Norman Mailer's 'Woman Problems' Revisited
In the June 2010 edition of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott takes a closer look at author and American icon Norman Mailer's problems with women, in his life and in his works.
Norman Mailer is known to many for his larger than life contributions to American literature. From his best selling The Naked and the Dead to his launch of the almost-mythical Village Voice, Norman Mailer is deeply ingrained in the fabric of American literature from the last 70 years. Many would say that he picked up the torch from Hemingway and carried it forward with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe. The New Journalism movement that was launched by Mailer and others is still in force today, although without the momentum that the early giants helped create. In the years leading up to his death in 2007, it seemed that much of the edge had softened around Mailer, even though his failures and struggles with the women in his life remained well documented.
In the June 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott explores the difficulties that Mailer had in his relationships with women over the years and how that seemed to spill over into how he weakly he wrote women in his work. Specifically, Wolcott looks at Mailer's relationship with his final wife, Norris Church. She recently published a memoir, which provided great detail of her time with Mailer, including explicit accounts of his philandering and other, more troubling aspects of their relationship.
Wolcott's position on Mailer's writing of women is summed up well in this passage from the article: "The crippler is that in his writing Mailer was psychologically, creatively, empathetically tone-deaf when it came to women, his female characters a creamy mélange of angel-whores whose lipstick was ripe for smearing - a Playboy Bunny mansion of haughty bitches and breathy ditzes whose dialog bore no resemblance to indoor speech." It doesn't get much clearer than that.
Wolcott uses Norris Church's memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, to delve into the darker side of Mailer's problems with women. He looks at Church's tales of Mailer's infidelity and just how callous he seemed toward that type of behavior. The connection he makes between the Mailer of five failed marriages and a damaged sixth and his literary approach to women is pretty obvious. Mailer, it's safe to say from Wolcott's research, was largely a chauvinistic brute who thought of women primarily from the standpoint of sexual gratification and as objects to be controlled.
Mailer's overall literary genius - if admittedly inconsistent - is never really seriously questioned by reputable reviewers. But his approach to women in his writing seems to repeatedly point to his lack of empathy or any real understanding of the inner workings of the opposite sex. He had an open distaste for feminism and seemed to inject that distaste into his passing comments on women.
In a relevant piece in Vanity Fair from 2007, the year of his death, Norman Mailer responds to The Proust Questionnaire and a few of his responses are worth noting here. In these excerpted responses, one can catch a glimpse into the mind of Mailer as he perceives women and perhaps draw some conclusions about the man as he looked back on his life.
- What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Norris Church Mailer, my wife of these last 30 years.
- What is your favorite occupation?
One always returns to writing. I resist the temptation to say that good fucking is really my favorite. One is now too old to talk like that.
- What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Beauty, mystery, wit, and the inner superiority to be above political correctness.
- Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Let's say not the hero but the protagonist from whom I learned the most. That might be Anna Karenina.
In the June 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott explores the difficulties that Mailer had in his relationships with women over the years and how that seemed to spill over into how he weakly he wrote women in his work. Specifically, Wolcott looks at Mailer's relationship with his final wife, Norris Church. She recently published a memoir, which provided great detail of her time with Mailer, including explicit accounts of his philandering and other, more troubling aspects of their relationship.
Wolcott's position on Mailer's writing of women is summed up well in this passage from the article: "The crippler is that in his writing Mailer was psychologically, creatively, empathetically tone-deaf when it came to women, his female characters a creamy mélange of angel-whores whose lipstick was ripe for smearing - a Playboy Bunny mansion of haughty bitches and breathy ditzes whose dialog bore no resemblance to indoor speech." It doesn't get much clearer than that.
Wolcott uses Norris Church's memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, to delve into the darker side of Mailer's problems with women. He looks at Church's tales of Mailer's infidelity and just how callous he seemed toward that type of behavior. The connection he makes between the Mailer of five failed marriages and a damaged sixth and his literary approach to women is pretty obvious. Mailer, it's safe to say from Wolcott's research, was largely a chauvinistic brute who thought of women primarily from the standpoint of sexual gratification and as objects to be controlled.
Mailer's overall literary genius - if admittedly inconsistent - is never really seriously questioned by reputable reviewers. But his approach to women in his writing seems to repeatedly point to his lack of empathy or any real understanding of the inner workings of the opposite sex. He had an open distaste for feminism and seemed to inject that distaste into his passing comments on women.
In a relevant piece in Vanity Fair from 2007, the year of his death, Norman Mailer responds to The Proust Questionnaire and a few of his responses are worth noting here. In these excerpted responses, one can catch a glimpse into the mind of Mailer as he perceives women and perhaps draw some conclusions about the man as he looked back on his life.
- What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Norris Church Mailer, my wife of these last 30 years.
- What is your favorite occupation?
One always returns to writing. I resist the temptation to say that good fucking is really my favorite. One is now too old to talk like that.
- What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Beauty, mystery, wit, and the inner superiority to be above political correctness.
- Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Let's say not the hero but the protagonist from whom I learned the most. That might be Anna Karenina.
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