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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/The Loser’s Loser: Difference between revisions
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{{byline|last=Stone|first=Robert|abstract=There are many rootless, open-ended lives in America and many children raised under the shelterless sky of possibility. Lee Harvey Oswald, as he appears in ''[[Oswald’s Tale]]'', was a loser’s loser whose chance of fame would always be proportional to his willingness to self-destruct. He would never prove a lover or a hero; his options were only shades of villainy, something that he naturally failed to understand.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr03sto}} | {{byline|last=Stone|first=Robert|abstract=There are many rootless, open-ended lives in America and many children raised under the shelterless sky of possibility. Lee Harvey Oswald, as he appears in ''[[Oswald’s Tale]]'', was a loser’s loser whose chance of fame would always be proportional to his willingness to self-destruct. He would never prove a lover or a hero; his options were only shades of villainy, something that he naturally failed to understand.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr03sto}} | ||
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<blockquote>Neither Igor [the KGB man described above] nor Stepan [a second agent] would admit to more than some early concern about Lee and Marina. When that romance developed quickly into marriage, it could be said, Igor admitted, that they did lose some sleep, and felt somewhat at fault that no steps had been taken to keep this courtship of Oswald and Marina Prusakova from flourishing.</blockquote> | <blockquote>Neither Igor [the KGB man described above] nor Stepan [a second agent] would admit to more than some early concern about Lee and Marina. When that romance developed quickly into marriage, it could be said, Igor admitted, that they did lose some sleep, and felt somewhat at fault that no steps had been taken to keep this courtship of Oswald and Marina Prusakova from flourishing.</blockquote> | ||
<blockquote> When asked what such steps might have entailed, Igor’s response was deliberative, even delicate. There were girls, he suggested, some of them attractive certainly, certainly, who at one stage or another could be called upon by the Organs. Perhaps one of them might have diverted Oswald. They also could have attracted Marina perhaps to some other person, some very attractive man qualified for such activity. They didn’t do that, however.</blockquote> | <blockquote>When asked what such steps might have entailed, Igor’s response was deliberative, even delicate. There were girls, he suggested, some of them attractive certainly, certainly, who at one stage or another could be called upon by the Organs. Perhaps one of them might have diverted Oswald. They also could have attracted Marina perhaps to some other person, some very attractive man qualified for such activity. They didn’t do that, however.</blockquote> | ||
Since the KGB men are nowhere represented as telling the whole truth, this discreet evocation of “the Organ’s” powers of sexual manipulation is enough to give anyone pause, the more so because Marina herself, when we take account of her Leningrad experiences and background, sounds a bit like such an attractive person. Was she put somehow in Oswald’s path? But Mailer does not suggest that, nor is there any evidence for it. | Since the KGB men are nowhere represented as telling the whole truth, this discreet evocation of “the Organ’s” powers of sexual manipulation is enough to give anyone pause, the more so because Marina herself, when we take account of her Leningrad experiences and background, sounds a bit like such an attractive person. Was she put somehow in Oswald’s path? But Mailer does not suggest that, nor is there any evidence for it. | ||
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a local Russian acquaintance was injured. She’s sleeping late mornings, earning the disapproval of the Oswald’s small, generally unsympathetic circle of Russian acquaintances, and Mailer imagines his way into her condition. | a local Russian acquaintance was injured. She’s sleeping late mornings, earning the disapproval of the Oswald’s small, generally unsympathetic circle of Russian acquaintances, and Mailer imagines his way into her condition. | ||
<blockquote>There was a series of obsessions to encounter each night, including the bottomless question—“What do I do next with my existence?” Paradoxically, her sexual life may have been stimulated. Curses that prove successful open the gates to libido. (Otherwise there would be no warlocks.)</blockquote> | <blockquote>There was a series of obsessions to encounter each night, including the bottomless question—“What do I do next with my existence?” | ||
Paradoxically, her sexual life may have been stimulated. Curses that prove successful open the gates to libido. (Otherwise there would be no warlocks.)</blockquote> | |||
This mystical formulation is not elaborated upon at any point, and for a moment a reader may wonder whether he’s reading about Lee and Marina or Parsifal and Kundry. However, Mailer is quite scrupulous in distinguishing between the sections in which he has allowed his novelist’s speculation free rein and those in which he is examining the established evidence. | This mystical formulation is not elaborated upon at any point, and for a moment a reader may wonder whether he’s reading about Lee and Marina or Parsifal and Kundry. However, Mailer is quite scrupulous in distinguishing between the sections in which he has allowed his novelist’s speculation free rein and those in which he is examining the established evidence. | ||
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Each time Mailer extends the line of conspiracy, it’s within the special sphere he has reserved for novelistic imagining. Again and again he spins out conspiracy scenarios which, like a good novelist, he makes psychologically convincing but which he presents without evidence or even much conviction. Rendering the factual record, almost in contrast, he seems to abandon the exotic possibilities with regret. | Each time Mailer extends the line of conspiracy, it’s within the special sphere he has reserved for novelistic imagining. Again and again he spins out conspiracy scenarios which, like a good novelist, he makes psychologically convincing but which he presents without evidence or even much conviction. Rendering the factual record, almost in contrast, he seems to abandon the exotic possibilities with regret. | ||
Searching for purpose in the life and death of Oswald early on in the | Searching for purpose in the life and death of Oswald early on in the book, Mailer writes: | ||
book, Mailer writes: | |||
<blockquote>It is virtually not assimilable to our reason that a small lonely man felled a giant in the midst of his limousines, his legions, his throng, and his security. If such a nonentity destroyed the leader | <blockquote>It is virtually not assimilable to our reason that a small lonely man felled a giant in the midst of his limousines, his legions, his throng, and his security. If such a nonentity destroyed the leader | ||
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The fact is that, in the land of endless possibility, absurdity and common death gape far wider beneath us than high conspiracy, tragedy, or sacrifice. | The fact is that, in the land of endless possibility, absurdity and common death gape far wider beneath us than high conspiracy, tragedy, or sacrifice. | ||
{{Review}} | {{Review}} | ||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loser’s Loser, The}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Loser’s Loser, The}} | ||
[[Category:Articles (MR)]] | [[Category:Articles (MR)]] | ||