Word: mailer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Norman K. Mailer '43--author of one of the most definitive World War II novels, The Naked and the Dead--has called the quote "Once a philospher, twice a pervert" his favorite saying. However, neither of these terms is adequate to describe Mailer, a literary icon whose life never seems to be enough to meet his own expectations. Mary V. Dearborn attempts to find more adequate terms to capture the life of this monumental man in Mailer, her new sweeping biography that examines both Mailer and his times. Dearborn fills the volume with extensive detail in an attempt to capture...
...Mailer admired Hemingway immensely, and much of his life seems patterned after him. Mailer became a fan of bullfighting, took up boxing and exerted the chauvinistic bravado for which Hemingway was famous. However, both Mailer's life and his writing appear to fall short of his icon's legacy. Throughout Mailer, its subject appears to be without direction and confidence, but instead acting upon whatever spurs his imagination at the moment. While he has been a major figure in American literature in the second half of the 20th century, one wonders what would have become of Mailer...
...Mailer enrolled at Harvard in 1939. He lived in Grays 11-12 with two Jewish roomates. He majored in aeronautical engineering while belonging to the Advocate and the Signet. At that time, both social class and academic performance determined whether or not a student was accepted into one of the Houses. After being denied his sophomore year, Mailer got into Dunster House in his junior year and became a member of the "Dunster Funsters." Dearborn writes that Mailer never got over "the lingering snobbishness he had somewhat uneasily observed and absorbed at Harvard...
...After college, Mailer served in the Philippines during World War II. He used many of his personal experiences in writing The Naked and the Dead, which became an enormous, unexpected success. Mailer viewed the book as a serious anti-war tract, and its popularity startled him. "I must have done something wrong," he remarked. "They shouldn't have liked it." He had burst onto the scene as a major new writer and felt enormous pressure to follow up The Naked and the Dead with an even greater book, but he never would write "the big one" that he always yearned...
...Although Mailer often appears reckless and on the cutting edge of society, most of his exploits appear to be vain attempts to attract attention or to escape an inferiority complex. He seems consumed by a constant drive to prove his masculinity and assert his sexuality. In addition, Dearborn details Mailer's substance abuse, from alcohol to marijuana to prescription pills. In addition, and some would say as a result, Mailer had trouble establishing positive relationships with women. He hardly endeared himself to feminists with lines like "I like to marry women whom I can beat once in a while...