Friday, January 03, 2020
Eye of the Beholder (part II)
I've been re-reading Mailer's "Executioner's Song" and am again struck by how the main real-life characters (Gary Gilmore and Nicole Barrett) are described as incredibly seductive and good-looking. As with the very plain Tony Cox and Virginia Woolf (see my December 4 entry) much touted by intellectuals as being sexy, Gilmore and Barrett seem to be the lower-class equivalent: lauded in literature but, in actuality, not so hot.
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The genre of "new journalism" is a fascinating one. I've never read Capote or Didion... and I've only read Tom Wolfe because of his writing on California "acid heads" (damn the guy's a racist). It wasn't difficult to piece together that Wolfe was riding on Hunter S. Thompson's coattails (he worked so heavily from Thompson's notes / audio recordings many people missed that Wolfe wasn't there for most of what he was writing about... and was *really* unwelcome with the Pranksters)... and I think that's generally the idea. Thompson was a serious problem for portions of the establishment because he comfortably presented himself as a red blooded American and managed to disguise most of his politics (behind perceptions of insanity) while being uncompromising in his writing.
Aside from "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" (the title reeks of ubermensch propaganda and it helped launch Joe Kennedy's kids...) I'm basically stuck with "Tough Guys Don't Dance" as a reference point for Mailer.
And I think it's a great example of how awful people are capable of writing interesting things skillfully. The title is a reference to something he probably overheard (and didn't understand) between an Italian mobster and his enforcers. The text is an exercise in narcissistic self loathing and drunken self destruction. It reflects a highly misogynistic disregard for women... and apparently Mailer was convicted of assault for almost killing his wife with a pen knife.
So, perhaps, Mailer's celebration of Gary Gilmore's appearance is a reflection of how similar the two look. (A bit like looking into a mirror for the author?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer
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