The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing: Mailer, Norman: 9780394536484: Amazon.com: Books (original) (raw)
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I got the wrong guts in my book. Only the cover was right. The inside was a spy novel called "The Levanter" by Eric Ambler.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2023
Great book from one of the best! This seller sold me a great product in very good condition. Highly recommended!
Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2016
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2012
Most of this book is re-published articles, essays and interviews which is fine yet I'd hoped for a little more wisdom developed in Mailer's later years, closer to when this particular book was published. Strangely, I've not read a single book by Mailer (nor am I in a rush to although I'm sure I will eventually) yet I felt I had to have this book. I bought the Kindle version which I'm glad for since I wouldn't have wanted to keep a hardcover of this title.
The title, about the whole 'spooky art' thing... that's touched on in the book and Mailer does a good job at talking about how writing can be. He's uncompromising in an old codger kind of way and I enjoyed that. However, in some parts of the book he can get very pedantic and irritating as he reaches for the stars via words few of us will ever use. He's trying to do something great and inspire us (I think) but it just felt bloated and wordy to me with far too much of a dictatorial slant.
If you are a writer or aspiring writer, this book's not going to offer you much in the way of help except in an inspirational kind of way and even that is scant. If you're a fan of Mailer then I'm sure you'll dig this book for obvious reasons. If you just like reading about writers or you want to be a literary rebel, you'll probably find this book decent. It's good - I mean it's Norman Mailer so it's 'important' as far as books go - but it's no 'On Writing' by Stephen King.
5 people found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2018
I've never read Mailer, but his writing essays can be inspiring, when you're writing; however, there are plenty of elements that the work is dated or sexist (only focuses on male authors), which a modern reader might notice. He also is a bit full of himself, and the essay segments repeat and are the same as another collection (see "outlaw.") A few essays, like the one he writers about Deer Hunter really showed the writing process from an honest point of view.
One person found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2005
It has been many years since I have read Norman Mailer. He made a sensational literary debut with the publication of his World War II novel, The Naked and the Dead in 1948. Since then he has been among the most celebrated writers, and by his own estimation one of America's greatest novelists, although I believe he still realizes that he has yet to fulfill his life-long ambition to write the so-called Great American Novel. (Actually I think Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain preceded his efforts here with respectively, The Scarlet Letter and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.)
This is not the first time Mailer has written on the art of writing. During a period beginning after the publication of his third novel, The Deer Park in 1954 until he returned to the form in 1965 with An American Dream, Mailer wrote nonfiction almost exclusively, and in my opinion became a literary star because of the transition. I recall his first book-length nonfiction venture, Advertisements for Myself (1959), in which in addition to shamelessly tooting his own horn, Mailer also gave advice on how to write effectively, and of course on how to be a literary lion. I thought at the time it was his best work. In a sense he is like others of his time--Gore Vidal comes to mind--literary men who made the transition from novelists (a dying male breed because of a dying male readership) to interpreters and critics of the mass culture even while remaining true to their first love.
Mailer followed up his successes with dozens of books, including more novels along with the various nonfiction works about people (Marilyn Monroe, Picasso, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc.), things and events (Of a Fire on the Moon; The Executioner's Song), especially political events, Miami and the Siege of Chicago; The Armies of the Night, etc. As always his work is characterized by a terrific energy and an obsessive devotion to Words on Paper. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he only felt really comfortable with himself as a writer when he had written 10,000 words that day. I can tell you from personal experience it is very difficult to write ten thousand words in one day; but the really hard part is to do it on consecutive days or indeed to keep up with anything close to that production for any length of time. Yet, for the real writer who cannot help but write--and Mailer was and is such a writer--the meditative euphoria that comes with being lost in one's work so completely is wonderful and quite addictive.
Here Mailer writes about writing of course, concerning himself with things like writer's block, and how to build character and whether to use the first person or the third, or how to use real people in your fiction. He gives tips to young writers, as a writer in his eighties might, and certainly he is a writer to be listened to. He advises on how to use your subconscious in writing. He notes that if you declare that you are going to be at your desk the next morning to write, your subconscious will take note and help you out by preparing in advance. If however you should "wake up in the morning with a hangover and cannot get to literary work, your unconscious, after a few such failures to appear, will withdraw." (p. 142)
The two-fisted machismo for which the short of stature Mailer became famous (or infamous) comes out in places in this work (e.g., he likes to compare writing with being an athlete and on page 104 he even talks of keeping in shape). Thoughts on his lifelong preoccupation with sex, narcissism, masturbation and such also appear. There is a chapter on film, one of Mailer's many intense interests.
But there is sound advice on The Literary Career and what he calls the "Lit Biz." (Of course some of this is passé, since the literary world has changed quite a bit since he had to worry about such things.) There is his reaction to sudden fame after the publication of The Naked and the Dead, which he reminds us was "number one on the best-seller list for several months." (p. 115) In fact, this is such a terrific book on the writer's life and craft (he doesn't especially like the word "craft") that I sorely wish it had been available when I was a young man. Make no mistake about it. What Norman Mailer doesn't know about writing and making a success of writing is probably not much. But of course his success came mainly through hard work and an almost maniacal belief in himself over many decades and through many trials and tribulations, some of them of his own making.
This book is also about life in the twentieth century by a man who lived it full speed ahead, and about other writers and other celebrities he has known or read. In the final analysis, this is a personal book by a man given to writing personal books, a book by a man who is among our finest writers, and a book--like almost all of his work--to inform, to entertain, and to admire.
17 people found this helpful
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2014
I found it a bit self indulgent and not a lot of assistance to myself as a writer: not even a good read as such except for nostalgic thoughts that were relevant during certain periods of his life.
3 people found this helpful
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5.0 out of 5 stars Informative
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2022
Great to share Mailers insight across a wide spectrum of writers and their techniques.