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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby: Difference between revisions
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Naturally, I differ with ''Smithsonian'' and Morrow. So, I toured the derby site, did some laps cruising, not speeding, but stopping. I consider my experience with multiple Mailer “stops” or “visits.” Over a span of more than forty years, four visits of them were in-depth and three visits were less so. The following discussion is not a composed memoir, just a series of short takes. I was looking for “Courtly Norman” and I found him. | Naturally, I differ with ''Smithsonian'' and Morrow. So, I toured the derby site, did some laps cruising, not speeding, but stopping. I consider my experience with multiple Mailer “stops” or “visits.” Over a span of more than forty years, four visits of them were in-depth and three visits were less so. The following discussion is not a composed memoir, just a series of short takes. I was looking for “Courtly Norman” and I found him. | ||
===I. | ===I. IOWA CITY (1963)=== | ||
Our first meeting was a bundle of “hellos” and “smiles.” The English department at the University of Iowa had billed me as a pioneer scholar, writing the first doctoral dissertation on Norman Mailer. That fact was what greeted Mailer, who was on a college tour as an “''Esquire'' Literary Symposium” panelist. I was only four years younger than Mailer and must have given off a whiff of pre-academic street sensibilities. This part of me Mailer must have sensed or at least that’s what his first handshake said: “All’s well that starts well.” | Our first meeting was a bundle of “hellos” and “smiles.” The English department at the University of Iowa had billed me as a pioneer scholar, writing the first doctoral dissertation on Norman Mailer. That fact was what greeted Mailer, who was on a college tour as an “''Esquire'' Literary Symposium” panelist. I was only four years younger than Mailer and must have given off a whiff of pre-academic street sensibilities. This part of me Mailer must have sensed or at least that’s what his first handshake said: “All’s well that starts well.” | ||
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Mailer was hardly “Courtly,” but he was aware, sensitive, amiable, and most promising. Norman Mailer and I had a future, I was sure of it. | Mailer was hardly “Courtly,” but he was aware, sensitive, amiable, and most promising. Norman Mailer and I had a future, I was sure of it. | ||
===II. | ===II. ALASKA (SPRING 1965)=== | ||
Our second substantial meeting occurred in 1965 in Alaska during a Mailer | Our second substantial meeting occurred in 1965 in Alaska during a Mailer | ||
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(echoes of his final novel, ''The Castle'' In The Forest). But he was making the next best “stop” in 1965 America at a three-day wilderness city with ''Castle'' atmospherics. Although I did not know when Mailer landed in Alaska, he immediately sensed that his Lower 48 self and the media-crafted image of the “big bad celebrity” was a lost art up North. Mailer, instead, sensed both an old and new American frontier atmosphere and merged with both of them. If a passerby New Yorker would have spotted this star visitor, he might well have blinked and said, “Where has the real Norman Mailer gone?” I would have answered, “He’s going back to the Lower-48” with loads of Frontier Charm, and that’s why the term—Courtly Norman—stuck. | (echoes of his final novel, ''The Castle'' In The Forest). But he was making the next best “stop” in 1965 America at a three-day wilderness city with ''Castle'' atmospherics. Although I did not know when Mailer landed in Alaska, he immediately sensed that his Lower 48 self and the media-crafted image of the “big bad celebrity” was a lost art up North. Mailer, instead, sensed both an old and new American frontier atmosphere and merged with both of them. If a passerby New Yorker would have spotted this star visitor, he might well have blinked and said, “Where has the real Norman Mailer gone?” I would have answered, “He’s going back to the Lower-48” with loads of Frontier Charm, and that’s why the term—Courtly Norman—stuck. | ||
===III. | ===III. PROVINCETOWN (September 1967)=== | ||
Culturally speaking, this visit was a drastic shift from a wilderness city to the “sin center” on Cape Cod. In 1967 Provincetown was Mailer’s summer home. Only two years had elapsed since the Alaska trip. How much of that “Arctic Metamorphosis” was still healthy and intact in Mailer? | Culturally speaking, this visit was a drastic shift from a wilderness city to the “sin center” on Cape Cod. In 1967 Provincetown was Mailer’s summer home. Only two years had elapsed since the Alaska trip. How much of that “Arctic Metamorphosis” was still healthy and intact in Mailer? | ||
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“his” than “hers.” Beverly called it a “part-time hotel,” but I saw it as “fulltime party pad,” but this weekend a partial exception. On my last Ptown night in a bedroom on that dock over the water, I reviewed a weekend’s appraisal of “Mailer’s “character” that also examined his literary canon. The body of his work, indeed, was wide and deep. What about Mailer as a good family man? | “his” than “hers.” Beverly called it a “part-time hotel,” but I saw it as “fulltime party pad,” but this weekend a partial exception. On my last Ptown night in a bedroom on that dock over the water, I reviewed a weekend’s appraisal of “Mailer’s “character” that also examined his literary canon. The body of his work, indeed, was wide and deep. What about Mailer as a good family man? | ||
===IV. | ===IV. TAMPA (February 1972)=== | ||
The caption of this trip might well read: the Norman Mailer meltdown that | The caption of this trip might well read: the Norman Mailer meltdown that | ||
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out. His Tampa visit did not create headlines, only modest coverage. Everybody won, and that included Kathy, Norman, and his Legacy Quotient. | out. His Tampa visit did not create headlines, only modest coverage. Everybody won, and that included Kathy, Norman, and his Legacy Quotient. | ||
===V. | ===V. MIAMI (1972)=== | ||
This “visit” was a Miami peepshow, mostly a three-day blur, because I was no longer at stage-center, relegated to become one of those proverbial lost souls in the crowd, even as was Mailer himself lost among fellow celebrities. For once, Mailer and his “character” were too obscure to probe. | This “visit” was a Miami peepshow, mostly a three-day blur, because I was no longer at stage-center, relegated to become one of those proverbial lost souls in the crowd, even as was Mailer himself lost among fellow celebrities. For once, Mailer and his “character” were too obscure to probe. | ||
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instructions actually included unmapped lanes, dense foliage, and even tree markings. I felt lost all the way. | instructions actually included unmapped lanes, dense foliage, and even tree markings. I felt lost all the way. | ||
Where was Norman? Carol was talking about jazz (she sang it) and mentioned how Norman told her and the kids, as well as the help, to “get lost” | |||
upon my arrival. I was greeted by three frisky pugs, otherwise known as Chinese Emperor Dogs. I could hear distant kids and I glimpsed a nanny or | |||
maid. Carol stressed that this breed of dog was ideal for children. She added | |||
that Chinese Emperors favored them as pets of good omen. Mailer entered | |||
the room and Carol vanished with the dogs. | |||
My first thought on seeing Norman was that he can’t wait to get those books in his hands. And Norman acted as such—he was full speed. He told me to get those boxes inside and we would make dinner.I had forgotten about food, although it was past the dinner hour, and I assumed that my host was hungry and not just for books, so tonight would be makeshift eating. Norman said, “Open up the fridge and make yourself at home.” Supper meant creative sandwiches, beer, and whiskey—boilermakers. | |||
I was stunned. My host, this Norman, seemed a stranger, beyond my | |||
imagination. The 1972 visits were eight years ago. During the interval, we | |||
never met physically. Communication had been adequate: phone messages, | |||
personal letters and other correspondence, but for eight long years, I had not | |||
been up close and personal with Norman. | |||
We finished dining, cleared and cleaned the outsized kitchen table, and I | |||
opened my two boxes next to Norman’s chair. Once he had graced the table | |||
with the first collectibles, nothing matter but the books and the boilermakers. | |||
Would tonight’s kitchen talk reveal more or less of an older, more seasoned Mailer? One by one, Mailer began to open his books, his creations. Most of them were stellar finds: first editions, galley sheets, proofs, pamphlets, stage dramas, screenplays, and loads of ephemera, especially costly “high-spots” of an already distinguished literary career. | |||
I sensed a deep awareness in Norman. He did not just turn pages; he touched and caressed the binding and pages. We talked and talked. As I listened, I was reminded of that 1967 Ptown weekend when Norman and I occasionally turned literary and went off together to read passages and discuss his canon. Then I had brought just one box, a much smaller one. Mailer would pore over each book, ruddy-faced and wide-eyed and occasionally would howl in disbelief,“Beverly, Come in here and see. I’d forgotten I wrote this.” Beverly, dutifully, read and nodded, somewhat motherly. | |||
Tonight’s table talk, so remote and personal, might prove to be ideal. Norman, as I knew him, always distrusted the media. They were often antiMailer, Norman said, particularly concerning private matters, “Never talk to the media,” he said to me. | |||
For about four or five hours, we talked. I listened less as a visiting collector and more as a character in a dramatic narrative. Norman’s most vital | |||
body part was his mind or, more aptly, his brain because Norman was always | |||
mimicking other writers who see their literary creations as their real children. My two boxes, figuratively, were filled with “brain children.”And what | |||
father can resist being fascinated by his offspring. | |||
By reappraising and reliving “live” books, Norman was tempted to tell all. | |||
We sat, sipped whiskey, and he pored and recited over his creations, hours of | |||
speed-modulated authorial utterances, including his own extensive evaluations of his body of work. All those printed wonders: their genius, from first | |||
drafts to final proofs, the forms and techniques, messages or themes, prepublication joys or blues, and their eventual public airings, and those biased | |||
unsympathetic critics, more panning than praising, and those final sales. | |||
The Fortune Rock kitchen talk was beginning to sound like the demystification of an author’s legacy potential. It was a surreal evening. A major writer discusses so much of the background of his life and work. | |||
I did not count how many or how fast Norman and I drank as we sipped rather than gulped. We were never drunk. Instead, we got high, a gradual adrenal surge. Our table talk vacillated from foggy to crystal clear. It began with the host opening a book and providing running commentary. There was some question-and-answer, a mixture of wisdom and booze. Hours and hours of slightly impaired language, yet Norman and I persevered. Our exchange was not the Socratic method, but it was much more than monkey talk. None of what transpired was premeditated. I had | |||
brought no memory devices: camera, recorder, notebook, paper, pencil or | |||
pen. | |||
In LQ terms, this visit was only partly forgotten. Ordinarily, my memory | |||
is good, well above average, but nothing rote or photographic, no magic total | |||
recall.When I exited Fortune Rock, my memory was in near-collapse. In my | |||
motel, I was still high and didn’t bother to fill a notebook. I wrote nothing | |||
and began to remember tantalizing vagueness. I am not a journal or diary | |||
type, and my long-term memory slowly faded. But in that motel on the | |||
morning after, I realized that all that Fortune Rock “tell-all” and “hear-all” | |||
was indeed recorded in my memory bank. | |||
That Fortune Rock kitchen talk was mostly a riot of irony, which describes Stephen Crane’s early canon. (Crane’s themes echo Mailer’s). Mailer has a complex character inside of him that resists facile explanations. But Mailer also exhibits a riotous ironic sensibility. That is why readers and critics, friends and foes, liken him to Proteus and Heraclitus. A flux-man creates flux-works. Thus goes the Mailer Paradox. A paradox-man is more at home, not with certainties, but with mysteries. | |||
The mystery of this Fortune Rock table talk was that it was a paradox. | |||
What happened really didn’t happen, that is, as a useful “on the record” | |||
encounter. It is virtually impossible to examine a writer and his work in any | |||
grand manner. Common sense dictates that most writers live and create off—and not on—the record. I am speaking of Norman Mailer and not other writers, especially his LQ competitors, who sometimes allow their behavior and creations to speak for themselves. | |||
For my own posterity commentary on this Fortune Rock visit, I cannot | |||
offer either sound bites or scripted wisdom. As to whether or not Norman | |||
was “courtly,” all I can say is that the booze and our talk seemed fine and we | |||
remained friends and there were no operatic bodies on the floor. When I | |||
departed Fortune Rock, Norman was alone at the door. There was no wife, | |||
no children, not even good omen Chinese Emperor dogs. | |||