The recent death of Norman Mailer, an American literary giant, was one of the biggest current events in the literary world. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice—for The Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song—as well as the National Book Award and several other honors.
This video revisits his legendary persona in a great way.
Some facts to add to the fun:
- One of Mailer’s books was called Advertisements for Myself.
- Gore Vidal (featured in the video) said, “He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”
Some choice quotes from Mailer:
- On the 1970s: “The decade in which image became preeminent because nothing deeper was going on.”
- On journalism: “You can’t be too certain about what happened.”
- On technology: “Insidious, debilitating, and depressing.” (Mailer distrusted technology so much that he continued to write with a pen—some 1,500 words a day, according to AP. When a stranger asked him if he used a computer, AP reports, he replied, “No, I never learned that,” then added, “But my girl does.”
- In a 1971 magazine piece about women’s liberation, Mailer compared the dehumanization of technology to the effect of feminists, who he said were abolishing the “mystery, romance” and “blind, goat-kicking lust from sex.”
