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A N G S T, A U T H O R S H I P, C R I T I C S : | A N G S T, A U T H O R S H I P, C R I T I C S : | ||
== | == "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 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 | 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 | ||
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(–), 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. | (–), 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" == | ||
HEMINGWAY AND “THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO” (1936) | HEMINGWAY AND “THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO” (1936) | ||