ideological era where the struggle between capitalism and its challenges are over, the issues at the heart of the Cold War remain unresolved, leaving a final word impossible.

There is a strange ambiguity within ''Harlot’s Ghost'' concerning the novel’s subject matter. The novel is about real historical events yet it also serves as a ''Bildüngsroman'' (as Hubbard himself describes the work) (''HG'' 109) under the veneer of the spy genre. ''Harlot’s Ghost'' certainly disappoints readers who expect the traditional features of spy novels, since all of the experiences described are left profoundly opaque and there are no heroic resolutions à la Ian Fleming. Perhaps the closest literary comparison would be Conrad’s ''The Secret Agent'' since both novels are filled with bureaucratic machinations, unsavory characters, and a vision of society in terminal crisis, although Mailer never provides even the limited cognitive satisfaction of Conrad’s highly ambiguous work. In ''The Secret Agent'', readers are at least provided with enough details to understand the motivations of the characters and the events of the novel. ''Harlot’s Ghost'' features an almost complete, radical indeterminacy, where it is not just the characters that don’t know the meaning of the events but also the readers and perhaps even the author himself. This situation is justified by understanding the real subject matter of the novel.

Critics who have written about the novel have generally taken it as a simple novel about the CIA, and have failed to notice its allegorical features and the way the novel operates.{{efn|12. A notable exception, as mentioned above, is John Whalen-Bridge.}} On the literal level, the novel treats historical events from the Cold War and espionage. On a deeper level, the novel concerns issues central to Mailer, namely the possibility of creativity, freedom, and the cost of success in American society. Mailer’s intellectual framework, based on the valorization of courage and existential integrity as the road to self-expansion, is tested in this novel through characters who strive to succeed in influencing history.{{efn|13. See ''An American Dream'' and the episodes of rock climbing in ''Harlot’s Ghost''.}} Further, as is often true of Mailer’s writing, questions of individuality and freedom intersect with the status of ''writing'' and being a ''writer''. The status of writing is explicitly at stake since the novel is formed by a series of incomplete narratives with missing information from the protagonist Hubbard, who at one point explains, “I clung to my writings as if they were body organs” (102). Hubbard feels that if he can narrate the events he will have gained knowledge and provided absolute truths; however, since his narrative if fragmentary, filled with gaps, and incomplete, he cannot fulfill either goal.

Mailer’s treatment of the dangers and conditions of life in the CIA gives a clue to the novel’s real subject matter, which is broader than just the military and information gathering features of the Cold War. The Cold War and espionage serve as parts of a greater whole, as metonymic representations of the nature of life in America. This explains the fact that we find few episodes of physical danger in Mailer’s CIA. Instead, the difficulty of CIA work seems to parallel the struggles of any individual striving for success inside a large, faceless bureaucracy and an impersonal society. Harry Hubbard describes himself at the beginning of the novel when he reviews his entire career, as a once-promising CIA operative, who is reduced to hack status. He has failed in every major project and has been reduced to the object of amusement by his colleagues who whisper about his failed potential. Indeed, all the agents in the novel, whether fictional or based on real CIA agents, are obsessed with the most American of ambitions: career advancement. Courage, skill, and grace (key values for Mailer) are generally tested in the shark infested waters of “the Company,” not by evil madmen intent on taking over the world, but by common features of life in capitalist America, including the struggle for career advancement. The dangers to America are what America is becoming. This theme is familiar in Mailer’s work and has been accurately summarized by Harold Bloom as conditions of,“[A]n America where he [Mailer] sees our bodies and spirits as becoming increasingly artificial, even ‘plastic’....” (“Norman” 40). In other words, authentic experience and meaningful action is constantly threatened by standardizing features and mediocrity prevalent in the CIA (“the Company” extraordinaire).

accurate information or “intelligence.” Hubbard makes clear that he is attracted to the CIA precisely because, as he explains in his CIA personal history statement, “''I have been brought up to face ultimates''” (182), which reflects the belief that the CIA is the road to truth and effective action. However, truth is never so easy. Harlot argues to Hubbard that the successful completion of the tunnel would have been a disaster because it would have provided ''too much'' information about the real state of affairs in the Soviet bloc (a weak level of military preparedness and a series of bankrupt economies), which would threaten CIA funding. Harlot prefers disinformation to accurate information because it justifies future government expenditures. Did he set up Hubbard? Another possibility readers are forced to consider is that Harlot himself is a double agent and therefore subverts the tunnel to aid the Soviets. Readers, like Hubbard, never know for sure.