Norman Mailer (1923–2007)

A startling work of creative imagination.

Norman Mailer - love him or hate him - had a mastery of the language that very few could rival. It is apparent in all his works, including "Ancient Evenings", which takes place at a variety of Egyptian locales, from royal dinners to family barge rides, from distant mining camps to tombs. Much of the story is told in flashback, much of it recited by a ponderous old man. The highlights of the book are:
a) Mailer's immense knowledge of the age. I adored Ancient Egypt as a study topic when a student, and still I'm not sure how much of this is verified/historically theorised truth, and how much is Mailer's imagination. Either way, he creates a world in which every cultural nuance and spoken idiosyncracy feels foreign and yet genuine;
b) That sense of magic - speculative fiction, I guess we'd call it now - that allows us never to be sure what is real, without ever succumbing to the dreaded "fantasy"; and
c) yes, it is true: Mailer's ability to tell those lecherous tales while rarely coming across as just a perv.

As others have said, this book will beguile or disgust: sodomy and incest (sometimes both!) are high on the agenda, and Mailer is as unapologetic as his characters.

I would never call this book my favourite, not by a long shot: like many works, I appreciate it as much intellectually as I do viscerally. For instance, Menenhetet speaks using a lot of similes and analogies, often quite ponderously. It makes reading this book a tougher experience than one would like, but this is a genuine part of the character and his culture, not a flaw in Mailer's writing.

In the end, this is a work that won't speak to anyone. It's highly idiosyncratic, explores many abstract or challenging themes, and takes no pains to explain itself until it feels the time is right. However, by the same token, the novel refuses to pander to cliche or the simple answers, and is one of those amazing books where - by the time you're reading the final chapters - you realise how strange and incomprehensible they would be to the uninitiated, yet they make perfect sense to you. "Ancient Evenings" makes you work for your reward, and in this case the reward is a fantastic and unsettling portrayal of life in Egypt under the Pharaohs, and of a world so far removed from our own. The final chapter is startlingly beautiful, and puts my previous favourite literary ending - that of "The Great Gatsby" - to shame. Lovely.… (mais)

My next read from books published in 1951 was Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer. It was his second novel and did not sell well after his first success with [The Naked and the Dead]. Barbary Shore was the first book I have read by this author having been wary of his machismo profile and I was surprised by what I found in this highly political novel: most of the action takes place inside of a rooming house in Brooklyn Heights,

Mickey Lovett rents a room; he calculates he has enough money to last for a couple of months and he wants the peace and quiet to write a novel. He is suffering from amnesia after being injured during the war. He soon finds too many distractions to work at his writing; the first is Guinevere his well rounded landlady who teases him with her sexuality, which seems to be echoed by her precocious four year old daughter Momina. Then there is McLeod an intellectual who fascinates Lovett with his books and knowledge and Mickey finds himself wanting to 'sit at his feet' in his room upstairs. Another tenant Hollingsworth seems to want to get Mickey on his side in a dispute with McLeod. Finally there is Lannie a woman hurt by electric shock treatment suffered in a mental institute and now in love with Guinevere. It soon becomes apparent that the rooming house is a hot bed of intrigue. McLeod is a revolutionary, a socialist who may have committed murder, Hollingsworth works for the Bureau and is intent on breaking McCleod who is now a fugitive. Lannie has been a follower of McLeod and Guinevere has a mysterious husband who visits her from time to time.

The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of Mickey who with his amnesia represents a 'tabla rasa' for ideas. McLeod is the intellectual revolutionary, Hollingsworth works for a government intelligence agency and Lannie is a woman damaged by her past. Mickey slowly puts all this together as he finds himself a witness to the drama which unfolds in McLeod's room. Hollingsworth suspect's that McLeod has stolen something from the government and undertakes a series of gruelling interviews. McLeod describes himself as a revolutionary socialist, believing that Capitalism will destroy itself and he wants to be prepared to take advantage, but admits that:

it is the paradox of the revolutionary who seeks to create a world in which he would find it intolerable to live.

Man is only capable of founding societies based on privilege and inequality.

However the book becomes a battle of wills between Hollingsworth and McLeod with Mickey and Lannie witnessing the struggle and trying to sort out their own relationships with Guinevere. There are long speeches by McLeod justifying his position, but also wondering if the struggle has been worth the sacrifices he has made. Where does love come into all this? he asks.

In 1951 when the novel was published, some American intellectuals were reeling under the aggressive accusations from Senator McCarthy of un-American activities. Norman Mailer does not hold back in challenging what he calls state capitalism: McLeod is by no means the bad guy and the outcome seems to hinge on which side Mickey Lovett will fall. Looking back from our subsequent knowledge of the author and his viewpoint it could be argued that the two female characters and the little girl do become, kind of collateral damage with the men battling away in the room upstairs. However I do think it is a brave piece of fiction writing and Mailer creates tension in his description of the relationships, within the household, with everybody suffering during the blistering heat of summer. Politics and sexual politics are king here and the reader will judge for himself whether Mailer presents us with a naive or more nuanced view of the world. Much better than expected and so 3.5 stars.… (mais)

You can watch Mailer talking about reading the NT for the first time in a Charlie Rose interview on Youtube. He comes to it late in life and as an outsider (coming from a jewish heritage).

There's nothing transformative in this book, no radical new take or even divergence from the Biblical narrative (as with The Last Temptation for instance). Instead it's almost predictably a take on Jesus as a jewish man of his time, with some uncertainty and trepidation but overall following the beats as laid out in a harmonizing view of the gospels. This is like reading Mailer's own attempt to understand the story of the NT and that's the biggest failing. There's nothing wrong with it, the prose is nice enough, there's just nothing enticing there, no insight or revelation to uncover. It's exactly what you'd expect.… (mais)