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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/Tributes to Norman Mailer/My Friend, Norman: Difference between revisions
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As happens over the years, our contact dissipated, though at my birthday I always received one of his hand-drawn self portraits. Knowing that time was short, I went to LA in March when he came to discuss his final novel, ''The Castle in the Forest''. Mailer by then was weak — he walked with two canes, was hard of hearing and could not see well — but his mind was as astute as ever. He spoke like he wrote, in ornate, somewhat opaque sentences, the ideas probing deep into the psyche of America. He kept us enthralled for over an hour. After he finished, I went to greet him. “Hello Norman,” I said. “Who is that?” he asked, like the aged Isaac in the Bible when Jacob comes for a blessing. “It’s Mashey,” I said, leaning in so he could see me more clearly. He grabbed my arm and held on. “Mashey, Mashey, how wonderful, how wonderful that you came.” His eyes glistened with tears and mine did too. We talked for a few minutes and made plans to meet later that year when I was to come to Provincetown for the annual meeting of the Norman Mailer Society, one of the few such societies devoted to a living author. Alas, it was not meant to be. He took ill a few days before I arrived. And now he is gone. | As happens over the years, our contact dissipated, though at my birthday I always received one of his hand-drawn self portraits. Knowing that time was short, I went to LA in March when he came to discuss his final novel, ''The Castle in the Forest''. Mailer by then was weak — he walked with two canes, was hard of hearing and could not see well — but his mind was as astute as ever. He spoke like he wrote, in ornate, somewhat opaque sentences, the ideas probing deep into the psyche of America. He kept us enthralled for over an hour. After he finished, I went to greet him. “Hello Norman,” I said. “Who is that?” he asked, like the aged Isaac in the Bible when Jacob comes for a blessing. “It’s Mashey,” I said, leaning in so he could see me more clearly. He grabbed my arm and held on. “Mashey, Mashey, how wonderful, how wonderful that you came.” His eyes glistened with tears and mine did too. We talked for a few minutes and made plans to meet later that year when I was to come to Provincetown for the annual meeting of the Norman Mailer Society, one of the few such societies devoted to a living author. Alas, it was not meant to be. He took ill a few days before I arrived. And now he is gone. | ||
Mailer writing on Henry Miller once noted that “a writer of the largest dimension can alter the nerves and marrow of a nation.” I think it is an apt appraisal of Mailer’s own contribution to our nation’s literature and consciousness. Like a true prophet, Mailer was not always appreciated in his own time — he was dropped by the ''Norton Anthology of Literature'' in its latest edition — but he will always be someone whose work speaks to what it means to be an American. I will miss my friend dearly. | Mailer writing on Henry Miller once noted that “a writer of the largest dimension can alter the nerves and marrow of a nation.” I think it is an apt appraisal of Mailer’s ''own'' contribution to our nation’s literature and consciousness. Like a true prophet, Mailer was not always appreciated in his own time — he was dropped by the ''Norton Anthology of Literature'' in its latest edition — but he will always be someone whose work speaks to what it means to be an American. I will miss my friend dearly. | ||
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