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The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Washed by the Swells of Time: Reading Mailer, 1998–2008: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Washed by the Swells of Time: Reading Mailer, 1998–2008 (view source)
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While the real focus of this article is the scholarly response to Mailer’s work, Mailer has out-written all of his critics put together, and so a sketch of that work will be necessary at the outset. These books are: ''The Time of Our Time'' (1998), ''The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing'' (2003), ''Modest Gifts: Poems and Drawings'' (2003), ''Why Are We at War?'' (2003), ''Norman Mailer’s Letters on ''An American Dream'', 1963–1969'' (2004), ''The Big Empty'' with John Buffalo Mailer (2006), ''The Castle in the Forest'' (2007), and ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' with J. Michael Lennon (2007). Both ''The Time of Our Time'' and ''The Spooky Art'' present dangers of a sort of which younger Mailer readers need to be warned: Do not read through these books and think that you have before you the literary equivalent of an arctic ice core, something that provides a textual analogue to phenomenological history as measured by the author’s style. | While the real focus of this article is the scholarly response to Mailer’s work, Mailer has out-written all of his critics put together, and so a sketch of that work will be necessary at the outset. These books are: ''The Time of Our Time'' (1998), ''The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing'' (2003), ''Modest Gifts: Poems and Drawings'' (2003), ''Why Are We at War?'' (2003), ''Norman Mailer’s Letters on ''An American Dream'', 1963–1969'' (2004), ''The Big Empty'' with John Buffalo Mailer (2006), ''The Castle in the Forest'' (2007), and ''On God: An Uncommon Conversation'' with J. Michael Lennon (2007). Both ''The Time of Our Time'' and ''The Spooky Art'' present dangers of a sort of which younger Mailer readers need to be warned: Do not read through these books and think that you have before you the literary equivalent of an arctic ice core, something that provides a textual analogue to phenomenological history as measured by the author’s style. | ||
Mailer has ''always'' rearranged his material in his retrospective collections, and the art of his collage technique has as much to do with spatial juxtaposition as it does with chronology. Mailer made this point about the “short hairs,” the poems that made ''Deaths for Ladies and Other Disasters'' and which have been rearranged and sometimes rewritten in ''Modest Gifts'', a collection of doodles and doodle-poems. The scholar who wishes to discuss the evolutions of ideas and forms will have to work through the primary forms before deciding what the revisions of 1998–2008 add–but it is ridiculously unfair to suggest that Mailer’s collections were lazy | Mailer has ''always'' rearranged his material in his retrospective collections, and the art of his collage technique has as much to do with spatial juxtaposition as it does with chronology. Mailer made this point about the “short hairs,” the poems that made ''Deaths for Ladies and Other Disasters'' and which have been rearranged and sometimes rewritten in ''Modest Gifts'', a collection of doodles and doodle-poems. The scholar who wishes to discuss the evolutions of ideas and forms will have to work through the primary forms before deciding what the revisions of 1998–2008 add–but it is ridiculously unfair to suggest that Mailer’s collections were lazy cut-and-paste efforts that belie a lack of historical sense. Michiko Kakutani, however, makes the charge that “''The Spooky Art'' is a manufactured book, an old-fashioned cut-and-paste job.” Mailer wrote a strong letter to ''The Times'' objecting to Kakutani’s pattern of attacks but taking particular umbrage at Kakutani’s claim that “all too often dates for statement” in ''The Spooky Art'' “are not supplied.” On April 9, 2003 the paper issued a correction: | ||
{{quote|The Books of the Times review on January 22, about ''The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing,'' a collection of works by Norman Mailer, referred erroneously to the absence of dates for some works republished and excerpted. While the dates were missing from the proof copy furnished to reviewers, the published book has thorough source notes at the back, compiled by the editor, J. Michael Lennon. A letter from Mr. Mailer dated March 24 pointed out the error.}} | {{quote|The Books of the Times review on January 22, about ''The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing,'' a collection of works by Norman Mailer, referred erroneously to the absence of dates for some works republished and excerpted. While the dates were missing from the proof copy furnished to reviewers, the published book has thorough source notes at the back, compiled by the editor, J. Michael Lennon. A letter from Mr. Mailer dated March 24 pointed out the error.}} | ||