Word: mailers
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...Norman Mailer '43 decided in his first two books that man could find little happiness in the world, and in his third novel, The Deer Park, he has tried to find a way for man to improve this unhappy situation His panacea is simple--sex. To Mailer, sex is the only force which can make living worthwhile, and The Deer Park explores its effect on a very selective group of characters...
...Naked and the Dead, Mailer created an artificial island in the Pacific Ocean; similarly in The Deer Park, he has created another contrived locale--Desert D'Or, two hundred miles from Hollywood. This is a resort for the stars, directors, and other notables of the motion picture industry, and here are located the clubs, bars, and beds where they spend their days and nights. The lurid events which take place in Desert D'Or are credible only if you can accept Mailer's views on the primacy...
...Charles Francis Eitel and his bed-mate Elena Esposito; and movie star Lulu Meyers and her lover Sergius O'Shaugnessy, the narrator of the book. But interwoven into the story are Marion Faye--a pimp at 21; a homosexual movie actor; and a number of other perverted characters. In Mailer's moral code, however, these latter characters are destroyed, for only those who can find companions of the opposite sex are favored by the author...
...unbelievable Air Force poker game, is equally sad because he could not fulfill his sexual needs in Japan. But into their lives come Elena and Lulu, and after some near-pornographic love-making scenes, the two men are both happy again, and better able to enjoy life in Mailer's world...
This book qualifies as the German Naked and the Dead on the literary principle of silt by association. Author Böll, 37, known to U.S. readers for Acquainted with the Night (TIME, Oct. 4, 1954), lacks the power Norman Mailer showed in his first novel, but he wallows in the same mud-and-tears and reaches the same inevitable conclusion, i.e., war is a dirty, futile business. Adam has no heroes, only victims. The time is 1944; the place, principally occupied Hungary, as the mighty Wehrmacht comes apart at the tank sprockets. A panoramic miniaturist, Author...