The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby

Written by
Donald L. Kaufmann

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Abstract: Norman Mailer’s status as a writer should be determined by the canon of his work and not by his biography. Any consideration of Mailer’s legacy must take into account the conspicuous Mailer canon: two Pulitzer Prizes and other major awards (except for the Nobel). There are over forty books, several truly weighty novels, stories and poems, and much nonfiction, including essays, articles, literary criticism, stage and screenplays, TV and film ventures (actor, director, critic), and much of ephemera. There is also, perhaps, this age’s most voluminous letter writing, many of which are astonishingly creative and revealing.

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URL: https://prmlr.us/mr03kau

Some preliminary speculation on Norman Mailer’s legacy reminds me of a media-fixed auto derby that has already predetermined a Mailer finish as a questionable non-winner at the starting-gate.

Such derby flux began with the news of Mailer’s recent demise and became fast-tracked into obvious truth that Mailer’s Legacy Quotient (LQ) is unique in that his “character” supersedes and eclipses his canon of work A writer’s behavior, in short, is all that matters to some critics. The LQ axiom, in Mailer’s case, remains commonplace: character overshadows canon.

Imagine such absurdity, historically speaking. To hell with The Ring, Wagner was such a rotter. And up the LQ of Will Shakespeare with his blank bio, but down the LQ of the thuggish Ben Jonson. And give a zero read to Ezra Pound, that Fascist. And don’t forget that old goat, Theodore Dreiser, and his whorehouse antics. And, yes, Papa Hemingway, that macho bundle of character flaws. Heraclitus said that “Character is Destiny.” Enter Norman Mailer, a literary bundle of flux, perhaps destined to have his ego read more than his books. Also enter the ubiquitous media that increasingly preside over a nation of gawkers rather than readers.

In 1948, a curtain rose and out trots an unknown with a big war book, an overnight best seller and a corresponding big-eyed media. What a readymade twosome, Mailer and the media, mutual enablers, and Norman Mailer becomes America’s leading literary celebrity. Unlike his two nearest competitors, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal, Mailer was typecast as ruffian extraordinaire—a 24/7 bully-brawler in salons and saloons, the epitome of egghead violence. Overnight, Mailer became the undisputed bad boy of American letters, so said the drooling, yet chiding media.

These developments fed the early LQ verdict in the January 2008 Smithsonian, a print-medium legacy bible. The presumptive judge, Lance Morrow, dissects Mailer’s “huge ego” and finds it “unpleasant” and “poisonous.” Thus, Mailer “[I]n his own ways he embodied America’s worst faults: selfindulgence, bullying, sense of entitlement, irrelevant belligerence, the obnoxious American self-importance that is a corrupted Emersonianism—Emerson without the sweetness, the calm, the brains, the transcendence.”

Such deconstruction gets a body English treatment when Morrow refers to a 1994 Valentine’s Day incident at Carl Bernstein’s fiftieth birthday party. Mailer was about to commit a social atrocity and was likened to a madcap Existential killer-driver:

He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet in the boxer’s way he had, a rhythmic motion meant to conjure menace, as if he wished to let you know that while he had one foot safely on the brake, the other was pressed on the accelerator, his motor surging ... so that if he chose, he might release the brake and hurtle across the room and smash through the brick wall and cause God knows what mayhem in the world outside.

What a tell-all negative image! Norman Mailer as boxer-motorist, an all American arch-menace in the ring, on the streets, and in the salon. Small wonder that Mailer’s (LQ) now barely quivered, so spoketh Lance Morrow, prophet extraordinaire.

My recourse to an imaginary auto derby now begins, to expose the audacity and absurdity of judging this contest or any other race at the starting line.

Let me say at the outset that Morrow and I are at opposite poles, except for our general agreement that Mailer in his seventies had mellowed socially, was becoming downright harmless, sporting (in Morrow’s apt phrase) “Prospero's winkle.” Otherwise, we are at opposite ends of a racetrack. I’m a starter and they are early finishers.

My time spent with Norman Mailer was not ongoing but was rather sporadic. I was an early Mailer scholar (articles and a book) and, later, a Mailer book collector and long-time friend.

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.

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.”

I was not able to meet with Norman alone and the one-day symposium was hectic and hurried. Mailer, as expected, was the star panelist. He seemed to be on the edge, almost incandescent, a young celebrity in full bloom. Admirers constantly swarmed around him. He answered questions and offered helpful tips and literary contacts. He gave me names, addresses, phone numbers, and said continually, “Mention my name.” He was not an offish visitor; on the contrary he was exceptionally friendly. And Norman seemed genuinely interested in both me and my dissertation.

The panel presentation was cantankerous and Mailer was usually the instigator. Afterwards, we promised to meet at the night’s big party for a “real talk.” Unwisely, I was a little late and Mailer had already left. The party host, Donald Justice (the poet) told me that Mailer and Mark Harris (the writer) had a fracas. Edmund Skellings (another poet and my best friend) had cooled down Mailer and off they went. Knowing Ed, I suspected a flashy Corvette and something hallucinogenic. I asked, “Are they coming back?” My host shrugged poetically. And I waited and waited but nothing happened.

There was, however, an existential dawn, this one smiling. Ed told me that he and Norman had driven around, smoked, and talked, and the latter included me. At evening’s end, Mailer said, “I’ll be seeing you and Don again.” Skellings had work his social magic.

The “Esquire Literary Symposium” was not Camelot or Versailles and 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.