The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Norman Mailer in the Light of Russian Literature

Written by
Victor Peppard

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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.

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URL: https://prmlr.us/mr03pep

We are now well accustomed to reading and hearing about Norman Mailer in connection with a number of different literary and cultural traditions, including especially the American and the Jewish. What I propose to do here is to examine Norman Mailer, if not quite as a Russian writer, then as a writer in the light of Russian literature. I am, of course, not the first person to note the relationship between Mailer and Russian literature, but I believe there is much more to say on the subject. Although Mailer’s literary dialogue is most highly developed with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, he also has noteworthy connections with some twentieth century writers, including Mikhail Bulgakov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Mailer’s work displays a number of features that ally his work with that of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, some of which are readily apparent, as in An American Dream, and others of which are less readily perceptible but nevertheless significant, as in Harlot’s Ghost. 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. Keeping in mind that Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Mailer each has his own distinctive concerns and techniques, all three of them treat questions such as the nature of good and evil, the nature of God and the Devil, and how we should live this life. Another important trait linking Mailer with the Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that each of them is concerned with history, which is often the basis for their narrative and thematic structures. At the same time, each of them is also intensely concerned with their own epochs. As with the Russians, Mailer is relentless in pursuit of his goals, and, like them, he seems always to be on the attack, while taking no prisoners.

It would be hard to think of a writer with a more powerful moral and didactic thrust than Tolstoy, author of "The Death of Ivan Ilych," a story which openly instructs us how not to live. Yet even with Tolstoy, just as we are about to assign a linear message to one of his stories, he is likely to throw us off the track, as he does at the end of the story “Alyosha The Pot.” As Alyosha is dying he thinks,“if it’s good here when you do what they tell you and don’t hurt anybody, then it’ll be good up there too”

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