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674acae
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But the young educated adults of the 90s -- who were, of course, the children of the same impassioned infidelities and divorces Mr. Updike wrote about so beautifully -- got to watch all this brave new individualism and self-expression and sexual freedom deteriorate into the joyless and anomic self-indulgence of the Me Generation. Today's sub-40s have different horrors, prominent among which are anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without once having loved something more than yourself.
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solipsism
norman-mailer
philip-roth
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David Foster Wallace |
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284cc0a
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At this stage of the game, I don't have the time for patience and tolerance. Ten years ago, even five years ago, I would have listened to people ask their questions, explained to them, mollified them. No more. That time is past. Now, as Norman Mailer said in Naked and the Dead, 'I hate everything which is not in myself.' If it doesn't have a direct bearing on what I'm advocating, if it doesn't augment or stimulate my life and thinking, I don't want to hear it. It has to add something to my life. There's no more time for explaining and being ecumenical anymore. No more time. That's a characteristic I share with the new generation of Satanists, which might best be termed, and has labeled itself in many ways, an 'Apocalypse culture.' Not that they believe in the biblical Apocalypse--the ultimate war between good and evil. Quite the contrary. But that there is an urgency, a need to get on with things and stop wailing and if it ends tomorrow, at least we'll know we've lived today. It's a 'fiddle while Rome burns' philosophy. It's the Satanic philosophy. If the generation born in the 50's grew up in the shadow of The Bomb and had to assimilate the possibility of imminent self destruction of the entire planet at any time, those born in the 60's have had to reconcile the inevitability of our own destruction, not through the bomb but through mindless, uncontrolled overpopulation. And somehow resolve in themselves, looking at what history has taught us, that no amount of yelling, protesting, placard waving, marching, wailing--or even more constructive avenues like running for government office or trying to write books to wake people up--is going to do a damn bit of good. The majority of humans have an inborn death wish--they want to destroy themselves and everything beautiful. To finally realize that we're living in a world after the zenith of creativity, and that we can see so clearly the mechanics of our own destruction, is a terrible realization. Most people can't face it. They'd rather retreat to the comfort of New Age mysticism. That's all right. All we want, those few of us who have the strength to realize what's going on, is the freedom to create and entertain and share with each other, to preserve and cherish what we can while we can, and to build our own little citadels away from the insensitivity of the rest of the world.
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apocalypse-culture
naked-and-the-dead
satanism
norman-mailer
existentialism
isolation
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Anton Szandor LaVey |
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bb7faa1
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Love was love, one could find it with anyone, one could find it anywhere. It was just that you could never keep it. Not unless you were ready to die for it.
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stephen-rojack
norman-mailer
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Norman Mailer |
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1f993c8
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"It comes as no surprise to find [Norman] Mailer embracing [in the book ] a form of Manicheanism, pitting the forces of light and darkness against each other in a permanent stand-off, with humanity as the battlefield. (When asked if Jesus is part of this battle, he responds rather loftily that he thinks it is a distinct possibility.) But it is at points like this that he talks as if all the late-night undergraduate talk sessions on the question of theism had become rolled into one. 'How can we not face up to the fact that if God is All-Powerful, He cannot be All-Good. Or She cannot be All-Good.' Mailer says that questions such as this have bedevilled 'theologians', whereas it would be more accurate to say that such questions, posed by philosophers, have attempted to put theologians out of business. A long exchange on the probability of reincarnation (known to Mailer sometimes as "karmic reassignment") manages to fall slightly below the level of those undergraduate talk sessions. The Manichean stand-off leads Mailer, in closing, to speculate on what God might desire politically and to say: 'In different times, the heavens may have been partial to monarchy, to communism, and certainly the Lord was interested in democracy, in capitalism. (As was the Devil!)' I think it was at this point that I decided I would rather remember Mailer as the author of
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good-and-evil
jesus
politics
religion
god
philosophy
omnibenevolence
omnipotence
norman-mailer
theology
theism
monarchy
reincarnation
capitalism
democracy
communism
devil
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Christopher Hitchens |
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df295df
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Flannery O'Connor had a certain genius. I don't think John Updike has, or Norman Mailer or William Styron, all of whom are talented, but they don't exceed themselves in any way. Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.
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john-updike
norman-mailer
william-s-burroughs
william-styron
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Truman Capote |
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44a53ec
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"(Fragmento de El fantasma de Harlot(una historia novelada de la CIA), Norman Mailer ,1991) En muchos vecindarios, sin embargo, las calles son pacificas y fantasmales. La otra parte del mundo podra avanzar vertiginosamente, pero no en una pobre manzana de casuchas destartaladas donde el unico vehiculo que se ve es un viejo Chevrolet color oliva pardusco, con brillantes manchones amarillos y naranjas. Es tanto el silencio, que me siento como si se estuviera en un bosque. No muy lejos hay un muchacho con un sueter amarillo, del mismo tono de los manchones amarillos del viejo coche oliva pardusco. Otro automovil viejo, en otra calle vieja, esta alzado sobre un gato por la parte delantera, con el capo tan abierto que parece un pato graznando. Lo han pintado de un azul sucio, brillante. En un viejo balcon han puesto ropa a secar. Te aseguro, Kittredge, que una de las camisas tiene el mismo tono azul sucio del coche. Creo que cuando un pais permanece protegido de las tormentas de la historia, los fenomenos mas pequenos adquieren prominencia. En una pradera de Maine, protegida de los vientos, las flores silvestres surgen en los lugares mas extranos, como si su unico proposito fuera deleitar los ojos. Aqui, a todo lo largo de un edificio bajo, comun y corriente, del siglo XIX, veo una paleta continua de piedra y estuco: marron y marron grisaceo, aguamarina, gris oliva y mandarina. Luego, lavanda. Tres piedras fundamentales, en tonos rosados. Asi como los coches reflejan los sedimentos de antiguas latas de pintura, bajo el omnipresente hollin ciudadano esta este otro despliegue mas sutil. Empiezo a sospechar que esta gente mira sus calles con un ojo interior; si han pintado un letrero de verde musgo, entonces alli, en el extremo de la calle, alguien decide pintar una puerta con el mismo tono de verde. El tiempo y la suciedad, la humedad y el yeso descascarillado contribuyen a dar colorido a la vista. Las viejas puertas empalidecen hasta que ya no es posible determinar si el original era azul o verde o de algun misterioso tono de gris que reflejaba la luz del follaje de la primavera. Recuerda que aqui, en el hemisferio Sur, octubre es como nuestro abril. En la Ciudad Vieja, en una calle que baja hasta el borde del agua, la playa, gris como la arcilla, esta desierta. Al fondo, se ve una plaza vacia con una columna solitaria que se recorta contra el mar.
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norman-mailer
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ezequiel de rosso |
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827b265
|
En muchos vecindarios, sin embargo, las calles son pacificas y fantasmales. La otra parte del mundo podra avanzar vertiginosamente, pero no en una pobre manzana de casuchas destartaladas donde el unico vehiculo que se ve es un viejo Chevrolet color oliva pardusco, con brillantes manchones amarillos y naranjas. Es tanto el silencio, que me siento como si se estuviera en un 275 Norman Mailer El fantasma de Harlot bosque. No muy lejos hay un muchacho con un sueter amarillo, del mismo tono de los manchones amarillos del viejo coche oliva pardusco. Otro automovil viejo, en otra calle vieja, esta alzado sobre un gato por la parte delantera, con el capo tan abierto que parece un pato graznando. Lo han pintado de un azul sucio, brillante. En un viejo balcon han puesto ropa a secar. Te aseguro, Kittredge, que una de las camisas tiene el mismo tono azul sucio del coche. Creo que cuando un pais permanece protegido de las tormentas de la historia, los fenomenos mas pequenos adquieren prominencia. En una pradera de Maine, protegida de los vientos, las flores silvestres surgen en los lugares mas extranos, como si su unico proposito fuera deleitar los ojos. Aqui, a todo lo largo de un edificio bajo, comun y corriente, del siglo XIX, veo una paleta continua de piedra y estuco: marron y marron grisaceo, aguamarina, gris oliva y mandarina. Luego, lavanda. Tres piedras fundamentales, en tonos rosados. Asi como los coches reflejan los sedimentos de antiguas latas de pintura, bajo el omnipresente hollin ciudadano esta este otro despliegue mas sutil. Empiezo a sospechar que esta gente mira sus calles con un ojo interior; si han pintado un letrero de verde musgo, entonces alli, en el extremo de la calle, alguien decide pintar una puerta con el mismo tono de verde. El tiempo y la suciedad, la humedad y el yeso descascarillado contribuyen a dar colorido a la vista. Las viejas puertas empalidecen hasta que ya no es posible determinar si el original era azul o verde o de algun misterioso tono de gris que reflejaba la luz del follaje de la primavera. Recuerda que aqui, en el hemisferio Sur, octubre es como nuestro abril. En la Ciudad Vieja, en una calle que baja hasta el borde del agua, la playa, gris como la arcilla, esta desierta. Al fondo, se ve una plaza vacia con una columna solitaria que se recorta contra el mar. ?Podran haber seleccionado el lugar para demostrar que De Chirico sabe pintar? En estos paisaje desolados, a menudo se ve una figura solitaria vestida de luto
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norman-mailer
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Ezequiel De Rosso |
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543d23f
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"Aukeman quotes Norman Mailer: "No wonder then that these have been the years of conformity and depression. A stench of fear has come out of every pore of American life and we suffer from a collective failure or nerve. The only courage, with rare exceptions, that we have been witness to, has been the isolated courage of isolated people." Welcome to Painterland (2016) Chapter 4, p.108"
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fear
mailer
norman-mailer
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Anastasia Aukeman |