Contemporary American Literature

Course 1-2
2
nd
Year American Studies
3
rd
Year English minor
Spring Semester 2011
Profdr !odica "ihaila
NORMAN MAILER (1923-2007)
- no#elist$ short stories %riter$ #ersifier$ sociological & literary critic$ play%right$ self-
pu'licist
-(ournalist )irected * feature-length films$ co-founder of +he ,illage ,oice in 1-../
ran unsuccessfully for mayor of 0Y in 1-
- Eric "ottram 2 "ailer 3 4completely characteristic of mid-century America5
-his self-conscious effort in the .0s to emerge as prophet-6riter$ a 7la8e 2 Ad# 9or
"yself
"ailer appears as the chief representati#e of the age :nu pentru o anumita capodopera$ ci
datorita;<
- e=traordinary #itality of his imagination
- readiness to respond to the largest pro'lems of the times in original manner
- his po%er to shape the moment
> 4to translate his life into literary career and then to translate that career into history5
Poirier
- li8e ?eming%ay he creates a legend of his life
- at the center of 'oth life and art a great am'ition :citat; #e@i 0orton > to ma8e a
re#olution in the consciousness of our time
romantic 'eha#iour$ cult of courage 2
Aualified--- 'y intellectual am'ition ----'y a mystic and erotic intuition of e=istence
- the %orld is seen in "anichaean terms
- the %orld is the product of an unfinished struggle 'et%een Bod and the )e#il
- he resists the technocratic or totalitarian organi@ation of the human psyche :%hich he
identifies %ith cancer$ entropy$ death;
- the life spar8 is seen in the smells of lo#e
a dangerous gesture
the thrust of the imagination
- his intellectual gro%th Pro#ides a critiAue of the changing American #alues<
Li'eralism$ "ar=ism$ the 0e% left
an ideological re#aluation of the possi'ilities of life a radical re#ie% of history
- his art > undergoes marry mutations from early naturalism to sym'olic & pop forms
ne% hy'rid of history & fiction$ confession and contro#ersy
- style > more colorful$ humorous
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1
- %riter of the %ar generation %ho most ela'orately attempts to mediate of the influences
his predecessors %hile he remains open to the strongest trends of post%ar culture
The Naked and the Dead :1-*D; 2imitator and e=tender of )os Passos
E
until +he Prisoner of the Se= :1-F1;$ his career forms a continuing mediation on the
#arieties of post%ar no#elistic style that orchestrates the synoptic
naturalism of )os Passos$ the hard-edged neigh'orhood
fatalism of 9arrell
mythic natural rhythms of Stein'ec8 into concert %ith the Auintessentially
post%ar motif of the %riter as a special person %ith a special mission
?eming%ayGs careful fiction of the isolated %riter-hero 'ecomes in "ailerGs %or8
the %riter-hero as %eather#ane in the %inds of culture > focal point for "ailerGs
special com'ination of modernist stylistic self-consciousness and naturalist political
self-consciousness
The Naked and the Dead > 9irst %ar no#el to 'e a great success
IN 1944 Mailer was drafted into the US Army. Served for 18 months in the Phillipines
and in Japan as rifleman in a reonnaissane o!tfit.
- no real central character$ no hero
- the plot focused less on the %ar %ith the Hapaness than on the metaphysical-political
conflict 'et%een the li'eral lieutenant ?earn and the conser#ati#e general Cummings ?is
philosophy< 4the morality of the future is a po%er morality5
- the action 2 pseudo-historical< an American di#ision led 'y genCummings in#ades the
Hapanese-held island Anopopei
1; > naturalism< of detail I the authority of the detached naturalist author
2; > modernism< - the naturalist assumption of interpretati#e authority %as undermined
- through a #ariety of techniAues :straight narration$ playlet interludes$
'iographical s8etches; "ailer infuses )os PassosGs affinity for detail %ith an empathy
for character that creates a ne% synthesis 'et%een the detached naturalist author and the
in#ol#ed participant
3; - metamorphic Auality 2 his potential to 'ecome all of his characters :his
dou'le allegiance to the first and third persons;
Barbary h!re (19"1) > he shifts decisi#ely to the first person +he narrator has lost his
memory :he can no longer tell fact from fiction$ memory;
-a political allegory rather than history
- the interrelation of the political and the psychological
- the irrele#ance of history that is not personal
-"ain concern- the psychology of politics : the 'ridge 'et%een "ar= and 9reud;
+hemes > #iolence$ competition and assertion in a conte=t of peace time impotence$
%here sensi'ility and emotion %ere constantly 'eing 'rought into Auestion 'y
a Cold 6ar America in %hich only efficiency and demonstrated competence
mattered
6riter > much of a romantic
- Yet he em'raced the image of %riter as outsider :1-.- Advertisments for Myself
:%or8ing %riter Jmpersonation the self-conscious creation of 4"ailer5
2
?is #ision of America > en#eloped in a personal mythology of disease and paranoia :An
American Dream 1-1.; :auto'iographical fantasies 1
st
person;
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Amerian "radition in #iterat!re p. 194$
-"ailer has ta8en himself %ith total seriousness as a %riter
Li8e ?eming%ay 2 to ran8 %ith the 'est %riters of all times & places
Self conscious creation of "ailer as a prophet %riter
- ?e 'rea8s %ith< the traditional realistic no#el & e=ploits a personality at odds %ith the
current social & political a'surdities
- %ith other %riters of the 10Gs he 'ecame a practitioner of the 4ne% (ournalism5 that
com'ined authorial in#ol#ement %ith the traditional role of o'(ecti#e reporter
#hy Are #e $n %$et&Na' (19(7)
- re%or8ed ?eming%ay and 9aul8nerGs theme of the hunt into a 'oo8 length monologue
of a young +e=an$ %hose fundamentally nineteenth-century moral #alues are o#erlain
%ith all the slogans$ sym'ols and icons of Am popular culture
The Ar'$e) !* the N$+ht (19(,) - at !n.e history$ fiction$ prophecy
- completed his gro%th out of his naturalist past 9irst person and third person at the same
time concentration on the %riterGs style as the image of the indi#idual contemplating the
comple=ities of Am e=perience; see p 11.
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:?assan< Contemporary American Literature;
1-1D< The Armies of the Night : History as a Novel, Novel as History
> meditati#e reportage
- an auto'iographical report of the Pentagon march
- one of his 'est 'oo8s :Pulit@er Pri@e$ 0 7oo8 A%ard;
- +he Peace "arch of Kcto'er$ 1-1F
J part< ?istory as 0o#el > records "ailerGs reactions as he recounts his participation in an
anti-,ietnam march on the Pentagon in Kcto'er 1-1F
JJ part< +he 0o#el as ?istory > treats in more generali@ed fashion the sociopolitical
'ac8ground of the march
- 'oth first person and third person at the same time - a retrospecti#e loo8 through the
eyes of L"ailerL$ half in league %ith and half du'ious a'out the effort of the marchers to
ma8e their indi#idual #oices heard in protest against the %orld
- in his later %or8 and the three films he has made$ "ailer has constantly pointed to the
%ays in %hich factuality and history need the shaping po%er of imagination to ma8e
them LrealL
N!rt!n< Armies of the 0ight :1-1D; 2 a piece of %riting that is at once history$ fiction
and prophecy
his pri#ate concerns against the pu'lic significances 'orn 'y the e#ent
- the L"ailerL %ho mo#es through these pages is a less-than-heroic figure$ of an a#aila'le
for comic and satiric treatement 'y the author$ though not e=clusi#ely so 2 in that it
resem'les +he Education of ?enry Adams :+hic8 %ith often humorously o'ser#ed
3
particularity$ its tone is e#entually gra#er and more serious than anything he had %ritten
or has %ritten since;
1-1- - Pulit@er Pri@e general non-fiction
+he 0ational 7oo8 A%ard
- "iami and the Siege of Chicago :1-1-;
- Kf a 9ire on the "oon :1-F0; as if he a'andoned the no#el
- +he Prisoner of Se= :1-F1;
- St Beorge and the Bod 9ather :1-F2;
- "arilyn :1-F3;
?e returned to the no#elistic techniAues in a documentary account of the life of con#icted
murderer - +he E=ecutionGs Song :1-F-; 2 Pulit@er 1-D0
- ?arlotGs Bhost :1--1; the lifetimeGs of 2 generations in the CJA
- Ks%aldGs +ale gets 'ehind a stereotypical #ie% of Ks%ald and traces his (ourney
from a disastrous childhood to the "arines to "ins8 and to his death in )allas
- Ancient E#enings :1-D3;
- +ough Buys )onGt )ance :1-D*;
- +he Bospel According to the Son :1--F; > a 30-a carte
-+he Castle in the 9orest :200F;
N!rt!n Anth!/!+y 0+1 202"
?is imperati#e< Lma8ing a re#olution in the consciousness of our timeL
?is am'ition<
---to produce a %or8 that L%ill ha#e the deepest influence of any %or8 'eing done 'y an
American no#elist in these yearsL
--- to translate his life into a literary career and then to translate that literary career into
history 2 an Limperialistic literary am'itionL 2 !ichard Poirier
*