98.14

“Making Books: ‘Private Ryan’ Reviews a Genre.” Article-interview by Martin Arnold. New York Times, 30 July, Sec. E, p.3. Discussion of the “concentrated carnage” in Stephen Spielberg’s film, Saving Private Ryan and how it parallels The Naked and the Dead (48.2), which Arnold calls “arguably the greatest combat novel ever written by an American.” Mailer says, “The Second World War was a watershed. Everything is of it, before it or after it. It is a point of reference. It’s still my point of reference.”