Talk:Norman Mailer

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"An American Dream (1966) is Mailer's message to the American public reforming the popular idea of the American dream. In this novel Mailer proposed the idea of a personal dream per individual searching for the identity of the person."

could you rephrase that? it's not clear what you're trying to say here.64.165.203.107 20:31, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"This contradicted the current idea of wealth and power being the ultimate root of Americans. This novel, despite its sharp and cutting wit, has been vastly overlooked by many modern critics."

what does "ultimate root of Americans" mean? 64.165.203.107 20:31, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Wife Beater 2 American Dream 2.1 Moved! 3 The Fight 4 The Castle In the Forest 5 The Executioner's Song 6 Other unlisted works? 7 Blog removal 8 "The Prisoner of Sex" 9 Adele Morales/Structure of article

[edit] Wife Beater

Surely worth a mention that he was "successfully" married 6 times, and was divorced by all of them because of his extreme violence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.225.177.120 (talk) 01:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC) It would do you well to read up a little on Mailer's life. Not all his wives divorced him; he was married, at the time of this death, to Norris Church Mailer for over thirty years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.161.180.93 (talk) 15:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

How are those "successful" marriages? -- 12.116.162.162 17:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe Mailer's stabbing of his second wife Adele is mentioned in the article. The others didn't divorce him "because of his extreme violence" (although Beverley Bentley did allege domestic abuse); in fact, he married his sixth wife Norris Church in 1980; she outlived him, and thus they didn't divorce. The levels of domestic violence in two of Mailer's marriages are repellent enough; no need to distort the matter further 89.242.72.13 (talk) 22:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Dream

He probably means that by the label "American Dream" Mailer meant to stress that does not exist a collective dream such that it can be defined as belonging to a collective category as an adjective like "American" may suggest, but that the nature of this dream is that of fighting for one's own individuation (Jungian meaning).

As such the dream is collective and individualistic at the same time: a whole population shares as a dream the personal effort to find a _personal_ place in the big painting. This "place" is not a career (this to account also for the question about the "ultimate root" being not wealth), but the ethical meanings that a man's story can leave behind as its legacy.

The american dream starts as individual struggle, and ends up as collective meaning.

This meaning is validly distilled out of these struggles and out of the success, tragedy, or escape they end with, as an ethical kernel that that man's or woman's life wittingly or unwittingly secreted. It is thus both personal and collective at once.

It is the "American Dream". UnitedScripters

[edit] Moved!

I didn't like how this paragraph affected the article's flow, so I decided to be bold and moved the whole American dream thing to its own page. -Wiccan Quagga 11:01, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Fight

Why is The Fight not included in the list of his works?

Added The Fight and was removed next day?

[edit] The Castle In the Forest

From all the pre-release reviews and excepts in the print and on radio, it appears that this new work which focuses on personal demonization of Adolf Hitler's childhood and family background is a disappointment coming from Mailer, who in the past has satirized smug self-serving middle class respectable opinion, which ironically in this instance he reflects. The crimes of Hitler, fascism and the horrors of twentieth century history generally it is hard to gainsay and surely merit not being trivialized. Those of us who grew up in middle class America, however, may be naive and know little about this. Mailer as a World War II veteran and former activist in the anti-war movement should know better and not insult us with this sort of cheap progaganda, albeit overwrought. A serious study of this individual and German fascism would focus critically on his experiences in the the Great War, in which 3 million Germans died, and the Versailles Conference, the Bolshevik Revolution etc. and the associated social upheaval which shaped him and a whole generation. Moreover, anti-semitism is an ancient medieval prejudice that goes back way before Hitler and not unique to Germany. Also, focusing all the blame on Hitler as an individual conveniently takes the onus off of the millions of ordinary "patriotic" people-to say nothing of the German military and business elites-who shared his outlook and psychology and who enthusiastically supported him and Germany's war machine. As it stands now, however, the author's frivolous story brings to mind what Lincoln Rockwell derided as "all that hooey about Hitler". (to Alex Haley for 1967 Playboy magazine interview). Seriously, 3 million Germans died in WW1, 50 times more than the Americans who perished in Vietnam. Is it really such an unreasonable supposition to think that those horrific experiences are what formed the foundation of his rage-the horrors of the Somme and Verdun-and that he may have just been, like his contemporaries, an unremarkeable person before that time? That the cause of his psychology was the obvious historical one? Tom Cod 05:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• You are attributing a lot of ideas to Mailer that have nothing at all to do with his book. Please note that talk pages are to be used for ideas for improving the article, not just generally discussing or slamming the subject, especially when a living person is involved.Qworty 21:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there any rèason why Norman Mailer does not have an Infobox. I am going through a bit of a infobox spree at the moment and just di Denis Johnson and thought of other authors like John Grisham who has a nice one but the I was surprised when Norman Mailer didn't have one?? Is there some criteria for when not to use them - I personally think they add a lot to an article when you are looking for the quick snappy factsBustOut 21:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Executioner's Song

I there some reason why The Executioner's Song is listed under non-fiction rather than fiction? On the book's first edition dust jacket it says it is "A True Life Novel", so call me crazy but novels tend to be fiction, not non-fiction. Oh and by the way, The Executioner's Song won the Pulitzer Prize for... Fiction. So the Pulitzer board probably thought it was fiction too. --Smirkboy 02:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

In Further Reading:
Mr. Richard Poirer's good book on Norman Mailer has 1972 as the date of publication...but the annotation to it says it deals with Mailer's career into the Eighties....

71.61.180.9 18:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other unlisted works?

I was actually visiting the article to check on some of the publication dates, but two of his works on my list, Deaths for the Ladies and King of the Hill, are not included. I'm sure there are others, but I don't know the criteria for deciding which titles should be included in the article. He was quite a prolific author. Shanen 08:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blog removal

I removed many seemingly nonnotable blog obituaries from the external links. Jewlicious was removed by an anonymous editor--that being his only edit. His argument was that it was the leading Jewish blog and the only one that spoke of Mailer's religion. Although, I think most things don't speak of his being Jewish because it's not particularly important. The traffic ranking for Jewlicious is only ranked 30459,632 according to Alexa and my look at the site took it more as polemic and a chance to raise advertising revenue... but, I will let the people here decide. I just want to put a message here so others can see. gren グレン 07:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Alexa's rankings are not exactly scientific... to say the least. You might want to look at Technorati rankings instead. As to the issue of Mailer's Judaism, you may want to look at http://www.forward.com/articles/12032/ where Mailer is quoted as follows: “Many years ago, I received a translation of the Talmud as a gift, and I have been dipping into it on and off ever since; it has influenced everything I have written.” Not particularly important? I think some would dispute that. I think the Jewlicious post should stay. I'm going to go ahead and put it back in. But by all means feel free to discuss it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.55.251 (talk) 11:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether or not his Judaism is important. It's whether or not the sources are reliable sources. For someone as well known as Mailer we should have better sources than an amateur blog. That is the point I am making. It is not that it is not interesting. I am not going to deal with this because I think time will remove the lesser sources as we make this article better--drawing from books and journals and criticism. gren グレン 05:48, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a valid point Grenavitar. However, Jewlicious is not what one can call an amateur blog. They have 11 writers, they have been cited elsewhere on Wikipedia, they have over 3000 posts and 48,000 comments. In the Jewish world they are rather well known. Two of their writers recently addressed the United Jewish Communities General Assembly and they've received numerous awards and much press coverage. I understand that there might be a preference for academic sources given the subject matter at hand, but in lieu of a comprehensive treatment of the enigmatic role Judaism played in Mailer's life, the Jewlicious post strikes me as particularly apt.

[edit] "The Prisoner of Sex"

Mailer's "Prisoner of Sex" is not about how "women should be kept in cages." Not sure who added that, but it was inaccurate.Atthom (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adele Morales/Structure of article

Two quick points. I feel the wording of the line on Mailer's stabbing of Adele Morales leans a little to the apologistic side. The present edit says, "Morales made a full physical recovery, and in 1997 she published a memoir of their marriage entitled The Last Party, which outlined her perception of the incident." How "full" was the recovery? I've read, from The Last Party and other sources, that the physical scars were not trivial in the long term, to say nothing of the emotional trauma. I'm changing it on these grounds, to something more like the earlier edit. This seems more balanced to me, and essentially neutral. I'm not sure why this was changed on account of "word choice"; I'd welcome the editor's clarification on this point.

Also, the current structure of the article is awkward. The division of the work into Novels/Essays/Other seems an artificial imposition on these paragraphs. Maybe more accurate to say "Early Novels"? Zafio (talk) 15:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)