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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Norman Mailer in the Light of Russian Literature: Difference between revisions
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{{Byline|last=Peppard|first=Victor |abstract=Norman Mailer, if not a Russian writer, is an author in the light of Russian literature. Mailer’s literary dialogue is most highly developed with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but he also has noteworthy connections with some twentieth-century writers, including Mikhail Bulgakov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. On the broadest level, Mailer shares a passion with his Russian predecessors for engaged fiction that is morally, philosophically purposeful, and which tackles the large, eternal questions of life, often in striking, disarming, or blasphemous ways. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Mailer each has his own distinctive concerns and techniques, yet all three of them examine questions such as the nature of good and evil, the nature of God and the Devil, and how we should live this life. |url=https://prmlr.us/mr03pep}} | {{Byline|last=Peppard|first=Victor |abstract=Norman Mailer, if not a Russian writer, is an author in the light of Russian literature. Mailer’s literary dialogue is most highly developed with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but he also has noteworthy connections with some twentieth-century writers, including Mikhail Bulgakov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. On the broadest level, Mailer shares a passion with his Russian predecessors for engaged fiction that is morally, philosophically purposeful, and which tackles the large, eternal questions of life, often in striking, disarming, or blasphemous ways. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Mailer each has his own distinctive concerns and techniques, yet all three of them examine questions such as the nature of good and evil, the nature of God and the Devil, and how we should live this life. |url=https://prmlr.us/mr03pep}} | ||
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===Unfinished Business and Final Thoughts=== | ===Unfinished Business and Final Thoughts=== | ||
There are, without doubt, many more lines along which one might study Mailer’s relationship with Russian literature, one of which I have noted in passing, and that is the connection between Mailer and Solzhenitsyn, whose work is also significantly indebted to Tolstoy. Both Mailer and Solzhenitsyn recreate history in fictional form through a combination of documentary material and artistic intuition. In at least one instance, that is the correspondence between Nicholas II and Alexandra. They are using the very same documents, which are in English, so that, ironically, Mailer can use them without need of translation, whereas Solzhenitsyn has to translate them into Russian, as he does in ''October 1916'' [''Oktiabr’ 1916''], 1984, of the ''Red Wheel'' cycle. In this work, Solzhenitsyn’s portraits of Alexandra and Rasputin are significantly different from Mailer’s. Solzhenitsyn shows how greatly Alexandra relied on and believed in Rasputin’s guidance and how she worked hard to convince Nicholas of the correctness of the Siberian priest’s advice. In Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of her, Alexandra, for all of her royal arrogance and pigheadedness | There are, without doubt, many more lines along which one might study Mailer’s relationship with Russian literature, one of which I have noted in passing, and that is the connection between Mailer and Solzhenitsyn, whose work is also significantly indebted to Tolstoy. Both Mailer and Solzhenitsyn recreate history in fictional form through a combination of documentary material and artistic intuition. In at least one instance, that is the correspondence between Nicholas II and Alexandra. They are using the very same documents, which are in English, so that, ironically, Mailer can use them without need of translation, whereas Solzhenitsyn has to translate them into Russian, as he does in ''October 1916'' [''Oktiabr’ 1916''], 1984, of the ''Red Wheel'' cycle. In this work, Solzhenitsyn’s portraits of Alexandra and Rasputin are significantly different from Mailer’s. Solzhenitsyn shows how greatly Alexandra relied on and believed in Rasputin’s guidance and how she worked hard to convince Nicholas of the correctness of the Siberian priest’s advice. In Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of her, Alexandra, for all of her royal arrogance and pigheadedness (which Mailer also portrays), had a large streak of benevolence, and she worked tirelessly in the hospitals caring for the wounded in World War I. | ||
With respect to Rasputin (although Solzhenitsyn shows what a great liability he was to the royal family and their credibility with the government), in ''October 1916'' he does not develop the diabolic side of him that so fascinates Mailer and Dieter. Without going into detail, I should add that whereas Mailer concentrates more on Nicholas and Solzhenitsyn devotes more attention to Alexandra, both authors capture well the last tsar’s penchant for dithering. | With respect to Rasputin (although Solzhenitsyn shows what a great liability he was to the royal family and their credibility with the government), in ''October 1916'' he does not develop the diabolic side of him that so fascinates Mailer and Dieter. Without going into detail, I should add that whereas Mailer concentrates more on Nicholas and Solzhenitsyn devotes more attention to Alexandra, both authors capture well the last tsar’s penchant for dithering. | ||