Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park.
Book Review
The Deer Park, Norman Mailer, Putnam, New York, 1955
At one time, like in the case of Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Brother Hemingway as the preeminent 20th century male American prose writer. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. In his inevitable search to write the great American novel, at least for his generation, I do not believe, however that he was successful. The Deer Park is an early attempt to tackle that task and while there are flashes of brilliance there is too much self-consciousness about making a great American novel on Mailer’s part and that gets reflected in the tinniness of his characters, male and female, to break away from a fairly ordinary look at a slice of the American pie, the Hollywood bright lights and back streets side.
Certainly the subject matter of the novel is an almost surefire way to get attention. Put Hollywood in exile in the desert, wayward movie stars, starlets and wannabes, and a male lead who is not sure what he wants to be but is sure that the stars shine for him somewhere and you have the makings of a great American novel. Throw in, almost obligatory for a ‘fifties’ novel and for a self-described leftist like Mailer , the tensions surrounding the ‘red scare’, Hollywood- style, and the cultural clamp down that shameful blacklist episode imposed and one should be onto something. But, strangely, Mailer gets bogged down in the sexual escapades of the main characters and never gets to the heart of the real question that the novel poses- How the hell does one safeguard his or her creative expression without selling out to every conceivable pressure that comes along. It did not work, but nice try Norman.
Showing posts with label norman mailer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label norman mailer. Show all posts
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Out On The Be-Bop 1950s Night- Norman Mailer’s “Marilyn”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American novelist Norman Mailer.
Book Review
Marliyn, Norman Mailer
I had recently been re-reading Norman Mailer’s Marilyn- his take on the life of the legendary screen star Marilyn Monroe at a time when I had just viewed the American Masters (PBS) documentary on the musical career of the singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. And although there is no obvious connection between the lives or the talents of the two women there is a tale of two generations hidden here. Marilyn represented for my parent’s generation, the generation that survived the Great Depression (1930s-style) and fought and bled through World War II the epitome of blond glamour, sex and talent. To my more ‘sedate’ generation long straight-haired blond Joni represented the introspective, searching quiet beauty that we sought to represent our longings for understanding of this easily misunderstood world. As this book and the Joni Mitchell documentary point out however they ‘represented’ our different male fantasy perspectives they also shared a common vulnerability attempting to be independent women. Such is the life of the great creative talents.
Mailer traces Monroe rise from poverty, the early struggle to find herself a niche in acting circles, through to the rocky and sometimes sleazy road (the inevitable casting couch) to stardom. As always with Mailer one gets his take on what the symbol of Marilyn meant to my parent’s generation, and let us face it especially for men. His portrayal does not evoke his preferred hipster, beat personality but its counterpoint in the 1950’s the heyday of Marilyn’s fame. Mailer also goes through Marilyn various affairs with men particularly the doomed marriage to the playwright Arthur Miller. Finally he gives some very interesting details on the behind the scenes drama in the creation of many of her well-known films. Marilyn while she was alive never drew my eye for the reasons that Joni Mitchell did. But much later, having seen the classic The Misfits in a film revival theater I will say just one thing about her looks and performance in that film. Wow. The marriage to Miller may have not worked out but she did right by him and herself with that performance. Yes, indeed.
Book Review
Marliyn, Norman Mailer
I had recently been re-reading Norman Mailer’s Marilyn- his take on the life of the legendary screen star Marilyn Monroe at a time when I had just viewed the American Masters (PBS) documentary on the musical career of the singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. And although there is no obvious connection between the lives or the talents of the two women there is a tale of two generations hidden here. Marilyn represented for my parent’s generation, the generation that survived the Great Depression (1930s-style) and fought and bled through World War II the epitome of blond glamour, sex and talent. To my more ‘sedate’ generation long straight-haired blond Joni represented the introspective, searching quiet beauty that we sought to represent our longings for understanding of this easily misunderstood world. As this book and the Joni Mitchell documentary point out however they ‘represented’ our different male fantasy perspectives they also shared a common vulnerability attempting to be independent women. Such is the life of the great creative talents.
Mailer traces Monroe rise from poverty, the early struggle to find herself a niche in acting circles, through to the rocky and sometimes sleazy road (the inevitable casting couch) to stardom. As always with Mailer one gets his take on what the symbol of Marilyn meant to my parent’s generation, and let us face it especially for men. His portrayal does not evoke his preferred hipster, beat personality but its counterpoint in the 1950’s the heyday of Marilyn’s fame. Mailer also goes through Marilyn various affairs with men particularly the doomed marriage to the playwright Arthur Miller. Finally he gives some very interesting details on the behind the scenes drama in the creation of many of her well-known films. Marilyn while she was alive never drew my eye for the reasons that Joni Mitchell did. But much later, having seen the classic The Misfits in a film revival theater I will say just one thing about her looks and performance in that film. Wow. The marriage to Miller may have not worked out but she did right by him and herself with that performance. Yes, indeed.
Monday, March 19, 2012
On Coming Of Political Age In The Age Of The Generation Of ‘68 - Norman Mailer’s The Presidential Papers
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for th elate American author Norman Mailer.
COMMENTARY/BOOK REVIEW
THE PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, NORMAN MAILER, VIKING, 1963
At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Ernest as the preeminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might have partially admitted, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I was recently re-reading his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value and interest, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election. Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.
Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially but not exclusively among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign and domestic politics never transcended those of the New Deal but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects to order in order to ‘‘seek a newer world”. And we took him up on this. This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.
I had been haphazardly interested in politics from an early age. Names like the Rosenbergs, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and the like were familiar if not fully understood. It was the 1960 presidential campaign that brought me to political age. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during all of 1960 I was actually “Madly for Adlai,” that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson, the twice defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age aborning. That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the lesser evilism that dominates American politics and that took me a fairly long time to break with.
Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and keeping on winning). This does not bring out the better angels of our nature. For those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that newer world and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer’s little book makes for interesting and well-written reading.
COMMENTARY/BOOK REVIEW
THE PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, NORMAN MAILER, VIKING, 1963
At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Ernest as the preeminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might have partially admitted, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I was recently re-reading his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value and interest, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election. Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.
Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially but not exclusively among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign and domestic politics never transcended those of the New Deal but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects to order in order to ‘‘seek a newer world”. And we took him up on this. This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.
I had been haphazardly interested in politics from an early age. Names like the Rosenbergs, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and the like were familiar if not fully understood. It was the 1960 presidential campaign that brought me to political age. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during all of 1960 I was actually “Madly for Adlai,” that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson, the twice defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age aborning. That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the lesser evilism that dominates American politics and that took me a fairly long time to break with.
Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and keeping on winning). This does not bring out the better angels of our nature. For those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that newer world and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer’s little book makes for interesting and well-written reading.
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