Norman Mailer Loses His Religion

IOL ^ | 2-6-2002

[blam]

Norman Mailer loses his religion

February 06 2002 at 08:15AM

London - Influential American novelist and journalist Norman Mailer has criticised the "patriotic fever" gripping the United States following the September 11 attacks.

"What happened on September 11 was horrific, but this patriotic fever can go too far," Britain's Daily Telegraph quoted Mailer, 79, as saying on Wednesday.

"America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big powerful country that is as patriotic as America?" Mailer asked in an interview.

"You'd really think we were some poor little republic, and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. America is the real religion in this country."

'America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself' Mailer, renowned for his macho image and widely recognised as pioneering the genre known as New Journalism, said America's right wing had benefited from the attacks on September 11.

"The right wing benefited so much from September 11 that, if I were still a conspiratorialist, I would believe they'd done it," he said.

Mailer, who gained notoriety for stabbing the second of his six wives 40 years ago, burst into literary prominence in 1952 with the award-winning The Naked And The Dead, regarded as the finest novel to have emerged from the Second World War.

[basil]

Excuse me--I think I'm sick and must rush to the bathroom now!

[cookcounty]

Wow! Mailer once had a religion?

[garv]

As usual, Tom Wolfe said it best in this description of the literary darlings of the left, "Larry, Curly, and Moe. Updike, Mailer, and Irving. My three stooges."

He was being kind.

[Wm Bach]

Wow! Mailer once had a religion?

Yeah, didn't you read "Ancient Evenings"? He eats bat guano and leaves his body during orgasm in hopes of becoming immortal.

[jim997]

Mailer obviously has lost contact with the real world. I am afraid he wouldn't know real patriotism if it bit him in the butt. It never ceases to amaze me when I see ‘academics’ who get a kick out of running down the very country they live in. Anyone have a theory as to why this happens?

[Aquinasfan]

He eats bat guano and leaves his body during orgasm in hopes of becoming immortal.

I'd like to see him get together with Yoko Ono. I think they'd have a lot in common.

[laconic]

America-hating Norman Mailer stabbed his former wife and served time in a mental institution in the 1950s. Puts his remarks in a bit of context, doesn't it?

[Interesting Times]

Norman Mailer loses his religion

Nonsense.

Mailer's religion -- knee-jerk, cookie-cutter, conservative-hating leftism -- is obviously still with him.

[Tony in Hawaii]

Yep. When I read the title, I thought he'd abandoned his religion and become conservative.

[Paul Atreides]

Isn't it cute how leftist writers think what they say really matters in the lives of real people?

[ZULU]

I think Norman Mailer is a sick man and has been so for some time. Its really remarkable anyone gives a damn what he has to say or think about anything.

[jedi]

It never ceases to amaze me when I see ?academics? who get a kick out of running down the very country they live in.

Right! He should support the US moves in Kosovo and Macedonia like the rest of us American patriots.

[The Great Satan]

Norman Mailer? I thought he was dead. Was he the one who shot his wife by accident? Or the one who got a murderer released from jail so he could kill again? Am I thinking of Truman Capote? Which of these people are actually dead already? Can somebody fill me in?

[blam]

Capote is dead. Mailer got the killer, that killed again, out of jail.

[r9etb]

America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big powerful country that is as patriotic as America?" Mailer asked in an interview.

I can think of several big, powerful countries that were patriotic.

For example:

* Athens at its height.

* Rome at its height.

* Britain at its height.

I seem also to recall that the loss of power in each case was a direct result of the loss of confidence that a lack of patriotism implies.

[muleskinner]

Mailer, who gained notoriety for stabbing the second of his six wives 40 years ago, burst into literary prominence in 1952 with the award-winning The Naked And The Dead...

Didn't Hollywood make a movie of his book?

Regardless, he shoulda' retired 50 years ago. BUT NO, this egomaniac thinks he's the next Hemingway.

What'a hump.

[Antoninus]

Poor Norman. Almost time for his dirt nap. And with 'no religion' that's exactly what it'll be for him.

[RightWhale]

Wow! Mailer once had a religion?

No, he found a religion. He sat under the Sphinx in Egypt late one night and had a feeling, "Hey, this Sphinx is really old. So he became a Sphincter.

[dead]

Mailer, renowned for his macho image…

Really? I always thought of him as a whiney, self-centered, obtuse half-a-fag.

[blam]

"He sat under the Sphinx in Egypt late one night and had a feeling, "Hey, this Sphinx is really old. "

Did he say how old? lol.

[RightWhale]

No, he didn't say how old, but he said after his revelation that it was already old when the pyramids were built.

[blam]

"No, he didn't say how old, but he said after his revelation that it was already old when the pyramids were built."

A bold new theory, I bet.

[Dan from Michigan]

Mailer, who gained notoriety for stabbing the second of his six wives 40 years ago

Nuff Said.

[Alouette]

Norman Mailer loses his religion

Where is your BARF ALERT? I almost lost my lunch.

[Michael2001]

I would enjoy punching this guy in the face

[eddie willers]

The only book of his I enjoyed was Marilyn Monroe.
I just looked at the pictures.

[monkey]

America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself.

Wm. F. Buckley said that he once sent one of his books to Mailer. Knowing that Mailer would first-thing check the index for his own name, Buckley wrote "Hi, Norman" next to it. Mailer never mentioned it.

[blam]

"Wm. F. Buckley said that he once sent one of his books to Mailer. Knowing that Mailer would first-thing check the index for his own name, Buckley wrote "Hi, Norman" next to it. Mailer never mentioned it."

Buckley tried to get Whittaker Chambers (the turn-coat Soviet spy who 'nailed' Alger Hiss) to go into a partnership when he was starting National Review magazine, Chambers declined.

[weegee]

Peer pressure.

[GeronL]

Is this the Norman Mailer who shot his wife during a dinner party??

The Vast RightWing Conspiracy stuff shows what nut cakes these liberals are

[weegee]

Well William S. Burroughs shot his wife (reinacting William Tell), Ernest Hemmingway shot himself, Hunter S. Thompson twisted a woman's breast in a drug induced rage, and for the record, Edgar Allan Poe died in a gutter.

Mamas, don't let you babies grow up to be writers...

[weegee]

BUT NO, this egomaniac thinks he's the next Hemingway.

He could be (in his own mind at least) if he put a gun to his head.

[GeronL]

stabbed.... shot whatever... how did I miss a whole paragraph?

[weegee]

It's late, sorry about the typos (re-enacting; you instead of your)

[Cultural Jihad]

November 22, 1960

Norman Mailer Arrested in Stabbing of Wife at a Party

orman Mailer, the writer, was arrested last night and accused of stabbing his wife, Adele. Mrs. Mailer, 37 years old, was in critical condition last night at University Hospital, Second Avenue and Twentieth Street.

She was taken to the hospital at 8 o'clock Sunday morning with stab wounds in the abdomen and back. She apparently rode there in a private car.

According to the police of the West 100th Street station, where the 37-year-old writer was being held, Mrs. Mailer told physicians at the hospital that she had fallen on glass in her apartment at 250 West 94th Street. The physicians were suspicious and notified the police.

Mr. Mailer was also arrested a week ago on a disorderly conduct charge after an argument over a $7.60 bill at the Birdland nightclub.

Wound Near Heart

When detectives went to question his wife Sunday at the hospital, they were told she was too ill to be questioned. One would was said to be near her heart.

Last night, the hospital permitted the police to question her. They said she admitted with reluctance that her husband had stabbed her.

She said the stabbing occurred about 5 A.M. Sunday at a party at their apartment.

Mrs. Mailer told the police she could give no reason for the stabbing.

She said her husband suddenly walked up to her, looked at her, stabbed her with what she thought was a penknife or clasp knife, and left the apartment.

Mrs. Mailer said her husband later took her to the hospital.

The detectives learned that Mr. Mailer planned to visit his wife at the hospital last night. At 10:30 when he arrived, he was arrested.

Mr. Mailer has denied the accusation, according to Deputy Inspector John L. Kinsella.

The author came to public attention after World War II with "The Naked and the Dead," a novel of warfare in the South Pacific. It achieved critical acclaim and was a best-seller.

Last week, when the Citizens Emergency Committee met to draft a petition to Governor Rockefeller for an investigation of the city's Police Department, he was among the writers and editors who attended.

A week ago the writer was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct after he was refused credit for his bill at Birdland. He assertedly tried to pay his bill with a credit card, although the law prohibits the purchase of liquor on credit.

He was paroled for a hearing today in Magistrate's Court.

Last summer in Provincetown, Mass., he was involved in a dispute with two policemen and was jailed. The author represented himself at the trial and was acquitted.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/13/reviews/mailer-stabbing.html

[BluesDuke]

Capote is dead.

So, by the way, is Jack Henry Abbott, the killer whom Norman Mailer lobbied to spring from the hoosegow only to kill again very soon after his release.

As a writer, Mr. Mailer was immensely talented. As a thinker, Mr. Mailer has usually been somewhere between a paramecium and an amoeba.

[CyberAnt]

This is so weird! Tonight they were showing a rerun of the winter Olympics held in Norway - when the crowd got wound up for the race, there were so many Norwegian flags, you could hardly see the people. And ... this guy thinks we're too patriotic? Phooey on him!