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The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/How Mailer Became “Mailer”: The Writer as Private and Public Character: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/How Mailer Became “Mailer”: The Writer as Private and Public Character (view source)
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{{abstract | {{Byline|last=Dickstein|first=Morris|url=https://prmlr.us/mr07dick|abstract=Mailer has been our most protean writer, remarkably consistent in his themes yet always surprising in the ways he finds to pursue them, beginning with his own inimitable style. In choosing his subjects he was like a riverboat gambler restless for risk; each new venture depended on bold strokes that could as soon fail as succeed. Strategies that worked well would never be exactly repeated. Invariably he was engaging the moment, never writing for the uniform edition.|note=This paper served as the keynote address at a conference, “The Sense of Our Time: Norman Mailer and America in Conflict,” held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin, November 9–11, 2006. I am grateful to the director, Thomas Staley, and his colleagues for inviting me to participate.}} | ||
It’s a privilege, though daunting, for me to take part in a conference that celebrates the opening of what is sure to become one of the indispensable archives in modern American letters, especially with the subject himself in attendance. At the same time this event leaves me uneasy. [[Norman Mailer]] has always prided himself on being unpredictable, unsettling. This is after all a living, unruly body of work, virtually unclassifiable in its range and variety. For close to sixty years, Mailer has been our most protean writer, remarkably consistent in his themes yet always surprising in the ways he finds to pursue them, beginning with his own inimitable style. As his early novels were quick to demonstrate, no two of Mailer’s books would ever be quite alike. In choosing his subjects he was like a riverboat gambler restless for risk; each new venture depended on bold strokes that could as soon fail as succeed. Strategies that worked well would never be exactly repeated. Invariably he was engaging the moment, never writing for the uniform edition. | It’s a privilege, though daunting, for me to take part in a conference that celebrates the opening of what is sure to become one of the indispensable archives in modern American letters, especially with the subject himself in attendance. At the same time this event leaves me uneasy. [[Norman Mailer]] has always prided himself on being unpredictable, unsettling. This is after all a living, unruly body of work, virtually unclassifiable in its range and variety. For close to sixty years, Mailer has been our most protean writer, remarkably consistent in his themes yet always surprising in the ways he finds to pursue them, beginning with his own inimitable style. As his early novels were quick to demonstrate, no two of Mailer’s books would ever be quite alike. In choosing his subjects he was like a riverboat gambler restless for risk; each new venture depended on bold strokes that could as soon fail as succeed. Strategies that worked well would never be exactly repeated. Invariably he was engaging the moment, never writing for the uniform edition. | ||
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