NORMAN MAILER/ ROGER KIMBALL

ROGER KIMBALL ONLY PUBLISHES THOSE THAT AGREE WITH HIS FUDDY DUDDINESS ON HIS BLOG

http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/rogerkimball/2007/11/10/norman_mailer_a_dissenting_vie.php
http://www.aldaily.com/




mr. kimball's instant [?] obit is mere opinion mongering, adjective riddled -- "execrable": how so? it fails to address the underlying problem of which normal mailer and his writing and his life are/ were a manifestation. one of the most telling matters about mailer is that he was a good little boy in having lunch with his mother every sunday, he was a mama's boy, like hemingway, but was not cross dressed as a child.
mailer protested via wilhelm reich against the emasculation of american men by their schoolmarm mothers who much rather have daughters to perpetuate themselves who are so much more pliable. so, as psychopaths go, norman was a rather would be. he was afraid. as a media star he was entirely of new york. but there is some good writing there, e.g. in "why are we in vietnam" [the book susan sontag, too] thought his best, for the astonishing lyricism of his descriptions of the brooks range in alaska. coming from a city boy.
executioner's song, though co-produced -- perhaps more of his work ought to have been coed. by the 70s in new york half its girls wanted to be buggered and dominated and a strong man. norman was tentatively working himself in a direction of basic instinct, unfortunate as these may be. however, the fuddy duddy conservative direction of mr. kimball, there lies the way of true emasculation and impotence. somehow norman, up until "egyptean nights" was always interesting. the moon expedition book i was able to read from back to front. the book on hitler deserves the adjective "execrable" -- in light of the great analytic studies by fritz redlich and and ted dorpat. mailer's insecurities in needing to attach his to names more famous than his - it, too, is a cultural manifestation. of course that is not how you go about wanting to change consciousness. i only know of one writer who can do that, who understands the medium, of language, down to everything it can do for the length of a book or a few hours in the theater - before we, our beings, sink back into the muck of opinions and reactions and unconscious fantasies. norman was/ is an interesting and important transitional figure.

ALSO SEE http://www.aldaily.com/
FOR THE VARIOUS FOR OTHER RESPONSES TO MR. MAILER'S DEMISE...