The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Two Roads Wonder in a Wood

Written by
Alexander Hicks

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When Mailer first read Flaubert’s “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you can be violent and original in your work,” he thought “Shouldn’t Gustave have said ‘Be violent and original in your life, so that you can capture real life in your work’?” Later in his 70s he thought, “Jesus, maybe Gustave was right.” Later still, ”What about Hitler?”