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Title: The Naked and the Dead : 50th Anniversary Edition by Norman Mailer ISBN: 0-312-26505-0 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 05 August, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (54 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best book about war, any war!
Comment: While war is never a fun subject to read or write about, we owe it to ourselves to read as much about it as possible so we can never forget the terrors and the horrors, and the price those brave men and women pay by marching almost certainly to their deaths. There have been a lot of books about war, from Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage and just about every book Hemmingway ever wrote, but I think the crowning achievement of these war novels is probably Norman Mailer's book. Why? Read on.
Mailer is the first to show the grim unrelenting monotony of war in its entirety, and its length reflects that. There are few battle scenes in The Naked and the Dead, mostly just men sitting around with little to do but think about their lives and argue with each other. Mailer's turns of phrase are clear and concise, yet give the reader a clear pitcher of what is going on in the character's head. The Time Machine sections are the best way to show background of a person that I've ever read.
I've read elsewhere that the novel is actually a iconoclastic protrayal of a liberal vs. conservative argument between Hearn and Cummings but don't bother yourself with that. Just sit down someplace comfortable and open up the best war novel ever written
Rating: 5
Summary: Length justified by Depth and Verse
Comment: The Naked and the Dead is as long and winding as the half-cut trails of Anopopei. The struggle of each character is monotonous, and Mailer insists that the reader understand this monotony through seemingly endless repetition. However, this repetition was the life he was trying to portray. Yes, the book is long, but it is good. I must admit that there were parts that I was tempted to do without, but the occasional poetic verse kept things alive.
Mailer was indeed a poet. Some of the metaphors and descriptions used seem to drop the reader into the trance-like state that so many soldiers must have felt in the presence of death. The remarkable precision of post-war thought blended with existentialist ideal make this book multi-faceted. A greek tragedy, a philisophical warning, The Naked in the Dead brings the horror of war to the reality of every individual.
Rated a 9 by virtue of its depth and poetic-like verse.
Rated a 9 by the unsettling realism that so many wish was only a story.
David Knape
Rating: 1
Summary: Could've Been Worse
Comment: This isn't a bad story from a guy who stabbed his wife with a pen knife. But it definitely ain't the classic that it's made out to be. When you read it you can't help but see the self-indulgence of the writer. I don't think Mailer ever learned that a writer must not insert himself into a story as though he were the center of the universe. Rather, the author must always hide behind his characters, let the story develop according to its own will, or otherwise things will just look contrived and flimsy as this narrative does in many places. To shake Mailer out of his torpor he needs a new cathartic experience to enliven his fiction. Why not stab his wife again? That seemed to work wonders for his career.
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Title: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer ISBN: 0375700811 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: From Here to Eternity by James Jones, James Jones ISBN: 0385333641 Publisher: Dell Publishing Pub. Date: 13 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Thin Red Line by James Jones ISBN: 0385324081 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 09 February, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The Armies of the Night: History As a Novel/the Novel As History by Norman Mailer ISBN: 0452272793 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: January, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw, James Salter ISBN: 0226751295 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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