A Social Eye: Difference between revisions

Norman Mailer, Living Legend. Known to gangsters, known to Presidents, known to readers of the ''Daily News''. Wielder of the knife in the New York night. Actor in some national sexual fantasy. Candidate for Mayor, citizen-on-the-spot for civic improvement. Subject of the city’s morning chorus, offered up with careful nonchalance by people he does not recall: "''Nor''man dropped up, late, drunk of course.” “''Nor''man was there, and be''hav''ed ''bad''ly.” Norman Mailer, ''Tout-New York''.

They share a couple of other things, Mailer and Fitzgerald. The notoriety, the devastating celebrity which is probably in the end at least as nourishing as it is destructive. The immense technical skill, the passion for realizing the gift. The deep romanticism. And perhaps above all the unfashionableness, the final refusal to sail with the prevailing winds. Fitzgerald was "frivolous," and Mailer is "superstitious." Philip Rahv has spoken for the rationalist establishment: ''An American Dream'' lacks "verisimilitude." Rojack "hears voices." His suicidal thoughts seem induced by the moon, and "appear to have nothing to do with guilt-feelings or remorse.” Mailer is entangled with "the hocus-pocus of power." Had Mailer not been so "entangled" he might have sent Stephen Rojack not to that telephone booth on the desert (not a "credible experience," Rahv chides) but to a good Morningside Heights analyst. Had Fitzgerald not been so "frivolous " he might have gone not to Hollywood but to Spain, and written ''For Whom the Bell Tolls''. If only. Mailer thought to preface ''The Deer Park'' with this line from Gide: ''Please do not understand me too quickly''. There seems little danger of that, and the loss is entirely ours.

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