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Norman Mailer, Libertarian or Sodomy-Obsessive or Both or Neither?
Norman Mailer is dead and Christopher Hitchens eulogizes him thusly at Slate:
He used to tell me with perfect gravity that politically he was "a left conservative," and this quixotic description has a patina of truth to it. Probably more than anything, Mailer was a libertarian and a foe of any system or mind-set that involved the censorious (feminism) or the overweening and the grandiose (imperialism/communism).
And there's this:
Beginning with An American Dream, he manifested an obsession with sodomy that was something a bit more (and perhaps even a bit less) than macho. I once made the mistake of asking him about this on a television show with Germaine Greer: Why was he so fixated on penetratio per anum and its occasions, male-on-male as well as male-on-female? Seizing my copy of his terrible novel Tough Guys Don't Dance, he scrawled an inscription that vowed revenge, and later gave an interview in which he said that the book had been ill-received in London because of a coterie of queer reviewers organized by me, Martin Amis, and Ian Hamilton. (Amis and I contemplated writing a hurt response, saying that this was very unfair to Hamilton.)
About the best story regarding Mailer here.
Edward|11.12.07 @ 9:39AM|#
Norman Mailer, Libertarian or Sodomy-Obsessive or Both or
Neither?
Could you check to see if he was circumscised or something?
|11.12.07 @ 10:02AM|#
"...and later gave an interview in which he said that the
book had been ill-received in London because of a coterie of queer
reviewers organized by me, Martin Amis, and Ian
Hamilton."
I plead guilty to the charge of knowing next to nothing about the
politics of book marketing, but in standard conspiracy theory,
shouldn't a coterie of queer reviewers be working together to
champion such books?
|11.12.07 @ 10:02AM|#
Couldn't find an on-line video for Are You Ready To Be
Heartbroken? which actually has a Norman Mailer reference, but
instead, here is Lloyd Cole and the Commotions doing Rattlesnakes.
You'll just have to use your imagimation and pretend you're
listening to that other, equally great song.
T|11.12.07 @ 10:11AM|#
Mailer was a libertarian and a foe of any system or mind-set
that involved the censorious (feminism) or the overweening and the
grandiose (imperialism/communism)
Norman Mailer was a foe of any mindset that was overweening and
grandiose? So, he was a foe of himself?
|11.12.07 @ 10:23AM|#
Re: Fug and all that - reminded me of this John Derbyshire
anecdote:
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshireprint021902.html
This particular story rests on the fact that Lancashire dialect
switches the long "u" and the short "u," so that the word "put" is
said with a short "u," while "putt" is said with a long one. Well,
one of the Cambridge colleges hosted a visiting lecturer with a
strong Lancashire accent, who gave an address about the Antarctic
explorer Sir Vivian Fuchs, pronouncing the name as "F*cks"
throughout his talk. Afterwards, one of the organizers took him
aside and gently pointed out the correct pronunciation, with a long
"u." "Yes, I know," replied the Lancastrian, "but I couldn't very
well say it like that, could I? After all, there were ladies in the
audience."
|11.12.07 @ 10:27AM|#
Hard to see Mailer as libertarian. Then again, there's a lot of
that going around these days.
Nice to see Hitchens using the term sodomy correctly. Sodomy just
isn't oral sex. That's smoking the White Owl.
|11.12.07 @ 11:01AM|#
Nice to see Hitchens using the term sodomy
correctly.
Mr. Dictionary says sodomy is any sex not involving a penis and a
vagina coming into contact. Mr. Judeo-Christian Theologian takes it
one step further, and has always said that it's any sex not
sanctioned by marriage. Sodom was doing a lot of bad stuff, and he
hates to see any sinners get a pass just because of teh Gheys.
|11.12.07 @ 11:11AM|#
Sodom was doing a lot of bad stuff...
And what of the Gommorahns? Hows come they don;t get any cool stuff
named after them?
|11.12.07 @ 11:21AM|#
Technically, the sin of Sodom was inhospitality. Lot had taken
the angels of the Lord in, under his roof, and offered them
hospitality, and the Sodomites demanded that Lot ignore that and
let the citizens of Sodom gang rape the angels of the Lord. If the
angels of the Lord had happened to be five minutes later, and the
mob got to them before Lot did, the homosexual gang rape would've
been A-OK. Heck, Lot even offered the mob his daughters for them to
gang rape, and the Sodomite mob was not satisfied with that
concession to hospitality, but demanded the sweet glowing asses of
the angels of the Lord.
The Bible is pretty awesome sometimes.
|11.12.07 @ 11:25AM|#
Shem, the dictionary is wrong. :-)
Oral sex is not sodomy. For example, if you read a news story about
a vicious rape and the term sodomy is in there what comes to mind?
See?
|11.12.07 @ 11:26AM|#
And what of the Gommorahns
I had that once, dude, it makes it really hurt to take a pee.
|11.12.07 @ 11:27AM|#
Could you check to see if he was circumscised or
something?
He almost certainly was; if not at birth, then the Army would have
had him snipped. What's that have to do with teh gheys?
|11.12.07 @ 11:29AM|#
From Wikipedia:
Mailer was married six times, and had several mistresses. He
had eight biological children by his various wives, and adopted one
further child. For many years, he had a house on the Cape Cod
oceanfront in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Like many novelists of
his generation, Mailer struggled with alcohol and drug abuse
throughout his life.
Damn, this dude ruled.
|11.12.07 @ 11:31AM|#
Ian-Yeah, but keep in mind god was already kind of pissed off about the buggery thing. There was a reason that the angels were sent there, after all. The inhospitality was just the straw that caused a massive subterranean pocket of sulfur to explode.
|11.12.07 @ 11:38AM|#
The inhospitality was just the straw that caused a massive
subterranean pocket of sulfur to explode.
As I explained a couple of weeks ago, Yahweh nuked Sodom. He used a
neutron bomb which explains the lack of residual radioactivity.
Didn'y you go to sunday school?
|11.12.07 @ 12:14PM|#
Mailer was one hell of a writer. That's all that really matters about the guy.
|11.12.07 @ 12:35PM|#
Mailer was alright at times, but I also agree with Bukowski that the man often went "on and on like Texas."
|11.12.07 @ 12:58PM|#
Rip Torn tried to kill Mailer with a hammer.
No, really.
Mailer handled himself admirably (even biting off part of Torn's
ear in the process). But I wonder what the fuck was happening in
Torn's brain at the time.
|11.12.07 @ 12:59PM|#
Tough Men Don't Dance.
They don't release people from prison just so they could kill
again.
|11.13.07 @ 12:43AM|#
"...if not at birth, then the Army would have had him
snipped...."
Huh? So far as I know, the army could not care less whether your
dick has been mutilated in deference to religious superstition.
Men In Toast|11.13.07 @ 1:47AM|#
Rip Torn tried to kill Mailer with a hammer.
Other way around. Look at the video: the little guy with the
misshapen
head in the green
shirt hits the big guy with the soothing Texas accent and hairy
back in the head.
Guy Montag|11.14.07 @ 12:44PM|#
Wasn't Mailer one of the folks that Tom Wolfe referred to as "the three stooges"?
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