The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/A New Politics of Form in Harlot's Ghost: Difference between revisions

{{dc|dc=N|orman Mailer was one of the most ambitious writers}} of our time. He had enormous faith in the power of writing to influence and change society and to alter the quality of human life. Despite the controversies that swirled around his public figure, he should be more recognized for the scope of his efforts to use his writing to transform America. With bravado, courage, and a bit of recklessness, he has repeatedly proclaimed his ''personal'' ambition to place himself, as a writer, in the company of literary giants and thereby remedy what he believes are America’s literary deficiencies, while also promising that he is about to write a novel that will create the “revolution in consciousness”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=17}} which he believes is necessary to rejuvenate a stagnant America,{{efn|See again {{harvtxt|Mailer|1959}} as well as essays in {{harvtxt|Mailer|1966}} and {{harvtxt|Mailer|1982}}. This point recurs throughout his writing.}} through writing the “great American novel” which will “tell the truth of our times.” Undoubtedly, however, this effort has been fraught with difficulties; as [[w:Carl Rollyson|Carl Rollyson]] explains in his biography of Mailer: “In the forty years since ''[[The Naked and the Dead]]'' Mailer has been searching for a way to write the great panoramic American novel. . . . America had seemed too complex for any single novelist—no matter how mature—to take on.”{{sfn|Rollyson|1991|p=359}} His last, sustained effort to reveal America through a work of fiction is the long historical novel about the CIA, ''Harlot’s Ghost''. However, this novel has been overlooked as the culmination of Mailer’s project of a fictional representation of America and therefore largely ignored as the important work of politically engaged fiction that I believe it is.{{efn|One of the many critics who argue this way is {{harvtxt|Nielson|1997}}, who sums up her conclusion about Mailer’s politics based on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and ''[[Oswald’s Tale]]'' by stating, “What an examination of the persistent presence of Kennedy in their writings tends to suggest is that, for all Mailer’s non-conformism, his oeuvre serves to ultimately uphold the defining myths of the society which he describes, while that of Vidal works to undermine them.”{{sfn|Nielson|1997|p=23}} While her analysis of the episodes featuring [[William Kennedy|Kennedy]] in Mailer’s work and [[w:Gore Vidal|Vidal]]’s is persuasive in showing that Mailer’s writings on Kennedy are more positive than Vidal’s, this doesn’t justify, in my opinion, the broad conclusions she draws. On the other hand, the major critic who has treated ''Harlot’s Ghost'' as a whole, John {{harvtxt|Whalen-Bridge|1995}} argues persuasively that Mailer’s novel debunks the “myth of the American Adam.” This “myth” described by R.W.B. Lewis (and others) concerns alleged American “innocence” which Whalen-Bridge convincingly demonstrates is undermined by the novel. Whalen-Bridge is the major scholar that has written in detail on ''Harlot’s Ghost'' and draws the conclusion that “His [Mailer’s DA] fictional interpretation of American intelligence work does more than any other work of literature to help readers gain access to ‘the imagination of the state.{{' "}} Unfortunately, few others have recognized the critical features of the novel. See also {{harvtxt|Whalen-Bridge|1998}}. Others who don’t believe the novel is critical of the CIA include {{harvtxt|Glenday|1995}} who, in his biography states categorically that the novel “doesn’t set out be, then, a critique of the CIA”{{sfn|Glenday|1995|p=131}} and {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999}}.}} This is undoubtedly because the novel presents a strange puzzle; both its content and form need careful consideration before its significance can be understand.

Mailer sets up grandiose expectations for the sequel by the incomplete ending and the final questions of the novel. The information left open concerns the fictional life of Harry Hubbard but also implies a verdict on the politics of America in the Cold War. To explain the events of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' means to reveal history since Hubbard is conveniently placed in the midst of major episodes in the Cold War due to his role in the CIA as an “agent” trying to influence developments. It is only at the end that Hubbard and readers realize the degree to which there is uncertainty as to what exactly has happened and why. In effect, the novel has set up a mystery without providing answers. However, to provide the meaning of the political events so starkly, in the form of answers to a question (“Whom does all this benefit?”), which will supposedly be answered when Harlot is located, is difficult to imagine given the deep level of political truths involved. Can any person, no matter how well placed, really be imagined who can answer ultimate truths about the meaning of the Cold War? In my view, it is to Mailer’s credit that he challenges himself to find a way to imaginatively create persuasive answers and meaning to the most important political issues of our times. Yet, it is further to his credit that, whether consciously or not, he has shown the honesty to abandon a simple approach to a career long objective which could only be achieved, I will argue, at the cost of intellectual, political, and literary triviality. In effect, Mailer turns away from a dream that, if achieved, would situate him as part of a literary tradition that includes authors he admires most: [[w:Honoré de Balzac|Balzac]], [[w:Leo Tolstory|Tolstoy]], and [[w:Émile Zola|Zola]], who also strove to tell the truth of their times. However, to invent a character revealing the meaning behind historical events brings to mind the superficiality of conspiracy theories, one form of historical fiction that seems to be growing in popularity (sometimes interestingly in literature but tragically in public discourse).{{efn|Conspiracy theories have been taken by several critics as the hallmark of postmodern historical representation. See {{harvtxt|Jameson|1991}}, and {{harvtxt|McHale|1992}}, among others.}} On the other hand, [[w:Bertolt Brecht|Bertolt Brecht]]’s goal for writers that they should “render reality to men in a form they can master”{{sfn|Adorno|1978|p=81}}{{efn| This phrase comes from Brecht’s polemic around the ''nature'' of realism with [[w:Georg Lukács|Georg Lukács]] “Against Lukács” in {{harvtxt|Adorno|1978|p=81}}.}} seems the prerequisite for any politically useful fiction and sets up relevant criteria for evaluating ''Harlot’s Ghost''. Therefore, Mailer’s unwillingness or inability to write an ending or sequel to ''Harlot’s Ghost'' will be considered in light of such Brechtian goals. This paper will show that the novel’s lack of resolution is best understood not as a personal failure, or as symptomatic of the impossibility of political writing at the present time, but rather represents a new and valuable strategy in Mailer’s efforts to present unpleasant realities of American society. It should be noted, in passing, that my argument is not based on Mailer’s conscious ''intention'', which cannot be definitively ascertained, but rather on the logic of the novel in relation to its historical and political subject matter and Mailer’s stated objectives. These objectives are derived from Mailer’s career-long writings, interviews and public pronouncements and, in my view, form a clear and definable worldview and approach to human existence and human freedom.

echoes their approach.}} Benjamin confronts the question that has haunted Mailer for years—namely, how can authors effectively and meaningfully use their writing to expand creativity and human freedom{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|pp=85–105}} in the face of the depersonalizing effects of modern capitalism. It is often the case that the politics of a work of fiction is reduced to its explicit political content but Benjamin, in contrast makes the claim, still radical in current circumstances, that “the tendency of a work of literature can be politically correct only if it is also correct in the literary sense,”{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=86}} inextricably linking political content to form. Therefore, by Benjamin’s criteria the politics of ''Harlot’s Ghost'' do not reside in what it overtly tells us about the politics of the CIA, but rather through a more complex dialectic between the novel’s form and content. The justification for Benjamin’s assertion lies in his description of a situation in which, “we are in the midst of a vast process in which literary forms are being melted down, a process in which many of the contrasts in terms of which we have been accustomed to think may lose their relevance,”{{sfn|Benjamin|1998|p=87}} which is more true in the contemporary media and information explosion that accompanies late capitalism than when Benjamin wrote. Mailer’s incomplete novel can be taken as coherent if, despite the belief that we live in a post-ideological era where the struggle between capitalism and its challenges are over, the issues at the heart of the Cold War remain unresolved, leaving a final word impossible.

Mailer’s treatment of the dangers and conditions of life in the CIA gives a clue to the novel’s real subject matter, which is broader than just the military and information gathering features of the Cold War. The Cold War and espionage serve as parts of a greater whole, as metonymic representations of the nature of life in America. This explains the fact that we find few episodes of physical danger in Mailer’s CIA. Instead, the difficulty of CIA work seems to parallel the struggles of any individual striving for success inside a large, faceless bureaucracy and an impersonal society. Harry Hubbard describes himself at the beginning of the novel when he reviews his entire career, as a once-promising CIA operative, who is reduced to hack status. He has failed in every major project and has been reduced to the object of amusement by his colleagues who whisper about his failed potential. Indeed, all the agents in the novel, whether fictional or based on real CIA agents, are obsessed with the most American of ambitions: career advancement. Courage, skill, and grace (key values for Mailer) are generally tested in the shark infested waters of “the Company,” not by evil madmen intent on taking over the world, but by common features of life in capitalist America, including the struggle for career advancement. The dangers to America are what America is becoming. This theme is familiar in Mailer’s work and has been accurately summarized by [[w:Harold Bloom|Harold Bloom]] as conditions of, “[A]n America where he [Mailer] sees our bodies and spirits as becoming increasingly artificial, even ‘plastic.{{' "}}{{sfn|Bloom|1986|p=40}} In other words, authentic experience and meaningful action is constantly threatened by standardizing features and mediocrity prevalent in the CIA (“the Company” extraordinaire).