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The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions

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So, despite differences in narrative form and intention, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Crack-Up” share a common landscape—that of authorial anxiety and cultural depression. Both works were written under personal stress, both are revealing, and both proved therapeutic for their authors.<sup>22</sup> To use a handy German phrase, the ''Sitz im Leben'' of both Hemingway and Fitzgerald in 1936 had far more similarity than either author was prepared to admit.
So, despite differences in narrative form and intention, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Crack-Up” share a common landscape—that of authorial anxiety and cultural depression. Both works were written under personal stress, both are revealing, and both proved therapeutic for their authors.<sup>22</sup> To use a handy German phrase, the ''Sitz im Leben'' of both Hemingway and Fitzgerald in 1936 had far more similarity than either author was prepared to admit.


=== MAILER AND ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF (1959) ===
=== '''MAILER AND ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF (1959)''' ===
Two decades on, in 1959, in a genre-bending fusion of retrospective,self-creation, and future strategy, Mailer’s Advertisements appeared. Norman Mailer believed his task was “nothing less than making a revolution in the consciousness of our time” Advertisements.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|pp=17]] This bold work would mark a new, controversial era in Mailer’s life and work. ''Advertisements'' has been described by David Castronovo as “an act of defiance—filled with tantrums and inflated rhetoric—but nevertheless a landmark in our literature of protest.'{{sfn|Castronovo|2003|PP=179}} From this moment onward, Mailer would never be “the modernist ''deus absconditus'' . . . vanishing into silence” {{sfn|Braudy|1981|pp=630}} as Leo Braudy has described Thomas Pynchon. Mailer must be both observer of and participant in his times, both author and actor. Mailer would embrace that dual role with enthusiasm.


We have seen that Hilary
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