Norman Mailer Is Dead - Sex~Kitten.net

Norman Mailer Is Dead

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Reading of his death today I realize I am not a fan, at least not in the traditional sense.

Truth be told, I've read few of Mailer's works; first I had to get over his persona.

My first knowledge of the man was his declaration that he was an "enemy of birth control", and thus anti-women. His repeated, and sometimes violent, marriages made him no more appealing. So I resisted this "great American two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author".

I did make it all the way through Ancient Evenings, but only because of my love of ancient Egyptian history. Well, that and the shock value. Just 18 or so when I read it, I could see where and how the author had worked to shock -- but I wasn't immune to it. The combination made me feel rather dirty. However, if the measure of a written work is how often you think of it past your reading of it, then I should regard Mailer as a master. But I'm not sure that I can.

I don't think anyone who's ever heard of Mailer could deny his giant ego. Reading Churchwell's book on Monroe, gave me some of the best insight (opinion) into Mailer -- a man whose unrequited desire could lead him to act like a petulant child; but as his weapon was a pen, he did far more damage than a plastic pirate's sword. Perhaps it would be best to describe him as a man whose feared impotency left him projecting and defensive.

And left me abraded.

Crabby & intolerant does not make me want to snuggle in with a book.

Even today, reading of his death, he evokes many things -- anger, envy, contempt, pity. There's the loss of an icon, perhaps; but not exactly sadness either... He was just too... strident.

Most would tolerate Mailer's actions, accepting them as part of the personal poetic license allowed to the creative. He was allowed destruction, uncouth behavior, and a general nasty because of a tormented-talent status. Perhaps The New York Times piece, Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With Matching Ego, Is Dead, put it best:

Mr. Mailer belonged to the old literary school that regarded novel writing as a heroic enterprise undertaken by heroic characters with egos to match. He was the most transparently ambitious writer of his era, seeing himself in competition not just with his contemporaries but with the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

Mailer remains for me a larger-than-life literary character of his own creation, one whose neither overly likeable nor heroic personality overshadowed his written works. But still, he's left me something.

I just don't know what.

Norman Mailer