Word: mailer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer ∙ Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Márquez Heartburn, Nora Ephron Ironweed, William Kennedy ∙ The Little Drummer Girl, John le Carré Tzili: The Story of a Life, Aharon Appelfeld
...Ancient Evenings, Mailer...
...turns out, with his mother and great-grandfather. What this means, in practice, is that mystery becomes unnecessary. Whenever one character wonders what another is thinking or feeling, telepathy comes instantly to the rescue. Different people are simply parcels of the same brain, one that usually resembles Norman Mailer's. Menenhetet I often sounds like the world's oldest existentialist: "Look for the risk. We must obey it every time. There is no credit to be drawn from the virtue of one's past." This figure has given much thought during his lives to the mysterious, possibly...
...harem garden: all enjoy moments of intense realization. But such moods are continually broken by ludicrous sentences: "In either case, my Pharaoh's mind was now concerned with buttocks." Or: "Now, with the redolence of my nose, I watched and admired the delicacy with which the Pharaoh ate." Mailer's historical posing stalls an already leisurely narration. What gods were cited as witnesses to a treaty between the Egyptians and Hittites? "The God of Zeyetheklirer, the Gods of Kerzot, the God of Kherpenteres, the Goddess of the city of Kerephen, the Goddess of Khewek, the Goddess...
...Mailer is a member of the postwar generation of writers who still believed in the possibility of the Great American Novel. This notion always flirted with silliness, but its power to spur the ambition of young authors cannot be discounted. The paradox of Mailer's career is that his pursuit of this white whale proved the quest in his case unnecessary. He became a major writer without becoming a major novelist. His instinct to abandon fiction for long periods was, given his talents and temperament, entirely correct. His unique value among his contemporaries proved to be the witness...