No subject

Chicago by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI 
tracked Mailer for fifteen years, beginning in 1962.

And quoted the FBI agent-critic as saying:

Mailer vacillates greatly in his thinking, making this 
book difficult to read and at times impossible to comprehend.

Fred comments:
I know this is gauche at worst and treason at best, but I think the FBI
agent may not be totally devoid of literary taste when it comes to Mailer. I
really see Mailer in these essays and observations, which definitely have
value, as in decline from his artistic peak. And I understand the irritation
at the vacillating standpoint.

The Executioner's Song, his enormous study of death penalty victim and
murderer Gary Gilmore, seems sure to remain classic in my opinion. And
Ancient Evenings, his Egyptian fantasy, was certainly entertaining for
anyone like myself who, almost without exception, enjoys movies about
mummies.

But I would have recommended that the puzzled and troubled literate FBI
agent read "Barbary Shore" for a less clouded picture of Mailer's claim to
be a great American writer. (And in that one, he might be glad to find, the
FBI agent is a central character, not just walk-on bad guy, and, what is
more, HE GETS THE GIRL!

He and many others might also get a more coherent vision from reading The
Deer Park, a classic of Hollywood in the witch-hunt.

To me, these novels plus the short story The Time of Her Time (which, though
written by a fellow with very clear misogynist tendencies, stands out as a
feminist classic more as time goes on) will always be Norman Mailer as a
great novelist and explorer. After that -- I noticed this really after he
stabbed his wife Adele (she survived handily) and burst thereby into the
world of pure celebrity -- his work moved away from his perhaps misguided
desire to be another Hemingway.

The 1950s (not Naked and the Dead, which was a very good start to be sure
but does not match the best aspects of James Jones' From Here to Eternity or
The Thin Red Line) were the summit of his importance as a writer, at least
for me.

Aside from The Executioner's Song, the last of his works to impress me
strongly was Advertisements for Myself (circa 1958 or 9), which included
some interesting essays and an outstanding piece of literary assessment of
the competing "talent in the room," as well as good short stories (above all
"The Time of Her Time"). 

After that, for me, the artist as artist fades and the artist as PT Barnum
(an art in its own right I concede, as a lover of show biz) begins to take
center stage.
Fred Feldman


The 50s were the high point of his art