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A N G S T, A U T | A N G S T, A U T H O R S H I P, C R I T I C S : | ||
== Heading text == | == Heading text == | ||
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself | “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself | ||
R A Y M O N D M . V I N C E | R A Y M O N D M. V I N C E | ||
IT IS NOT EASY BEING A GREAT WRITER. Nor is it easy—as various members of Norman Mailer’s family have testified—living with a great writer. The vocation of the serious author involves, along with a multitude of passions and perspectives, a good deal of angst. In using the term angst, I mean a deep sense of existential dread, but more particularly a peculiar experience of alienation that may be inseparable—it has been argued—from | IT IS NOT EASY BEING A GREAT WRITER. Nor is it easy—as various members of Norman Mailer’s family have testified—living with a great writer. The vocation of the serious author involves, along with a multitude of passions and perspectives, a good deal of angst. In using the term angst, I mean a deep sense of existential dread, but more particularly a peculiar experience of alienation that may be inseparable—it has been argued—from twentieth-century authorship. Hilary Justice has described a kind of “writer/author alienation” () experienced both by Mailer and Hemingway, and their differing responses to that alienation.1 | ||
Hemingway saw this alienation as a paradox and sought to eliminate it through force of will and pedantry. Mailer, having learned from Hemingway (and writing not as a Modernist but Postmodernist), embraced the paradox and gave it | Hemingway saw this alienation as a paradox and sought to eliminate it through force of will and pedantry. Mailer, having learned from Hemingway (and writing not as a Modernist but Postmodernist), embraced the paradox and gave it centre stage. . . . Their future success as novelists (which would in both cases be uneven) would depend for the remainder of their careers on how successfully each negotiated the inescapable alienation of writer from the author that was intrinsic to mid-twentieth-century American authorship. () | ||
Her description of Mailer as one who “embraced the paradox and gave it | Her description of Mailer as one who “embraced the paradox and gave it centre stage” sounds familiar to those of us who value and teach his work. | ||
The phrase brings us face to face with the complex relationship between | The phrase brings us face to face with the complex relationship between | ||
THE MAILER REVIEW, VOL. , NO. , FALL . Copyright © . The Norman Mailer Society. Published by The Norman Mailer Society. | THE MAILER REVIEW, VOL. , NO. , FALL . Copyright © . The Norman Mailer Society. Published by The Norman Mailer Society. | ||
Mailer’s fiction and nonfiction, and between the writer and the public figure. Few contemporary writers have “embraced the paradox” as much as Mailer, but this “writer/author alienation” (Justice ) would seem to be common to many twentieth-century authors. My conviction is that these three authors—Norman Mailer (–), Ernest Hemingway | Mailer’s fiction and nonfiction, and between the writer and the public figure. Few contemporary writers have “embraced the paradox” as much as Mailer, but this “writer/author alienation” (Justice ) would seem to be common to many twentieth-century authors. My conviction is that these three authors—Norman Mailer (–), Ernest Hemingway | ||
(–), and F. Scott Fitzgerald (–)—in struggling with that alienation, reveal a profound experience of angst, | (–), and F. Scott Fitzgerald (–)—in struggling with that alienation, reveal a profound experience of angst, the angst that was both personal and cultural. Their literary responses were very different, as we shall see, but each writer was able to find a degree of aesthetic distance that transformed that angst into art. | ||
To illustrate this claim, I want to compare Mailer’s genre-bending work Advertisements for Myself () with Hemingway’s short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” () and Fitzgerald’s three essays known as “The Crack Up” (). There are some interesting parallels to note. In career arc, each writer had published about three major works—one of which now has classic status. In age, each man was between and years old. In their public role as authors, each felt challenged and embattled by the critics. In addition, these two historical moments— amid the Great Depression and a decade or so into the Cold War—portray an America experiencing great uncertainty and on the cusp of enormous change. Personally and culturally, there was plenty of angst going round.2 | To illustrate this claim, I want to compare Mailer’s genre-bending work Advertisements for Myself () with Hemingway’s short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” () and Fitzgerald’s three essays known as “The Crack Up” (). There are some interesting parallels to note. In career arc, each writer had published about three major works—one of which now has classic status. In age, each man was between and years old. In their public role as authors, each felt challenged and embattled by the critics. In addition, these two historical moments— amid the Great Depression and a decade or so into the Cold War—portray an America experiencing great uncertainty and on the cusp of enormous change. Personally and culturally, there was plenty of angst going round.2 | ||
== HEMINGWAY AND "THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO" == | |||
HEMINGWAY AND “THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO” (1936) | HEMINGWAY AND “THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO” (1936) | ||
In his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Hemingway began his long search for what Rose Marie Burwell has called “a form and style that would express his reflexive vision of the artist” (), a search that occupied him to the end of his life.3 The story tells of Harry, dying on the African plain of gangrene, arguing bitterly with his wife, Helen. With regret, he remembers his life: what he had seen, what he remembered, and what he had not written, | In his short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Hemingway began his long search for what Rose Marie Burwell has called “a form and style that would express his reflexive vision of the artist” (), a search that occupied him to the end of his life.3 The story tells of Harry, dying on the African plain of gangrene, arguing bitterly with his wife, Helen. With regret, he remembers his life: what he had seen, what he remembered, and what he had not written, | ||