Catalyst Asshat

Alright, sure, let's talk asshats. One of the prime suspects for someone of that particular nomenclature is none other than the crashing-meteor-on-a-stick Norman Mailer. Let's talk Norman Mailer for a second. When I was first introduced to Norman Mailer, it was by a story of one of his earlier marriages---told to me by a teacher I think---about how he managed to stab his wife with a penknife at a party in November of 1960. Red flags were there, but maybe not set up to be flown just yet. Story arc, cataclysmic event that framed the next decade for him as a raging, sexist, homophobic dweeb that often found himself gargling his spit rather than spewing words that were of health to him. He had a rather intriguing rivaly with journalist, Gore Vidal, who was perhaps one of the saving relics of the controversial literary era of the 1960's, but nonetheless had things to say that maybe I didn't agree with all the way. When hearing these things, I first decided to judge my opinion based solely on Norman Mailer's writing as it was his main source of income and main source of hate---go figure. The first novel I read of his is probably one of his less famous ones, but I thought it excellently written all the same---it was a novel that barely let go of the throat when it came to both the enhanced writing flow along with the memorable characters. A smaller novel called "An American Dream" about this man who performs a sort of Holden Caulfield, impulsive decision to kill his wife and relive the consequences for a while while he shows aspects of Raskolnikov of Dostoevesky's "Crime and Punishment". I also don't mean to say that he plaguarized the characteristics blatantly, but they are both the best examples I can think of as far as describing the main character, Stephen Rojack, to the best ability. The best way I can explain Norman Mailer as both a writer and also as a person is that he is a frightened, catatonic harbinger of hate and also rich ambiguity. He writes until his ears pop, he speaks until his mouth is full of saliva, and he crosses his legs so tightly that he can barely get up to shake a person's hand when on an episode of "The Dick Cavett Show." Witty, dauntless, and charismatic does his face often show, but he dare not use his words: rather his actions he let take part of his freaky frenzy of a charade he puts up to hang. He's a sexist, racist, corrupt, wannabe politician that envies himself in the bitter aspect of craving more and more at a constant rate. In the midst of being the heart of the 1960's counterculture era, he had many controversial things to say about practically everything. Highly intriguing individual---though as one can say about anyone---he often assumes me in the way he talks, the way his brain processes thoughts like clocking in with a ticket punch: so monotonous and so sinister. A true asshat, blatant with indefinite ignorace, and pallid with unholy nomenclature of what a person should never want to do in life: become a writer, and then become famous for something that isn't writing but talking. I mean, he can't even accept his own introduction on Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: there has always got to be a problem with the way his name is enunciated, the way his life's achievements have been laid out, or even just a simple gesture suggesting that the inviting handshake wasn't firm enough. Gore Vidal tops the ice cream sundae with a bit of his own little cherry, covered in his own personal relish for the casual, crucial comeback of the decade. At a party in a time long before cars had electric engines and when television shows were censored for saying things lewd things, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer had a small scrap (mostly Mailer). Norman let his temper get the best of him and threw a punch in Gore's face and Gore responded with such cold, dense-hearted words like: "Once again, words fail Norman Mailer." Mailer, though completing quite the saga of life's formal applications of tenure, as well as unexpected life choices, he died a man of little power and great impactability. There was always a depicting illusion of both honest-to-God culmination of events, along with the utter dismay of how little his words floated in water.