Click on the headline to link to a "The New York Times" obituary for American writer Norman Mailer article, dated November 10, 2007.
BOOK REVIEW
Pieces and Pontifications, Norman Mailer, Little Brown, 1988
This review was originally written in the summer of 2007 before Mr. Mailer's recent death. Nothing needs to be changed here on that account.
Apparently as I have completed this summer's reading list I am `running the table' on Norman Mailer's work (see all reviews). As I recently noted in this space while reviewing Norman Mailer's The Presidential Papers at one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that he wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the pre-eminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly had the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels in his time, like The Deer Park and An American Dream, I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I have re-read his work under review here. This group of essays, musings, insights, rantings, ravings and attempts to understand this sorry, seemingly forsaken world only confirm my above-mentioned belief.
Pieces and Pontifications is a nice grab bag that includes early work but mainly centers on the 1970's - after the hubris, anxieties, fears and hopes of the turbulent 1960's, of which Mailer was a prime reporter, had run its course. Here we have some sardonic reflections on the ever expanding cosmos of television, Mailer's use of it, its use of Mailer including his famous `tiff' with Gore Vidal; the inevitable squabbling and /or dueling over the women's liberation issues of the time that seem rather tame in retrospect; a well thought out review of Last Tango In Paris and its place in the cinematic pantheon; and, other miscellaneous work of the premier American existential traveler of that time. Also offered are some insights into what Mailer, as a literary man, was trying to do in various novels.
In an age when seemingly every, even third-rate, writer has been the subject of `complete collectionitis' this book has that feel except here we have a first-rate writer. Okay, then let us cut to the chase. Must one read this book to getting a feel for Mailer and his style? No. One must read Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, and An American Dream. But if you are a Mailer `junkie' or wannabe this is right up your alley.
BOOK REVIEW
Pieces and Pontifications, Norman Mailer, Little Brown, 1988
This review was originally written in the summer of 2007 before Mr. Mailer's recent death. Nothing needs to be changed here on that account.
Apparently as I have completed this summer's reading list I am `running the table' on Norman Mailer's work (see all reviews). As I recently noted in this space while reviewing Norman Mailer's The Presidential Papers at one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that he wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the pre-eminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly had the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels in his time, like The Deer Park and An American Dream, I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I have re-read his work under review here. This group of essays, musings, insights, rantings, ravings and attempts to understand this sorry, seemingly forsaken world only confirm my above-mentioned belief.
Pieces and Pontifications is a nice grab bag that includes early work but mainly centers on the 1970's - after the hubris, anxieties, fears and hopes of the turbulent 1960's, of which Mailer was a prime reporter, had run its course. Here we have some sardonic reflections on the ever expanding cosmos of television, Mailer's use of it, its use of Mailer including his famous `tiff' with Gore Vidal; the inevitable squabbling and /or dueling over the women's liberation issues of the time that seem rather tame in retrospect; a well thought out review of Last Tango In Paris and its place in the cinematic pantheon; and, other miscellaneous work of the premier American existential traveler of that time. Also offered are some insights into what Mailer, as a literary man, was trying to do in various novels.
In an age when seemingly every, even third-rate, writer has been the subject of `complete collectionitis' this book has that feel except here we have a first-rate writer. Okay, then let us cut to the chase. Must one read this book to getting a feel for Mailer and his style? No. One must read Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, and An American Dream. But if you are a Mailer `junkie' or wannabe this is right up your alley.
