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Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead & Selected Letters 1945-1946 (LOA #364)
A landmark in the modern literature of war by a still-controversial literary icon
Includes a selection of letters—nine never before published—that reveal the real life roots of one of the greatest American debut novels of the last century
Nearly universally praised upon publication as an achievement inviting comparison with Tolstoy and Hemingway, Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is not just a monumental war novel but also a devastating antiwar novel, exposing the primal nature of power through the interplay of a platoon of soldiers on an impossible and ultimately pointless mission on an obscure island in the Pacific during World War II. Written just after the war ended, in the early days of the emerging Cold War, the novel daringly engages with the authoritarian impulses in the American character.
To celebrate and commemorate the centennial of Mailer’s birth and the 75th anniversary of the publication of his unforgettable debut novel, this expanded collector’s edition includes a selection of 23 letters (all but four from Mailer to his first wife, Beatrice) chosen by Mailer biographer J. Michael Lennon that reveals the keen insight and powerful ambition of a brilliant young writer grappling with the challenge of converting the weight of experience into art.
Includes a selection of letters—nine never before published—that reveal the real life roots of one of the greatest American debut novels of the last century
Nearly universally praised upon publication as an achievement inviting comparison with Tolstoy and Hemingway, Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is not just a monumental war novel but also a devastating antiwar novel, exposing the primal nature of power through the interplay of a platoon of soldiers on an impossible and ultimately pointless mission on an obscure island in the Pacific during World War II. Written just after the war ended, in the early days of the emerging Cold War, the novel daringly engages with the authoritarian impulses in the American character.
To celebrate and commemorate the centennial of Mailer’s birth and the 75th anniversary of the publication of his unforgettable debut novel, this expanded collector’s edition includes a selection of 23 letters (all but four from Mailer to his first wife, Beatrice) chosen by Mailer biographer J. Michael Lennon that reveals the keen insight and powerful ambition of a brilliant young writer grappling with the challenge of converting the weight of experience into art.
924 pages, Hardcover
Published January 10, 2023
11 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Norman Mailer
342 books1,416 followersNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 14, 2023
Another book that I have carried around with me, in one edition or another, for over 50 years, but never read it. I did read lots of Mailer back in the day, and really enjoyed his nonfiction--those sprawling accounts of American culture in the 60s and 70s. But he was such a jerk! I remember all those television appearances where he seemed just like a post-pubescent boy, a smart one but insufferable. I saw him once at Notre Dame introducing one of his boring films, and he just tried to insult all the clergy and religious who were in the hall. He was drunk, of course. And did I really want to go back and spend the necessary time with this gigantic novel that he had written when he was 24? I couldn't convince myself.
BUT I WAS WRONG! This is a sprawling and messy book, of course. Written at top speed, and that is sometimes obvious. But, god, the ambition of it. The stretch toward monumentality. It is a great novel about the Pacific War, where the whole thing is burned down to one platoon in one battle, yet it seems to include the whole war, politics and history and all. Mailer wrote in one of the letters included in this LOA edition -- "... there's no use writing a novel today unless you try to make it include everything." That time when all the best young novelists thought they could write the great American novel, and many of them tried to. None got closer than Mailer -- partly because he had the war, of course.
Sometimes his structure is just so obvious, it seems laughable, at first. The most obvious device is his "Time Machines," where he is able to go back and sketch out his characters' lives before the war, his attempt to give them greater dimension, to explain their reactions to the horrible pressures placed on them by jungle combat. So, yeah, it seems easy. Yet in the end, I found it very effective. Those character sketches, not all of them small, made me care more about the men involved in the fighting and dying.
In our contemporary terms, Mailer did not, of course, include "everything." There are whole swaths of America that are not there. No women (except some cardboard examples in the Time Machines). No black people, and little sense of the racial tension that filled the country, even then. There is a good Mexican-american soldier, and he is actually the most effective soldier of the bunch. The dialect writing of this character and some of the southern men is horrible. So even in all this 800 pages, there is much that is not there.
But the battle scenes are real page turners, and the battles focus the attention of the characters and the readers. They do bring it all together.
So, yeah, Mailer was a jerk. But Mailer was also brilliant, and this early novel by a 24 year old is worth every minute it takes to read it.
BUT I WAS WRONG! This is a sprawling and messy book, of course. Written at top speed, and that is sometimes obvious. But, god, the ambition of it. The stretch toward monumentality. It is a great novel about the Pacific War, where the whole thing is burned down to one platoon in one battle, yet it seems to include the whole war, politics and history and all. Mailer wrote in one of the letters included in this LOA edition -- "... there's no use writing a novel today unless you try to make it include everything." That time when all the best young novelists thought they could write the great American novel, and many of them tried to. None got closer than Mailer -- partly because he had the war, of course.
Sometimes his structure is just so obvious, it seems laughable, at first. The most obvious device is his "Time Machines," where he is able to go back and sketch out his characters' lives before the war, his attempt to give them greater dimension, to explain their reactions to the horrible pressures placed on them by jungle combat. So, yeah, it seems easy. Yet in the end, I found it very effective. Those character sketches, not all of them small, made me care more about the men involved in the fighting and dying.
In our contemporary terms, Mailer did not, of course, include "everything." There are whole swaths of America that are not there. No women (except some cardboard examples in the Time Machines). No black people, and little sense of the racial tension that filled the country, even then. There is a good Mexican-american soldier, and he is actually the most effective soldier of the bunch. The dialect writing of this character and some of the southern men is horrible. So even in all this 800 pages, there is much that is not there.
But the battle scenes are real page turners, and the battles focus the attention of the characters and the readers. They do bring it all together.
So, yeah, Mailer was a jerk. But Mailer was also brilliant, and this early novel by a 24 year old is worth every minute it takes to read it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review