Another lion says good night: Norman Mailer, RIP.
The death of Norman Mailer leaves a tear in the fabric of our national political and intellectual culture.
Mailer, of course, was one of the great men of letters who emerged in the post-war period. Along with William F. Buckley Jr., Dwight MacDonald, Gore Vidal, and John Kenneth Galbraith, he became an iconic figure – endlessly engaged, always, when sober, articulate, and never boring even if, one gathers, sometimes boorish.
Mailer had a gift for controversy that served him well in the turbulent 1960s and he was often matched with Buckley as the two of them danced their political tango across the nation, Buckley the brash but tempered conservative, Mailer the petulant liberal whose disenchantment with American Babbitry knew no bounds.
His greatest work, many would argue, was his first – his World War II novel, The Naked and the Dead. But he wrote several other books of note, including Harlot’s Ghost (which is brilliant if terribly long), The Executioner’s Song and Ancient Evenings. He became best known, however, for Armies of the Night, which established him, culturally speaking, as one of the distinctive anti-war radical voices from the 1960s.
The messiness of his personal life aside, Mailer had the gift of blarney and charm, which was apparent each time he took to the airwaves; and this he did a great deal in his final years, his old act revived compliments of his anti-Iraq war fulminations.
His concern that America lusted for empire was always overstated, but his concerns about the coarsening of American culture and the decline of language – political and otherwise — certainly rang true. That he contributed to this coarsening through his own public antics he would have conceded. He spoke with a deep, compelling growl and was never afraid to be wrong, which he often was.
That his fears about the complexities of our venture into Iraq proved more salient than his reasons for opposing it is typical. Mailer had a gift for spotting problems, but his diagnostic skills never quite matched his beautiful use of language and metaphor. He had a poet's sensibilities but little political judgment.
Buckley had one of the better lines on Mailer, written back in 1962. Buckley lamented, tongue in cheek, that Mr. Mailer might become bored by the conservatives he loved to debate: “I hope we can maintain his interest, though I confess to certain misgivings. I am not sure we have enough sexual neuroses for him. But if we have any at all, no doubt he will find them and celebrate them . . .”
America has few lions to spare, but we have surely lost one with the passing of Norman Mailer.
shadroui@yahoo.com
Read more articles by George Shadroui
Mailer was a great writer at times and not so at other times.
He was one lousy human being, in his treatment/abuse of women and a very poor judge of character when he spoke up for a criminal, who later killed an innocent victim, making Norm admit that he was wrong once in his life.
When he said that the Trade Towers appeared to him as two buck teeth and joined the anti-American side again, that demonstrated wha a despicable heel he truly was.
I'm glad that the old sob is burning in hell for all eternity and will never see one of his Commie pals in the WH.
Comment by Blacky 22 | November 13, 2007