alexs's Full Review: Norman Mailer - An American Dream
An American Dream takes place over the course of a day and a half of a middle-aged man (Stephen Rojack)'s troubled life. Though it is a work of fiction, is the single most powerful documentation of human emotion I have ever read.
The prose of An American Dream isn't crafted beautifully. There were few memorable lines or paragraphs, but you spend every minute feeling Stephen Rojack from the inside. Moment by moment his emotions stray and skid in the first person from reflective over-intellectualization to torrid lust; calculated evil to suicidal doubt; untouchable guilt to gushing paternal caring.
Through his lucid yet drunken eyes the reader is toured tangentially through his inevitably successful bourgeois career - first as a soldier, then as congressman and finally onto academia. Rojack never lacks the confidence to act in his own name but is unsatisfied by his material successes. His upper class up bringing has driven him to strive for goals (including his marriage) that no longer hold any meaning for him. His suicidal tendencies are not the product of misery but a need to escape from these things; and Rojack does not want to die.
When his gentrified reputation is smashed across the manhattan skyline he happily hides from it, but when forced to confront the betrayal of his high society connections he falters. Norman Mailer punishes Rojack's hesitation to free himself by murdering the blond lounge singer with whom Rojack falls in love.
While the title of such a desperate and pained tale may seem to mock this country's own myths, Rojack's true American dream begins when he escapes from that life...in the epilogue.
The only other Mailer book i have read was "Why are we in Vietnam?", another fantastic book written in a different style. While Mailer has a completely different approach from Hunter S. Thompson, another current favorite of mine, they both have a refreshing willingness to confront the establishment. HST takes an absurd and amusingly mocking tack, while Mailer takes a haunting, troubled path into the confused psyche of the ruling American class.
An American Dream is a gripping read and must have made quite a splash when it was first published in 1964 since it brings the reader to understand some of the most societal unacceptable human emotions. Prepare to feel somewhat violated as Mailer's powerful story drags your emotions along with it. It's worth it; my only worry is which Mailer to read next.
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