26
edits
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 3, 2009/Courtly Mailer: The Legacy Derby (view source)
Revision as of 14:52, 17 June 2021
, 17 June 2021Completion of page 285
(completion of page 284) |
(Completion of page 285) |
||
| Line 40: | Line 40: | ||
Naturally, I differ with ''Smithsonian'' and Morrow. So, I toured the derby site, did some laps cruising, not speeding, but stopping. I consider my experience with multiple Mailer “stops” or “visits.” Over a span of more than forty years, four visits of them were in-depth and three visits were less so. The following discussion is not a composed memoir, just a series of short takes. I was looking for “Courtly Norman” and I found him. | Naturally, I differ with ''Smithsonian'' and Morrow. So, I toured the derby site, did some laps cruising, not speeding, but stopping. I consider my experience with multiple Mailer “stops” or “visits.” Over a span of more than forty years, four visits of them were in-depth and three visits were less so. The following discussion is not a composed memoir, just a series of short takes. I was looking for “Courtly Norman” and I found him. | ||
===I. | ===I. IOWA CITY (1963)=== | ||
Our first meeting was a bundle of “hellos” and “smiles.” The English department at the University of Iowa had billed me as a pioneer scholar, writing the first doctoral dissertation on Norman Mailer. That fact was what greeted Mailer, who was on a college tour as an “''Esquire'' Literary Symposium” panelist. I was only four years younger than Mailer and must have given off a whiff of pre-academic street sensibilities. This part of me Mailer must have sensed or at least that’s what his first handshake said: “All’s well that starts well.” | Our first meeting was a bundle of “hellos” and “smiles.” The English department at the University of Iowa had billed me as a pioneer scholar, writing the first doctoral dissertation on Norman Mailer. That fact was what greeted Mailer, who was on a college tour as an “''Esquire'' Literary Symposium” panelist. I was only four years younger than Mailer and must have given off a whiff of pre-academic street sensibilities. This part of me Mailer must have sensed or at least that’s what his first handshake said: “All’s well that starts well.” | ||
| Line 53: | Line 53: | ||
happened. | happened. | ||
There was, however, an existential dawn, this one smiling. Ed told me that | There was, however, an existential dawn, this one smiling. Ed told me that he and Norman had driven around, smoked, and talked, and the latter | ||
he and Norman had driven around, smoked, and talked, and the latter | |||
included me. At evening’s end, Mailer said, “I’ll be seeing you and Don | included me. At evening’s end, Mailer said, “I’ll be seeing you and Don | ||
again.” Skellings had work his social magic. | again.” Skellings had work his social magic. | ||
| Line 61: | Line 60: | ||
Mailer was hardly “Courtly,” but he was aware, sensitive, amiable, and most promising. Norman Mailer and I had a future, I was sure of it. | Mailer was hardly “Courtly,” but he was aware, sensitive, amiable, and most promising. Norman Mailer and I had a future, I was sure of it. | ||
===II. | ===II. ALASKA (SPRING 1965)=== | ||
Our second substantial meeting occurred in 1965 in Alaska during a Mailer | Our second substantial meeting occurred in 1965 in Alaska during a Mailer | ||
| Line 78: | Line 77: | ||
Mailer certainly was not visiting an American Metropolis in the tundra | Mailer certainly was not visiting an American Metropolis in the tundra | ||
(echoes of his final novel, ''The Castle'' In The Forest). But he was making the next best “stop” in 1965 America at a three-day wilderness city with ''Castle'' atmospherics. Although I did not know when Mailer landed in Alaska, he immediately sensed that his Lower 48 self and the media-crafted image of the “big bad celebrity” was a lost art up North. Mailer, instead, sensed both an old and new American frontier atmosphere and merged with both of them. If a passerby New Yorker would have spotted this star visitor, he might well have blinked and said, “Where has the real Norman Mailer gone?” I would have answered, “He’s going back to the Lower-48” with loads of Frontier Charm, and that’s why the term—Courtly Norman—stuck. | (echoes of his final novel, ''The Castle'' In The Forest). But he was making the next best “stop” in 1965 America at a three-day wilderness city with ''Castle'' atmospherics. Although I did not know when Mailer landed in Alaska, he immediately sensed that his Lower 48 self and the media-crafted image of the “big bad celebrity” was a lost art up North. Mailer, instead, sensed both an old and new American frontier atmosphere and merged with both of them. If a passerby New Yorker would have spotted this star visitor, he might well have blinked and said, “Where has the real Norman Mailer gone?” I would have answered, “He’s going back to the Lower-48” with loads of Frontier Charm, and that’s why the term—Courtly Norman—stuck. | ||
===III.PROVINCETOWN (SEPTEMBER 1967)=== | |||
Culturally speaking, this visit was a drastic shift from a wilderness city to the “sin center” on Cape Cod. In 1967 Provincetown was Mailer’s summer home. Only two years had elapsed since the Alaska trip. How much of that “Arctic Metamorphosis” was still healthy and intact in Mailer? | |||
His summer hangout had obvious cultural compensations. Today’s | |||
Provincetown had interesting and ironic beginnings. Supposedly, our Pilgrim Fathers made a brief stopover before settling on Plymouth Rock. (A sign on the outskirts of the town states as much.) Since those early days,“Ptown” has undergone remarkable change. By the mid-1960s, Ptown had | |||
became the regional vortex of “upscale hedonism.” I was a designated weekend house guest in 1967 and this visit would be my first encounter with a discernibly domesticated Mailer. | |||
The Mailer abode on Commercial Street (one of only two main streets in | |||
Ptown) had been purchased two years earlier. The day I arrived it was the | |||
Saturday afternoon “Open House at the Mailers.”At one o’clock it started in high gear in an oversized room as guests, Norman’s associates and various friends, past and present gathered, as well as walk-in tourist gawkers. Beverly, Mailer’s fourth wife, was the hostess. Early on, Norman was off in his do-not-disturb quarters, writing for posterity. | |||
In the later afternoon Mailer made an appearance and it was quite casual, | |||
only a little soft mixing with the crowd. For hours that afternoon, I enjoyed chatting with the hip Mailer folk, with an endless supply of fizz drinks and finger food. We all stayed until the end of the open house. | |||
At sundown, all three weekend evenings, Mailer and “company” went | |||
nightclub hopping. Ptown was jammed with tourists and the Manhattan | |||
Bohemian set out for an artsy-lusty weekend. As a houseguest, I was seated at the Mailer table at restaurants and was included in the spotlight. I felt as if I were at an after-hours Cape Cod Camelot. | |||
Norman was masterful at “working the room.” And make no mistake, | |||
Norman was a true code man. This Norman, significantly domestic, was new | |||
to me, although he had told me that he was very close to his mother. Norman was an incredibly attentive son. His mother, Fanny, had his constant ear and he told me that he called her at least once a day. Norman also told me that Fanny was his literary archivist. | |||
Their spiffy bayside home with a dock over the water seemed more | |||
“his” than “hers.” Beverly called it a “part-time hotel,” but I saw it as “fulltime party pad,” but this weekend a partial exception. On my last Ptown night in a bedroom on that dock over the water, I reviewed a weekend’s appraisal of “Mailer’s “character” that also examined his literary canon. The body of his work, indeed, was wide and deep. What about Mailer as a good family man? | |||