Product Description
Carl Rollyson was Norman Mailer's first literary biographer to draw on unpublished letters and manuscripts as well as on interviews with the writer's friends and foes. Rollyson provides a full account of Mailer's college years, especially his fear of being drafted. Here are the sources of Mailer's mental crisis in the 1950s that led to the stabbing of his second wife, Adele. Norman Mailer: The Last Romantic gets at the sources of Mailer's obsession with violence while also portraying a major literary figure in the making, from his fabulous debut war novel, The Naked and the Dead to his final bid for literary fame, The Castle in the Forest, a brooding foray into 20th century evil via an account of Adolf Hitler's early life. A final chapter rounds out a penetrating account of Mailer's final two decades of productivity which yielded books as various as a controversial biography of Picasso and a philosophical dialogue on the nature of God. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

TO SEEK A NEWER WORLD
At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Ernest as the pre-eminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly has the ambition, ego and skill to do so. Although he wrote several good novels like The Deer Park in his time I believe that his journalistic work, as he himself might partially admit, especially his political, social and philosophical musings are what will insure his place in the literary pantheon. With that in mind I recently re-read his work on the 1960 political campaign-the one that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon- that is the center of the book under review. There are other essays in this work, some of merely passing topical value, but what remains of interest today is a very perceptive analysis of the forces at work in that pivotal election.Theodore White won his spurs breaking down the mechanics of the campaign and made a niche for himself with The Making of a President, 1960. Mailer in a few pithy articles gave the overview of the personalities and the stakes involved for the America of that time.

Needless to say the Kennedy victory of that year has interest today mainly for the forces that it unleashed in the base of society, especially, but not exclusively, among the youth. His rather conventional bourgeois Cold War foreign policy and haphazard domestic politics never transcended those of the New or Fair Deals of Roosevelt and Truman but his style, his youth and his élan seemingly gave the go ahead to all sorts of projects in order to ``seek a newer world". And we took him up on this.This writer counted himself among those youth who saw the potential to change the world. We also knew that if the main villain of the age , one Richard Milhous Nixon, had been successful in 1960 as he graphically demonstrated when he later became president we would not be seeing any new world but the same old, same old.

I had been deeply interested in politics from an early age. Names like the Rosenbergs, Joseph McCarthy, Khrushchev and organizations like Americans for Democratic Action and the Communist Party were familiar to me if not fully understood. I came of political age with the 1960 presidential campaign. Mailer addresses the malaise of American political life during the stodgy Eisenhower years that created the opening for change-and Kennedy and his superb organization rushed in. These chances, as a cursory perusal of the last 40 odd years of bourgeois presidential politics makes painfully clear, do not come often. The funny thing is that during mostof 1960 I was actually `Madly for Adlai', that is I preferred Adlai Stevenson the twice defeated previous Democratic candidate, but when the deal went down at the advanced age of 14 I walked door to door talking up Kennedy. Of course, in Massachusetts that was not a big deal but I still recall today that I had a very strong sense I did not want to be left out of the new age `aborning'. That, my friends, in a small way is the start of that slippery road to the `lesser evil' practice that dominates American politics and that took me a fairly long time to break with.

Mailer has some very cutting, but true, remarks about the kind of people who populate the political milieu down at the base of bourgeois politics, those who make it to the political conventions. Except that today they are better dressed and more media savvy nothing has changed. Why? Bourgeois politics, not being based on any fidelity to program except as a throwaway, is all about winning (and fighting to keep on winning). This process does not bring out the better angels of our nature. That said, for those old enough to remember that little spark of youth that urged us on to seek that newer world and for those too young to have acquired knowledge of anything but the myth Mailer's little book makes for interesting and well written reading.
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Product Description
The author sets out to capture Picasso's early life in this biography, exploring the originality of his art and ambition. At the heart of the interpretation is Picasso's first great love, Fernande Olivier, with whom the artist lived for seven years - a period which included his most revolutionary works. Fernande is given her own voice by way of excerpts from her candid memoirs. Including the artist's friendships with Apollonaire and Gertrude Stein, the book evokes the atmosphere of bohemian life in Paris in the early 1900s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Essential for any Picasso Fan
This is a very good book which focuses on Picasso as a young man.It is very good.It details everything about him in this period which is personal and artistic.Quite inspiring if you'd ask me what I think of it.

Americanism can rot even the most lucid minds
A message from Europe to poor Norman Mailer : "L erreur est la legende douloureuse" Lautreamont

4 out of 5
A good read.Mailer brings Picasso to life.Hard to put down.
I am re-reading this after a couple of years and I am remembering why I enjoyed it so much.It is nice to read an interpretive biography that makes Picasso human as opposed reading dry, critical art history for a change.

Picasso!
I found this book in an apartment in Florence, where i was staying for a couple days during a tour of Italy & Austria. The TV was broken, so i just picked up a random book that looked interesting. I hadn't read a book all the way through for a year or two, and wasn't planning on really reading this one either. After the first chapter, i could hardly put it down... The lady who owned the apartment let me borrow it for the rest of my trip, where i read the rest of it on trains and whatnot, and ended up thoroughly enjoying it. It is an extremely interesting and detailed book, which explores all of Picasso's adventures in Paris & Spain, his love life, and connects him to many interesting people, including some other popular artists of his time. Recommended reading for modern art fans..

You Can't Go Wrong With This Pair!!!
Both blustering,rowdy boy geniuses...Both with their ups and downs with women. Mr. Mailer does his usual terrific job here,and admits a longtime obsession with the great artist. Anyone doubting Picasso's genius will have no doubts after reading this one. The author's descriptions of the great artist's youth leave one feeling that artistic genius is inevitable.From Spain to Paris,we are led on a jaunty trip.And he kept at it even into his nineties! In short,this must be among the classic special bios of perhaps the 20th century greatest artist!! ... Read more

Product Description
When Why Are We in Vietnam? was published in 1967, almost twenty years after The Naked and the Dead, the critical response was ecstatic. The novel fully confirmed Mailer's stature as one of the most important figures in contemporary American literature. Now, a new edition of this exceptional work serves as further affirmation of its timeless quality.

Narrated by Ranald ("D.J.") Jethroe, Texas's most precocious teenager, on the eve of his departure to fight in Vietnam, this story of a hunting trip in Alaska is both brilliantly entertaining and profoundly thoughtful.
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Customer Reviews (5)

You will hardly believe your eyes and ears
Two boys in their older teens, nicknamed D.J. and Tex, go with their corporate executive fathers on a hunting trip to Alaska.They all hope to carry home the heads of bears and other animals as trophies.Both boys, who are close friends, live in the lap of luxury with their families in Texas.Their excursion becomes a last fling before they enter the real world of adulthood and the horrible realities of Vietnam of the mid to late 1960s.The wooded environment into which they enter not only mesmerizes the boys, but proves to be as shocking as a pitcher of icy cold water being splashed in their faces.While in Alaska they experience nature, in all its beauty, grandeur, and horror.In part of their hunting trip they fly over the terrain in a helicopter; other times they walk carrying no weapons at all.Mailer also delves, often scurrilously I might add, into the adults' past sexual adventures with women, much of it probably fantasy and male braggadoccio.While there are some lulls in the beginning of the book, the action eventually starts to build and build and build until a crescendo is reached.In the wild, they discover, it is kill or be killed; it is the survival of the fittest.D.J. and Tex become caught up in this and D.J., especially, sees their relationship, fleetingly, in a sexually predatory way.

While becoming immersed in this whirlwind of a novel, I thought of the "The Deerhunter," a powerful film also addressing the issues of macho behavior against the backdrop of the War in Vietnam.Norman Mailer's novel, as good as it is, confirms many of my worst beliefs about male hubris, love of violence, and war.

You won't 'get it' until you read this book.
When I got back from Vietnam in 1970, I sought out every voice I could find that might answer, for me, the question in the title.

And while it's important to know the politics and history and economics and all that jazz, I think the Final Key to understanding America's worst self-inflicted wound might be in this book.

This kid, D.J., belongs on the same shelf as Scout and Jeb in "Mockingbird" and Holden Caulfield in "Catcher" and Benjamin in "The Graduate", and that anonymous American Hero in "Red Badge of Courage."

They all say that our children have something important to teach us.

NOT Mailer's Best
A vulgar and profane metahporical rant, "Why Are We In Vietnam?" is highly entertaining and certainly unique, but pales in comparison to "The Executioner's Song," which is far and away Mailer's best work.

If the author wanted to make an iconoclastic statement about America and it's people, fine. But in terms of an anti-Vietnam message it's a bit of a reach.

Dangerous Writing
Really this novel should be called "Why We Are in Vietnam", because after reading this work, the answer to Mailer's original question is plain to see. His best work, and for once not overly-long! A good book to show you just how powerful good writing can be.

The definitive work on American machismo
Two raunchy, young Texans go to Alaska with their fathers to hunt bighorn sheep from a helicopter.Vietnam is mentioned in the last two sentences of the novel.If you can't figure out the relationship, you probably think that John Wayne was a great American hero ...
In a way, it's a pity that Mailer tied this story so closely to a specific war, because the book is powerfully relevant to Americans' view of themselves in many other historical contexts.But it's not a dull dissertation; it's entertaining, lively, and often hilarious.Still very much worth reading. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

From one warrior to another
Jose Torres first offering takes us to the point in Ali's career after his reinstatement which include tuneup fights with Quarry, Bonavena and finally to the first fight with Frazier. Interspersed with these narratives is the life of Ali from his Golden Glove Days to the revocation of his license for refusing the draft.

What makes this book unique from all the other Ali biographies out there is that the writer was quite of a boxer himself, a former light heavyweight champion in fact. From this vantage point, he gives us a glimpse of the boxer's psyche - particularly interesting is his anatomy of the knockout punch. Whereas other biographies speak about Ali in reverential tones, Torres puts Ali to task for his bad game plan in the first Frazier fight and his penchant for playing with his opponent.

Indeed, Torres acquits himself well as a boxing writer. I wish he could have deferred writing this book for a few years so that the "Rumble in the Jungle" and the next two Frazier fights would be included.

Tremendous
This book is great for all readers and is a great biography that puts you in the mind of a writer. You will feel like you are actually there witnissing these masterfull events. ... Read more

Product Description

This title, Norman Mailer, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of Norman Mailer through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on Norman Mailer, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Product Description
Amid the cactus wilds some two hudred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place for starlets and would-be starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic of 1950s Hollywood, Desert D'Or is a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what they really want—and how far the are willing to go to get it.

The Deer Park is the story of two interlacing love affairs. Sergius O'Shaugnessy is a young ex-Air Force pilot whose good looks and air of indifference launch him into the orbit of the radiant actress Lulu Meyers. Charles Eitel is a brilliant director wounded by accusations of communism—and whose liaison with the volatile Elena Esposito may supply the coup de grace to his career. As Mailer traces their couplings and uncouplings, their uneasy flirtation with success and self-extinction, he creates a legendary portrait of America's machinery of desire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Enjoying an author at his middling best
Norman initially intended this as the first volume in an eight-novel cycle, but then got distracted in the Village, chasing Time, and so lowered his ambition.It's always amazing when a phallic narcissist lowers his sights, and that's what we have here.

And so we have to be satisfied with "The Man Who Studied Yoga" as the prologue to the Park, and "The Time of Her Time" as a kind of epilogue, though that piece itself is a fragment from an uncompleted work, because Norman got distracted again, this time farther uptown, and there were cops and shrinks involved, which of course is enough to lead the phallic narcissist into outright nonfiction.

If there is such a thing as the nonfiction novel, then the Park presents us with the fiction essay.Form is exploded here, and you'd better abandon any notions you might have of what a "novel" is.Point of view, for instance, is little more than an annoyance in Desert D'Or, and so Sergius, the incipient writer who is soon to become a phallic narcissist himself, is happy to narrate scenes that take place long after he splits the scene.

This is all very interesting in itself, but the 1950s were when Norman really started disliking people, and I suppose the 50s were as good a time as any to start hating humanity.Sympathetic characters?You won't find them here, and it can really grow your aesthetic to try to enjoy a novel--or even a fictional essay such as this one--without them.

Still, it can be a drag to spend this much Time with so many unlikeable people.Everybody is a contemptible whore (as in sell-out) in this book, including, well, the whores.This is what Norman means in his "First Advertisement" by insisting upon "that Reality whose existence may depend on the honest life of our work, the honor of ourselves which permits us to say no better than we have seen."

Yikes, and Norman thought World War II was bad?It was nothing compared to Hollywood, daddy-o.

Even so, I've read this book five times since I was sixteen, probably because I've been depressed only about five times since then and that is when the Park will really pick you up.The prose begins to sizzle.The insult to form seems revolutionary.There still isn't much wisdom in the book, but what the heck, we can still be glad that we don't have to work for Marion Faye or Herman Teppis, right?

Of course, this book was written before the economic recessions of the '70s, '80s, or today.In the current environment, you may well have to work for Faye or Teppis.In that case, the Park could become a field manual for you.You will learn not to flinch whenever Faye tells you to drown your children, or whenever Teppis does his Bill Clinton imitation 43 years before the fact.Bad art becomes prophecy, and in the '50s Norman was always more interested in being a prophet than in being a very good novelist.

Even if you're not depressed, the book has its three-star moments.The party scene is very entertaining, or at least it is until Sergius wanders off to make it with LuLu.I would have preferred to stay at the party, with Elena babbling insanely about expensive melted ice cream.Unfortunately, at this point in the novel Sergius is still restricting himself to narrating those scenes at which he is actually present, so we're obligated to leave the party with him and watch him make it with that very uninteresting blond movie star, LuLu Myers.Somebody please shoot her.No, wait, it's a cliche to shoot a cliche.

And yet, the scene in which Teppis tries to force LuLu to marry Rock Hudson--uh, I mean, the closeted actor Teddy Pope--is quite a marvel to watch.Half a century later, the only thing that isn't creepy about this scene is the fact that Teddy Pope is gay.

Overall, however, I would say that most of the pleasures here are structural.It's fun to watch the novel completely break down in places, such as in Elena's interminable, chapter-long letter.This woman is insane, and the only thing drearier than reading about her is to read something that she would write.Still, it's fun to see just how bad the writing can get as it continues to stumble forward.Get out the popcorn and Doritos.There are structural train wrecks to enjoy here.

So don't take it too seriously.Like any book, it's just words on the page.It's a "sex" "novel" without any genitals in it and it reads more like crazy, notebook reportage than a novel.Chill out, daddy-o, it's flip city.Norman is a nerd but he's trying really, really hard to be cooler than an entire city full of creeps.And all of the inherent tensions become very enjoyable once you are "hep" to them.

The Gangs All Here! Who cares?
I have to hand it to Mr. Mailer. A dose of respect that is. His ambitions were large, and his skill at wrapping my mind around them has proven energetic, unguarded and detailed. The Deer Park was only the second of his works I've read (the other being The Gospel According to the Son)and one that I am glad to have finished. It took a while. Too long.
For every notion that the Palm Springs-like resort he created in Desert d'Or was a bold Hollywood vision of our pre-celebrity tabloid saturated world of unending scandal and duplicity, there was a lack of interest in the very meat of his message. The depraved and the damned may be seen as the mighty among us, but their interior doesn't fare very well through Mailer's extensive, overwritten prose. Passages are brilliantly evocative, tense and emotionally resonant, but they are separated by swathes of self-consciousness hoping to impress.
The heart of the matter is fickle, I didn't care for the characters, their doings were not very interesting, I wondered more if these people were based on real things, and the name Sergius O'Shaughnessy, self given, symbolic and absurd poses a hiccup every time.
But I still plan on reading more of Mr. Mailer. R.I.P.

Setting Good, Story Not So Good
It's interesting to see Mailer's take on the Hollywood witchhunts, directors testifying before Congress and forced to name names, and the goings-on of the Hollywood rich and famous.But the first-person framing device is tiresome and cliched, and Mailer has done much much better.Read this if you are a big Mailer fan or love Hollywood in the 50s, otherwise I'd take a pass and move on to greener pastures.

STILL IN SEARCH OF THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL
At one time, as with Ernest Hemingway, I tried to get my hands on everything that Norman Mailer wrote. In his prime he held out promise to match Hemingway as the pre-eminent male American prose writer. Mailer certainly had the ambition, ego and skill to do so. In his inevitable search to write the great American novel, at least for his generation, I do not believe, that he was successful. The Deer Park is an early attempt to tackle that goal and while there are flashes of brilliance there is far too much self-consciousness on making a great American novel. That most dramatically got reflected in the tinniness of his characters, male and female, and reduced the book to a fairly ordinary look at a slice of the American pie.

Certainly the subject matter of the novel is an almost surefire way to get attention. Put Hollywood-types in 'exile' in the desert, add wayward movie stars, starlets and wannabes, and a male lead character who is not sure what he wants to be but is sure that the stars shine for him somewhere and you have the makings of a great American novel. Throw in, almost obligatory for a `fifties' novel and for a self-described leftist like Mailer , the tensions surrounding the `red scare', Hollywood- style, and the cultural clamp down that imposed on American society and one should be onto something. But, strangely, Mailer gets bogged down in the sexual escapades of the main characters and never gets to the heart of the real question that the novel poses- How the hell does one safeguard his or her creative expression without selling out to every conceivable pressure that comes along? It did not work, but nice try Norman.

Mailer is a bag of wind
I agree with the reviewer who said that this novel is lacking any form of life. It is boring and trite and I couldn't finish it either. I usually always finish a book even if I'm not particularly enjoying it but this was beyond endurance. This is the only one of Mailer's novels I have attempted to read. I had seen Mailer interviewed a few times and this book confirmed my suspicion that he is a bag of wind. Mailer is an overblown, immature, egotistical narcissist. ... Read more

Product Description
“Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered. Nobility, indeed, is always in danger. Democracy is perishable. I think the natural government for most people, given the uglier depths of human nature, is fascism. Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad.”—from Why Are We at War?

Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about George W. Bush and his quest for empire. Norman Mailer, one of the greatest authors of our time, lays bare the White House’s position on why war in Iraq is necessary and justified. By scrutinizing the administration’s words and actions leading up to the current crisis, Mailer carefully builds his case that Bush is pursuing war not in the name of security or anti-terrorism or human rights but in an undeclared yet fully realized ambition of global empire.

Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor on an administration he believes is recklessly endangering our very notion of freedom and democracy. For more than fifty years, in classic works of both fiction and nonfiction, Mailer has persistently exposed the folly of the powerful and the mighty. Beginning with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Mailer has repeatedly told the truth about war and why men fight. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the subject he knows better than any other writer in America today: the gravity of the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to die. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Prescience
I read the booklet again some four years after I bought it. Mind you: it was written after 9/11 but BEFORE the US attack on Iraq. What struck me is the sober analysis of the background including the split in the Republican party between traditional conservatives (like me!) who were opposed and the neoconservative hubris of US empire. Mailer accurately predicted the disaster that we eventually faced. He names, the people who were responsible, those who opposed them and the large number who "just went along" (Congress). I am buying several copies for friends on both sides of the issue.

Why are WE at War
This book has all you will ever need to understand America's involvement in Afgansitan/Iraq. Norman Mailer hits a robust warning to America in this book of future events which have transpired since its writing. It takes an Old Soldier (me) into the mindwork of the Bush Adminstration and exposes all of its seething secrets. You will find more enlightenment in the passages of this book,maybe more than you may be prepared to accept. I am a conservative,a previous fighting soldier from the Nam era. I also voted for the Bush campaign. I also admit I was wrong (but had no choice of something better from the Dems)in letting this get to where Norman said it was going. Can you say the same. Get this book and give it a read, then, pass it on to someone you care about and help us get out of the mess we are in with a vote and the power of the pen.

Give Reason a Chance
Being a person who attempts to validate the merit of conservative positions as well as liberal, I decided to give this book a try for myself after reading several positive and negative reviews posted here. Among the negative reviews there are several that make Mailer out to be a bitter, ranting old fool, someone filled more with spite than insight. After reading the book for myself I can honestly say this could not be further from the truth. Critical assessment is anti-patriotic only to the truly blind, or dull minded. Mailer does not hate America anymore than Kierkegaard hated his fellow Dane's or Nietzsche the Germans (the subjects from whom they drew their often harsh observations of culture and values). Some of the negative reviews also allude to Mailers issues with his wife as if this some how invalidates the argument's he makes. Believe me, do a bit of digging and you will find there are plenty of vigorous flag waivers who are not to shy to throw a punch- We'd be wise to stick to the merits of the argument, not chase after the messenger!
Mailer makes the valid argument that although democracies are probably the best system, they are volatile and should not be taken for granted. A strong democracy should be receptive to self-assessment and scrutiny. This is the bread and butter of democracy; something sorely lacking in the days leading up to Iraq, which might have spared us a lot of pain.
Why are we at war, published before things in Iraq started to degenerate to the point of sectarian bloodletting, and civil war it is now at, offers insight and foresight that our leaders would have been wise to consider. Chief amongst these considerations is the notion that democracy can be exported and imposed anywhere, wholesale, with little consideration of local history. Both the Romans and the British believed, without reservation, that their superior systems could be imposed, but need the vast distinction between Rome, monarchies, and democracies be made?
If you can recall the Neo Con's also made frequent comparisons between Iraq and Post World War II. This book offers significant insight into to the flaws in such general, simplistic, thinking.
In recalling president George Bush standing on deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln -Mission accomplished - ina show of military might and bravado, basically declaring that Iraq was as good as done, Mailers view of Neo Con `dreams of empire' seem eerily prophetic.

Mailer is pathalogically anti american
Norman Mailer's great idol is Henry Miller. Miller, though a great writer, has a disgust for almost all things american and even of the american people. He wasno Walt Whitman who loved America and the American people.

Unfortunantly, Norman Mailer from early on picked up some of the worst aspects (in my opinion) of henry miller's attitudes about America. I am convinced that a chinese immigrant fresh off the boat would be more "objective" and do better for america than Mailer and his ilk.


I don't much like Norman's idea of "allowing the terrorists" to terrorize america "a little bit". This is so against the very best ideals of america-- of some of its greatest thinkers like whitman and emerson -- a nation of robust free men who would rather fight and die than stand passively by while they are raped ... that I dismiss it totally. Nor do I care for his romanticization of the islamic terrorists. There is nothing romantic about the Islamic fundamentalist movements that were behind the terror attacks.Norman would do well to aquaint himself with just how fanatical these people really are. It is this kind of double standard which drives thoughtful liberals crazy and provides cannon fodder for the conservatives.

All this comes from a man who appears to have learned very little from the attacks he has taken from radical feminists... from the convict he supported for release who committed murder upon his release ... and even from the time he attacked his wife with a knife (universal brotherhood indeed). How many times do you have to be wrong about important things before you gain a little wisdom regarding important things ?

Mailer should have been less of a hostage to other men's ideas, and attempted to develop common sense, objectivity, and a voice of his own. As it is Mailer cannot be trusted with america's safety or future because he is without a doubtbiased against america.

There are many things wrong in iraq ... but norman is not the man to lead us to the promised land. I for one, am not so quick to want to dismantleand evicerate the so called american empire.

Mailer's triple spaced liner says:the devil did it---ignore.
[Why War has lingered, unceasing, in many forms.]
The projection of technology once again has applied constant pressure to impose autocratic rule, the projection of its control to affirm its self identity in supremacy.It's very important for certain egos that they have that as a recourse to assuage the wounds of superficial defeats and rejection of history in the open, aboveboard world.And it is thought better to humor that arrogance by affording it some constructs of sovereignty, havening, or undeclared exclusivity because of how it may or may not stabilize and sate the appetites it has for Grand Gestures of Abject Brutality, such as the JFK Assassination, or any assaults on humanity taking genocidal tolls for suspicious causes given their media explanations. It is the only hobby a relic caste of ethnic self infatuation has left to pride itself in.The strategic wisdom has been, going on history for example, that is perhaps the only recourse there be something for everybody, and that otherwise `idle hands become the devil's workshop'.This has proven to only expand operations of that workshop into Iraq and other places where it manufactures bluffs , preempts and feints to focus discriminatory accusations, then overwhelming U.S. retaliations on populations it targets for `ethnic cleansing'.America has become, through all the Armed Forces, the Congress and the Executive, a permanently exiled warcrime industrialist's bitch: Janes All The World's Pleasurecraft; who also flubbed the V-22's schematics between 1989 and 2001, revealing suspicious proprotor blade rework.

That, Norman Mailer, is `Why We Are At War'.We are at war for something's persistent and unrepentant, begrudging racism; something that has foolishly taken comfort believing it has refuge under cover, hidden away in the corners of the earth, and something who's zealotry has misled it to believe it will fool all the people with its strategic subterranean nuclear violations every time, or any time; or how it still wants Iraq for a military industrial waste-dump to tinker with concoctions like the auto-immune virus bundled SARS race-WMD; then to weaponize and vector it via the clumsiness of its plaything, (the U.S.) blowing up its storage bunkers, a very lowbrow chicanery fooling no one, as it didn't before in the Gulf-I worldwide pandemics of micoplasma and fibromyalgia, or Gulf War Syndrome.

We are at war solely for the grudge match over who will dispense the primacy of holding weapons on others, and who will have those coercion rights.It is such a rare commodity to arrange for our recreation, that the pretext for military expeditions to go on exercises against the live human combatant targets they know will be there opposed to us, that the temptation is greater than premeditated acts of war highest treason was supposed to condemn and shield America by her own laws.The World Trade Center was blown up, they didn't burn down, it was the worlds largest engineered pyrotechnics demolition, and recruitment for that operation was wrangled in the United States for years in advance, allowing known terrorists to be trained in Florida to fly the cosmetic airliners to impact on the buildings (two of three that were detonated) shortly before the firing sequence daisy chains were blown.

We are at war because subversion has grown to become a covert insurgence in America, perpetrating bombings on major buildings, (anthrax letters that are left unsolved for a coercive media tool of ominous reminder supposed to cow the public into submission and curbing of its criticism) preempting a Civil War on America, in America in order to control our government through a totalitarian organizing called 'republican'.Your book has not offered the country factual analysis, it is shallow apologetic, and a trite boogeyman retreat to blame it on `the devil', in extremely poor taste.Why don't don't you call the 9-11 victim's lives suitable for trivia and stupid allusions?

We are at war from an owned and controlled mass media imposing the coverup, sheltering the aggressive faction's war crimes by upholding and maintaining its alibis. It is used to propagate misinformation to Americans about acts of war and treason on Americans, it is used to hold the news agenda in permanent suspended animation, to protect criminal syndicates by showcasing their patsies like Mc Veigh, who instead of being prosecuted by the U.S., was instead more useful for his trite poetic license of remorseless vainglory.Then the public is led down the garden path of suspecting the Waco massacre atrocity all had to do with the custom modifications on a single, unremarkable firearm, as the provocation for a virtual lined up machine gunning; then Mr. Mailer, how perfect a cause for crusade it instantly became for the Oklahoma Federal's prime suspect.That is too convenient, well within taking the precise shape `preemption', asymmetric war, dodging attributions leaving convenient dupes holding the bag to cover up the scale of insurrection.What better way to further attack the parting Clinton Administration, a big sendoff putting to shame the bimbo bowling from the Pentagon?

Exploring the scale of the insurrection some more, the stubborn false pride attacking the conscience of White power structure, what are the dimensions of the infiltration of America by clandestine civil war moves?They would be surreptitious, sneakily contrived and inveigled; could they perhaps be vectoring chemicals into water supplies?What would be the outcomes, is there evidence?If for no reason it's secondarily reported the CDC so happens to remove government records, statistics tracking longitudinal incidence of rising autism in North America, donating them to a private HMO where the public cannot have access for research; that looks suspicious. MSNBC'sMeet the Press on August 7, 2005, David Kirby and Dr. Harvey Fineberg for The Institute of Medicine were interviewed reported findings of no scientific merit to the vaccine injury theory of autism.

The question Norman Mailer has failed to present in its fullest scope is why we have been at war, a civil war in this country since the end of the Second World War.Why has our system caved in to the preposterous canard of public drinking water fluoropoisoning under such frivolously and blatantly misrepresented medical fraud?Why is its installation going into full swing under the illegitimate regime and all its other impostures?

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Product Description
Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Hanna Arendt, Norman Mailer, and Lillian Hellman -among the other things these writers and intellectuals all had in common is Norman Podhoretz.With them Podhoretz was part of "The Family," as the core group of New York intellectuals of the 50s and 60s came to be known.And in Ex-Friends, he has written the intellectual equivalent of a family history- a sparkling chronicle of affection and jealousy, generosity and betrayal, breakdowns and reconciliations, and ultimately of dysfunctions impossible to cure.

Ex-Friends is filled with brilliant portraits of some of the cultural icons who defined our time.Yet anyone who has followed Norman Podhoretz's career as a writer and editor and above all one of the leading controversialists of our time will expect more than just another fond memoir of literary alliances and quarrels, brilliant talk and bruised egos.Indeed, while Ex-Friends has some of the elements of apersonal diary, it is also a journal de combat describing the intellectual and social turbulence of the 60s and 70s and showing how the literary living room was transformed into a political battleground where the meaning of America was fought night by night.Against this backdrop, Podhoretz tells how he left The Family and undertook a trailblazing journey from radical to conservative, a journey that helped redefine America's intellectual landscape in the last quarter of the 20th century and caused his old friends to become ex-friends. If there is a nostalgia in Ex-Friends, it is not only for lost friendships but also for a time of wit, erudition, and passionate argumentation.Norman Podhoretz bodies forth a world when people still believed that what they thought and wrote and said could change the world.Amazon.com Review
"If you like gossip, you'll adore Ex-Friends,"columnist Liz Smith has said. And, boy, does archconservative NormanPodhoretz's account of his bitter splits with important Americanintellectuals rollick. See Norman Mailer, whom critic Podhoretz gave acrucial early boost, get naked and attempt a three-way with hisgirlfriend and Podhoretz! (Podhoretz tried orgies, pot, and speed, buthated them as much as Kerouac's and Bellow's novels). Hear Mailer'stale after he stabbed his wife almost to death and ran straight toPodhoretz's place! Thrill as critic Allen Tate challenges editorWilliam Barrett to a death-duel over Ezra Pound's Bollingen Award! AsWoody Allen said of the literati Podhoretz calls "the Family," "Theyonly kill their own."

Ex-Friends is a nifty if one-sided sketch of the intellectualgang wars, and it captures people more two-faced than does a Cubistpainting. After ideas, writes Podhoretz, the Family's second passionwas "gossiping with the wittiest possible malice about anyone who hadthe misfortune not to be present." Podhoretz only discovered HannahArendt's faked friendship by reading the published letters of Arendt and MaryMcCarthy, and he nails her for her German chauvinism andimpenetrable arrogance. He trashes Allen Ginsberg, who publishedPodhoretz's first poem, for Ginsberg's outrageous grandstanding, andbecause homosexuality outrages him. He liked Lillian Hellman partlybecause she gave glamorous parties, and stomps her for loyalty toStalin's party and her prose ("an imitation of Hammett's imitation ofHemingway"). He skewers many besides the celebs in his subtitle,including Joseph Heller, whose Catch-22 he helped make ahit. He won Jackie Onassis's affection by returning her put-down witha quick "F--- you," like the Brooklyn street tough he was andremains. Mailer betrayed him for not getting him invited to Jackie'sparty.

The Family had big ideas--and, as Podhoretz proves, egos as big asthin-skinned dodo eggs. --Tim Appelo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (35)

thank goodness for men like Norman
Loaned this out from the library and have completed the introduction, the chapter on Ginsberg and am now in the middle of the Mailer chapter.
Love N.P.'s logical conclusions to what has happened to our society.
It is fairly easy to read for a non-intellectual as myself and I would like to quote a sterling example of just one of the passages that validated my views:
pg. 8"What happened in the 1960's was, to put it simply but not inacurately, a mass conversion to leftist radicalism by the formerly liberal intellectual establishment and a commensurate seizure of the enormous power by radical ideas and attitudes over the institutions controlled by intellectuals. These institutions, as everyone now knows, include the universities, the major media of information and entertainment (New York and Hollywood, the big newspapers and magazines, the movies and television), and increasingly even the mainstream churches."

There is nothing BUT such perfect and precise wording on every page of this book and I am SO glad I selected it and look forward to anything else I come across, which I will be seeking out, by Mr. Podhoretz.

trash
I found this book in a box of books someone put out for the trashman. I picked it up because I saw Ginsburg's name in the title though Ihad never heard of the author. The same day I put it back where I found it.

Sparring intellectuals
Norman Podhoretz was a New York intellectual in the 1950's-60's, once editor of Commentary magazine. A left-leaning writer then, in the early 70's he began leaning right and became one of the "founding fathers" of neoconservatism. He was an anti-Communist who rebelled against the anti-American bent of the 60's radicals. (The thought of Jane Fonda all decked out in her love beads sitting down with the North Vietnamese leadership to trash all things American still gives neocons the heebie-jeebies.)

This was when he began breaking with old friends, such as the ones named in the book's title. Most of these people (taken from Podhoretz's viewpoint) are not very pleasant. (Is there anything more vicious than an intellectual scorned?) But Podhoretz is very much on the defensive, and like the "lady who protests too much," makes the reader wary. Whether you go along with his politics or not, I thought it was a pretty interesting book anyway.

A lively look at American intellectual life in the fifties
Norman Podhoretz is one of the most important American intellectuals of the Post- War period. His shift away from the Left toward a Conservative position helped mark a new period in American intellectual life. In this memoir he writes about the ' friends' of a former time, each of whom is a distinguished 'name' by themselves. Allen Ginsberg, Hannah Arendt, the Trillings, Lionel and Diana, Lillian Hellman and Norman Mailer. Podhoretz blends the personal anecodote with the ideological quarrel in explaining his estrangement from these friends. At one point he talks about how their radical indulgence in their own appetites led to a kind of moral chaos which he understood as destructive and damaging.
There is a question raised by many readers of the morality of turning on old friends in this way, and writing as if one were the only righteous man among a bunch of misguided moral morons. Other readers point out the possible envy motive given the fact that all the people he writes about are probably considered by most to be more important ' creative figures ' than him. Certainly Arendt, and Mailer fit this category.
Podhoretz however should not be underestimated and he as a critic , and as a moral and literary guide is a person of considerable weight and stature. I would not say that everything here suits my taste, but there is a great deal of interesting writing about the intellectual life of the American fifties, and of some of its major characters.

It takes an egotist to know one
Podhoretz, the man who recently said what's the big deal about a few thousand dead G.I.'s in Iraq considering what's at stake (without having a clue that nothing is at stake), Norman disparages the artist/intellectual/egotists of the 60's/70's that don't fall in line with his ideology while today he lauds the conservative egomaniacs that have brought our country to its low level of intellectualism and turned a nation founded by intellectual deists into a Disneyworld of McReligion.But it's all fine so long as we make the world safe for democracy.Norman seems to think there is something hypocritical about professing social justice and being a small time celebrity, when in fact, as Freud said, the partial motivation of any "artist" is fame and the love of women (speaking I assume of male artists). Einstein enjoyed the limelight; everyone enjoys the limelight and everyone has his or her weaknesses.Have you ever read Einstein's poetry?YUK!So to disparage the ones you don't happen to like is a bit disingenuous.The true irony is that only an attention-seeking egotist would write a book about such trivial nonsense.But this is all in keeping with a man who explains what writers should be writing if they only knew better, ex., he applauded James Baldwin's early career because he was on his way to being another Henry James; he condemns him when Baldwin's attention turned to racism in America.Imagine that: a black writer distraught over racism in America.The very idea! I think Norm's whole problem can be traced back to his youth, which he relates in his autobiography "Making It," talking about taking the subway from culturally challenged Brooklyn to Manhattan, growing up as a nice Jewish boy, the son of modest working class parents, attending college, and rising among the ranks of the intellectual New York crowd. Nowadays, Norm is comparing the invasion of Iraq to the invasion of Normandy, and explains that Iraq will become democratic by using as an analogy post-WW IIGermany's quick transition to a modern democracy (of course, with the help of 2 1/2 million allied troops occupying it).How did this guy ever have friends to begin with??? ... Read more