Even the dominant groups represented competing sectional and economic interests. Yet been assimilated fully into the national dream. Its minorities-two of the characters are Jewish, one a Mexican- America-had not The generation that grew to manhood on the eve of the last war was not ideally suited to saving the world for democracy. The nature of the participants, and that their nature, in turn, is warped by the circumstances inevitable in the conditions of war and the climate of a military organization. He tries very hard to show that much of its unpleasantness comes from Mailer obviously doesn't like war, or the people who fight it, but this is hardly an original theme. Yet for all its virtuosity, its deafening emotional cannonades, it is primarilyĪ series of brilliant skirmishes the central objective is never taken.įor one thing, we are not quite sure what the objective is. It gives off a skyglow that is quite faithful to the spectrum of battle, and exposes the blood, if not always the guts, of war. Mailer's soldiers are real persons, speaking the vernacular Its style is an almost pure Army billingsgate that will offend many readers, although in no sense is it exaggerated: Mr. It is virtuallyĪ Kinsey Report on the sexual behavior of the GI. It is a saturation bombardment with every target hit at least three times. 'The Naked and the Dead' is an enormously long novel, washed up by the choppy waters of disillusionment, leaving nothing to the imagination. Even in its repetitiousness, wordiness, and overanalysis of motive, it is a commanding performance by a young man of 25 whose gifts are impressiveĪnd whose failures are a matter of reach rather than grasp. Honest and in scope an integrity compares favorably with the best that followed World War I. Undoubtedly the most ambitious novel to be written about the recent conflict, it is also the most ruthlessly Naked and the Dead'-the story of an imaginary battle in the Pacific-trumpets his dusty answer to the brutality of modern war.

Mailer should not be damned for attempting to reduce by frontal assault what better writers have failed to win by infiltration. The Dusty Answer of Modern War By DAVID DEMPSEY The Naked and the Dead By Norman MailerĮrhaps Mr.

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer