The Mailer Review/Volume 10, 2016/The Curious Story of Norman Mailer’s Engagement with Short Fiction: Difference between revisions

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 ===The Apocalypse According to Mailer in “The Last Night: A Story”===
-Here I would like to examine Mailer’s “The Last Night: A Story,” partly because I find in it an interesting confluence of themes and genres, perhaps a unique one for Mailer, and partly because it is one of his stories that I believe sneaks unannounced by the author into the category of important fiction. At a minimum, “Last Night” resonates with both edenic and apocalyptic biblical motifs, contains obvious elements of science fiction, employs satire, some of which has affinities with Menippean satire, and partakes of the utopian tradition but on the dystopian side of it. Mailer begins this story with a NOTE TO THE READER in which he explains why “a movie must be based on a novel, a story, a play, or an original idea. I suppose that it could even derive from a poem. ‘Let’s do The Wasteland,’ said a character of mine named Collie Munshin” [in the play ''Deer Park''].{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=207}} In this way, Mailer is able to make a jocular double mini-ad for himself—I call it a double advertisement, because he combines reference to his earlier play with a “note” that promotes the idea that his story could be the basis of a future film. To make sure that the reader hasn’t missed his point, Mailer further underscores his purpose by defining what he calls a “treatment . . . to present for the attention of a producer, a director, or a script reader.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=207}}
+Here I would like to examine Mailer’s “[[The Last Night: A Story]],” partly because I find in it an interesting confluence of themes and genres, perhaps a unique one for Mailer, and partly because it is one of his stories that I believe sneaks unannounced by the author into the category of important fiction. At a minimum, “Last Night” resonates with both edenic and apocalyptic biblical motifs, contains obvious elements of science fiction, employs satire, some of which has affinities with Menippean satire, and partakes of the utopian tradition but on the dystopian side of it. Mailer begins this story with a NOTE TO THE READER in which he explains why “a movie must be based on a novel, a story, a play, or an original idea. I suppose that it could even derive from a poem. ‘Let’s do The Wasteland,’ said a character of mine named Collie Munshin” [in the play ''Deer Park''].{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=207}} In this way, Mailer is able to make a jocular double mini-ad for himself—I call it a double advertisement, because he combines reference to his earlier play with a “note” that promotes the idea that his story could be the basis of a future film. To make sure that the reader hasn’t missed his point, Mailer further underscores his purpose by defining what he calls a “treatment . . . to present for the attention of a producer, a director, or a script reader.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=207}}
-“Last Night” is a story that treats a question that was timely when written in 1962 and remains so to this day, namely the degradation of the environment by mankind’s misuse of technology, a question that takes on more relevance with each passing day. Specifically, Mailer is referring to massive radiation fallout brought on by the testing of atomic bombs by “the Americans, Russians, English, French, the Algerians, Africans, the Israelis and the
+“Last Night” is a story that treats a question that was timely when written in 1962 and remains so to this day, namely the degradation of the environment by mankind’s misuse of technology, a question that takes on more relevance with each passing day. Specifically, Mailer is referring to massive radiation fallout brought on by the testing of atomic bombs by “the Americans, Russians, English, French, the Algerians, Africans, the Israelis and the Chinese, not to mention the Turks, Hindus and Yugoslavians.” Whereas before, guilt for such a situation would have been ascribed to a single nation, now “no one is innocent.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=209}} The Cold War is over and nations have agreed that “Man had succeeded in so polluting the atmosphere that he was doomed to expire himself.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=210}}
-Chinese, not to mention the Turks, Hindus and Yugoslavians.” Whereas before, guilt for such a situation would have been ascribed to a single nation, now “no one is innocent.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=209}} The Cold War is over and nations have agreed that “Man had succeeded in so polluting the atmosphere that he was doomed to expire himself.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|p=210}}
 So far, “The Story” gives the appearance of a fairly straightforward indictment of the world’s obsession with developing and over-testing nuclear weapons without regard for the consequences for the planet and the people living on it. However, it takes a turn in the direction of a more powerful and multifaceted satire when the President of the United States agrees to a scheme for preserving at least a small percentage of humankind by sending half a million people to Mars in 10,000 rockets. Legislation for a Fleet has been passed, first in the United States and then around the world. Mailer breaks the illusion of reality—if indeed we’re dealing with reality here—and returns to the scenario he wants the story to become when he declares that “No space here, or for that matter in the movie, to talk of the endless and difficult negotiations which had gone on. The movie could begin perhaps with the ratification of the most astounding piece of legislation ever to be passed in any country . . . [that] had been passed by every nation in the world.”{{sfn|Mailer|1981|pp=210–211}} As we see here, Mailer has moved from an advertisement cum “treatment” to directions on how to produce the movie. However, there is a real problem with Mars, for the advance party of one hundred people already there is now suffering from radiation even greater than that found on earth, and this means that our whole solar system is lethally contaminated. It should be noted here that one of the hallmarks of satire, I want to say good satire, is exaggeration on a grand scale—exaggeration of size, as with Swift, and of magnitude, as in Mailer’s “Story.”