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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/The Crime of His Time: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/The Crime of His Time (view source)
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Let us be plain here. While the material on Oswald’s life in Moscow and Minsk effectively portrays a slice of the grim, gray life in the 1950s-1960s Soviet Union, it is hardly determinative in its detail regarding its protagonist. Mailer can get away with things lesser writers cannot. If he wants to show off his voluminous research into Soviet life of the time through 315 densely packed pages, then by God and by Norman, he will, and blue pencils be damned. | Let us be plain here. While the material on Oswald’s life in Moscow and Minsk effectively portrays a slice of the grim, gray life in the 1950s-1960s Soviet Union, it is hardly determinative in its detail regarding its protagonist. Mailer can get away with things lesser writers cannot. If he wants to show off his voluminous research into Soviet life of the time through 315 densely packed pages, then by God and by Norman, he will, and blue pencils be damned. | ||
For Volume Two, he took a somewhat different tack, explaining, “That gap of three decades [between the assassination and the opening up of Russian society, during which there was little public debate] which had been an asset in Minsk would prove a liability in America.”{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=351}} Instead, he quotes extensively from other sources, rather than straight reportage, in coming up with his own interpretation of events and motives, most notably the twenty-six volumes of the Warren Commission itself and Priscilla Johnson | For Volume Two, he took a somewhat different tack, explaining, “That gap of three decades [between the assassination and the opening up of Russian society, during which there was little public debate] which had been an asset in Minsk would prove a liability in America.”{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=351}} Instead, he quotes extensively from other sources, rather than straight reportage, in coming up with his own interpretation of events and motives, most notably the twenty-six volumes of the {{harvtxt|Warren Commission|1964}} itself and Priscilla Johnson {{harvtxt|McMillan|1977}}’s joint biography, ''Marina and Lee''. Mailer says, | ||
{{quote|An attempt to come to grips with the full twenty-four years of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life seems in order, then. We have an advantage, after all! What was previously the dry material of the Warren Commission Hearings takes on more life because of our knowledge of Oswald’s behavior in Minsk.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=352}} }} | {{quote|An attempt to come to grips with the full twenty-four years of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life seems in order, then. We have an advantage, after all! What was previously the dry material of the Warren Commission Hearings takes on more life because of our knowledge of Oswald’s behavior in Minsk.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=352}} }} | ||
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{{quote|Oswald has reached that zone of serenity that some men attain before combat, when anxiety is deep enough to feel like quiet exaltation: You are finally going into an action that will be equal in dimension to the importance of your life.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=666}} }} | {{quote|Oswald has reached that zone of serenity that some men attain before combat, when anxiety is deep enough to feel like quiet exaltation: You are finally going into an action that will be equal in dimension to the importance of your life.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=666}} }} | ||
As far as a conspiracy, anyone who has read ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Mailer’s wonderful and unruly—and incomplete—epic novel of the CIA, must suspect that he cannot be more than half serious about such a bureaucratic behemoth being able to keep such a monumental secret. As to other groups—Mafia, corporate cabals, whatever—I think that has been effectively addressed by Gerald Posner (among others) in his 1993 book ''Case Closed'', from which Mailer also liberally quotes. He didn’t have the benefit of Vincent | As far as a conspiracy, anyone who has read ''Harlot’s Ghost'', Mailer’s wonderful and unruly—and incomplete—epic novel of the CIA, must suspect that he cannot be more than half serious about such a bureaucratic behemoth being able to keep such a monumental secret. As to other groups—Mafia, corporate cabals, whatever—I think that has been effectively addressed by Gerald Posner (among others) in his 1993 book ''Case Closed'', from which Mailer also liberally quotes. He didn’t have the benefit of Vincent {{harvtxt|Bugliosi|2007}}’s exhaustively detailed book, ''Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy'', which essentially demolishes the conspiracy theories. He also didn’t have {{harvtxt|Russo|Molton|2008}}’s ''Brothers in Arms'', or {{harvtxt|Russo|1998}}’s work on the assassination, ''Live by the Sword'', though even if he had, I doubt they would have diverted Mailer from his course. At the beginning of Volume Two he writes: | ||
{{quote|Let me propose, then, that a mystery of the immense dimensions of Oswald’s case will, in the writing, create a form of its own somewhere between fiction and non-fiction. . . . The author’s musings become some of the operative instruments. Of course, speculation is often an invaluable resource of the novelist. The result can be seen, therefore, as a special species of non-fiction that can be put under the rubric of ''mystery''.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=353}} }} | {{quote|Let me propose, then, that a mystery of the immense dimensions of Oswald’s case will, in the writing, create a form of its own somewhere between fiction and non-fiction. . . . The author’s musings become some of the operative instruments. Of course, speculation is often an invaluable resource of the novelist. The result can be seen, therefore, as a special species of non-fiction that can be put under the rubric of ''mystery''.{{sfn|Mailer|1995|p=353}} }} | ||
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Russo and Molton suggest, and this very well might be the case, that the Warren Commission was purposely kept in the dark and steered away from such critical avenues of inquiry as the Cuban connection because new President Lyndon Johnson and other high government officials were deeply worried that any suggestion that Castro and Cuba were behind the assassination would lead to a public bloodlust for the overthrow of the regime, which in turn would lead to another nuclear stakes confrontation with the Russians. Having seen how narrowly World War III was avoided just 13 months before, and being one of the few people in the administration old enough to remember World War I and the living hell that Gavrilo Princip unwittingly unleashed on Europe, it was a chance Johnson was not willing to take. The result, unavoidably it seems, were the seeds of doubt that ultimately blossomed into full-blown distrust of the government and everything it undertook. | Russo and Molton suggest, and this very well might be the case, that the Warren Commission was purposely kept in the dark and steered away from such critical avenues of inquiry as the Cuban connection because new President Lyndon Johnson and other high government officials were deeply worried that any suggestion that Castro and Cuba were behind the assassination would lead to a public bloodlust for the overthrow of the regime, which in turn would lead to another nuclear stakes confrontation with the Russians. Having seen how narrowly World War III was avoided just 13 months before, and being one of the few people in the administration old enough to remember World War I and the living hell that Gavrilo Princip unwittingly unleashed on Europe, it was a chance Johnson was not willing to take. The result, unavoidably it seems, were the seeds of doubt that ultimately blossomed into full-blown distrust of the government and everything it undertook. | ||
It is fascinating to note that this was an idea Mailer could easily wrap his mind around, and did so in the form of drama years before Russo collected the facts that could bear it out. For | It is fascinating to note that this was an idea Mailer could easily wrap his mind around, and did so in the form of drama years before Russo collected the facts that could bear it out. For ''Vanity Fair'', {{harvtxt|Mailer|1992}} penned a mordant two-character drama entitled, “Earl and Lyndon: An Imaginary Conversation,” in which he had the ever-persuasive LBJ strongarm Chief Justice Warren into accepting the commission chairmanship to assure the public’s faith in government integrity. Once he gets Warren’s assurance, Johnson outlines all the areas the commission is to stay away from. | ||
It is this kind of literary agitprop and street theater that takes us back to the Norman Mailer of the 1960s, of ''The Armies of the Night'', ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' and ''Miami and the Siege of Chicago'', and makes us remember why we wanted to rally around him. By the end of ''Oswald’s Tale'', it is as if he has added his own coda to the era. The time for bombast, for conspiracies and paranoia and the storming of the barricades is over. Now is the time for sober reflection of an era that seems long ago. | It is this kind of literary agitprop and street theater that takes us back to the Norman Mailer of the 1960s, of ''The Armies of the Night'', ''Why Are We in Vietnam?'' and ''Miami and the Siege of Chicago'', and makes us remember why we wanted to rally around him. By the end of ''Oswald’s Tale'', it is as if he has added his own coda to the era. The time for bombast, for conspiracies and paranoia and the storming of the barricades is over. Now is the time for sober reflection of an era that seems long ago. | ||
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* {{cite book |last1= Russo |first1=Stephen |first2= Gus |last2=Molton |date= 2008 |title=Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder |url= |location= New York|publisher= Bloomsbury|pages= |ref=harv}} | * {{cite book |last1= Russo |first1=Stephen |first2= Gus |last2=Molton |date= 2008 |title=Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder |url= |location= New York|publisher= Bloomsbury|pages= |ref=harv}} | ||
* {{cite book |last= Russo|first= Gus|date= 1998|title=Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK |url= |location= Baltimore |publisher= Bancroft Press|pages= |ref=harv}} | * {{cite book |last= Russo|first= Gus|date= 1998|title=Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK |url= |location= Baltimore |publisher= Bancroft Press|pages= |ref=harv}} | ||
* {{cite book |author=United States, Warren Commission |date=1964 |title=Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy |url= |location=Washington |publisher=GPO Press |pages= |ref={{SfnRef| | * {{cite book |author=United States, Warren Commission |date=1964 |title=Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy |url= |location=Washington |publisher=GPO Press |pages= |ref={{SfnRef|Warren Commission|1964}}}} | ||
{{Refend}} | {{Refend}} | ||