ABSTRACT

PERHAPS the largest, wildest, least focused talent that came into our orbit in the fifties was Norman Mailer. He is also probably the most difficult to understand and evaluate, because of his contradictions and because he has sprawled in so many directions, his commitments ranging from the radical, experimental world of the little magazine and the anti-war movements to the chic arena of the large media, with their earnestness, their topicality, and their opportunities for self-advertisement. He is clearly a writer who has not realized his enormous gifts—although he is one of the most, if not the most gifted, writers in the country. In this respect, as well as in his protean qualities, he is, despite his ideological interests, very American, very much in the line of all those writers who have not had an easy relation with the culture and the country. The accepted notion has been that American writers tend to burn themselves out; my own view is that the literary tradition has not been strong enough to keep writers with general appeal from being pulled in too many popular directions.