Part of a childhood prayer yes, but none-the-less, should I die before I wake I hope that the world might remember me with just a few of the praises used to uligize author Normal Mailer who passed away Saturday at the age of 84.
Gore Vidal
said of Mailer; ““He was interesting, because he was interested,” and “He had a radical imagination, a way of approaching subjects that was never boring.”E.L. Doctrow described Mailer as ““He was by nature bound to a style of excess,”What an absolutely delicious way to be remembered.
There is good and bad to every man, to every human, to every living thing. Mailer was no exception. He had six wives, including the only daughter of the 11th Duke of Argyll. He stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, at a penknife at a party-an incident that has long been a focal point for feminist critics of Mahler who have often pointed to the sexual violence against women in his work. Adele recovered completely, but needless to say, their marriage didn’t last.
I probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet him in-person, he was a man’s man from another time. He was the smoking, scotch drinking, womanizer that existed comfortably in the 50’s and 60’s but has become a thing of the past in the 21st Century. He probably would have made Frank Sinatra and feel like a wimp. I can see Mailer and John Wayne having drinks and saying things like “damn right, that’s where she should stay, at home, preferably in bed.” He’d have probably told me I was a fat, loud-mouthed broad. And, maybe he’d be right. But, takes one to know one.
In looking around today to try and sum up his life I found two remininiscences of him that seem to say it all. According to Peter Manso’s biography of Mailer, he encountered a passing punk while walking his poodles in Brooklyn one day. The punk incautiously suggested to the burly author that his poodles were homosexual. ‘Nobody’s gonna call my dog a queer,’ Mailer exploded, before throwing himself at the punk and almost loosing an eye in the ensuing altercation.
Secondly, during the 60’s and 70’s he enjoyed wandering the city with Truman Capote, the two getting up to all kinds of trouble. Mailer described once being taken to a club by Capote called Corpse- which Mailer discovered to his horror had taken its name from a cadaver displayed on a slab in the middle of the dance floor. Mailer screamed at Capote in disgust, but his diminutive companion shrugged and replied, ‘Oh Norman, don’t be angry, they change the body fresh every day.’ It turned out that the club had a deal with the city morgue.
You have to love that. Love the man. Hate the man. Or, both. He was a writer’s writer. As the Associated Press said in its obituary of him today, ‘we have only started to miss him.’
Gore Vidal
said of Mailer; ““He was interesting, because he was interested,” and “He had a radical imagination, a way of approaching subjects that was never boring.”E.L. Doctrow described Mailer as ““He was by nature bound to a style of excess,”What an absolutely delicious way to be remembered.There is good and bad to every man, to every human, to every living thing. Mailer was no exception. He had six wives, including the only daughter of the 11th Duke of Argyll. He stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, at a penknife at a party-an incident that has long been a focal point for feminist critics of Mahler who have often pointed to the sexual violence against women in his work. Adele recovered completely, but needless to say, their marriage didn’t last.
I probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet him in-person, he was a man’s man from another time. He was the smoking, scotch drinking, womanizer that existed comfortably in the 50’s and 60’s but has become a thing of the past in the 21st Century. He probably would have made Frank Sinatra and feel like a wimp. I can see Mailer and John Wayne having drinks and saying things like “damn right, that’s where she should stay, at home, preferably in bed.” He’d have probably told me I was a fat, loud-mouthed broad. And, maybe he’d be right. But, takes one to know one.In looking around today to try and sum up his life I found two remininiscences of him that seem to say it all. According to Peter Manso’s biography of Mailer, he encountered a passing punk while walking his poodles in Brooklyn one day. The punk incautiously suggested to the burly author that his poodles were homosexual. ‘Nobody’s gonna call my dog a queer,’ Mailer exploded, before throwing himself at the punk and almost loosing an eye in the ensuing altercation.
Secondly, during the 60’s and 70’s he enjoyed wandering the city with Truman Capote, the two getting up to all kinds of trouble. Mailer described once being taken to a club by Capote called Corpse- which Mailer discovered to his horror had taken its name from a cadaver displayed on a slab in the middle of the dance floor. Mailer screamed at Capote in disgust, but his diminutive companion shrugged and replied, ‘Oh Norman, don’t be angry, they change the body fresh every day.’ It turned out that the club had a deal with the city morgue.
You have to love that. Love the man. Hate the man. Or, both. He was a writer’s writer. As the Associated Press said in its obituary of him today, ‘we have only started to miss him.’
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