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A Social Eye: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one's position but made it more perilous.” -''[[The Deer Park]]''}} | {{quote|“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one's position but made it more perilous.” -''[[The Deer Park]]''}} | ||
[[ | ''[[Norman Mailer]]'', Living Legend. Known to gangsters, known to Presidents, known to readers of the ''Daily News''. Wielder of the knife in the New York night. Actor in some national sexual fantasy. Candidate for Mayor, citizen-on-the-spot for civic improvement. Subject of the city’s morning chorus, offered up with careful nonchalance by people he does not recall: "''Nor''man dropped up, late, drunk of course.” “''Nor''man was there, and be''hav''ed ''bad''ly.” Norman Mailer, ''Tout-New York''. | ||
Let us try, for a moment, Norman Mailer, Novelist, a ''persona'' which many people who know ''Nor''man prefer to patronize. Mailer is challenged to “writing contests” by advertising copywriters, condescended to by the kind of people who refer to Joseph Heller as "an authentic voice,” deprecated by failed fashion models whose attention span for printed matter stops with the plane schedule to Montego Bay. He writes "a lot of the ''voodoo'' about ''cancer'',” reports the ''Herald Tribune's'' Writer of the Year. And if it had always been easy to laugh at Mailer, it was never easier than when he announced, clearly in trouble, running scared, that he had dared himself to write a novel in installments for [[w:Esquire (magazine)|''Esquire'']]. ("Only a second-rater would take a stupid dare like that ,” as Lulu says in ''The Deer Park''.) Nonetheless, that novel, ''[[An American Dream]]'', is one more instance in which Mailer is going to laugh last, for it is a remarkable book, a novel in many ways as good as ''The Deer Park'', and ''The Deer Park'' is in many ways a perfect novel. | Let us try, for a moment, Norman Mailer, Novelist, a ''persona'' which many people who know ''Nor''man prefer to patronize. Mailer is challenged to “writing contests” by advertising copywriters, condescended to by the kind of people who refer to Joseph Heller as "an authentic voice,” deprecated by failed fashion models whose attention span for printed matter stops with the plane schedule to Montego Bay. He writes "a lot of the ''voodoo'' about ''cancer'',” reports the ''Herald Tribune's'' Writer of the Year. And if it had always been easy to laugh at Mailer, it was never easier than when he announced, clearly in trouble, running scared, that he had dared himself to write a novel in installments for [[w:Esquire (magazine)|''Esquire'']]. ("Only a second-rater would take a stupid dare like that ,” as Lulu says in ''The Deer Park''.) Nonetheless, that novel, ''[[An American Dream]]'', is one more instance in which Mailer is going to laugh last, for it is a remarkable book, a novel in many ways as good as ''The Deer Park'', and ''The Deer Park'' is in many ways a perfect novel. | ||