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icecreamjane's review against another edition
3.0
It's enjoyable to read...for a while. Then Mailer's writing just really wears on you and you have to take a mental break. But it is good for exploring what is history; how is it created? what does it consist of? can there be multiple versions of truth?
elpanek's review against another edition
4.0
During the run-up to the 2016 election and its aftermath, I found myself thinking about the mid-to-late 1960's, which, by many accounts, was the last period of great sociopolitical tumult in the U.S. How did we find our way out it? How did we stay afloat? As with any great challenge, personal or societal, the answers are found in the work of great writers who are adept at creating coherence out of something that is sprawling, overwhelming, traumatizing, and chaotic. I found this in Mailer's book: a coherent artistic rendering of protest, corruption, a polarized public, distorted realities, a fever of violence and insanity. Just what the doctor ordered.
It is the art (and, sometimes, the coherence) that is missing from most accounts of political foment, because most accounts are either of the moment (news), designed with persuasion as the goal (many documentaries; many histories; many pop political science books), or are an attempt at chronicling human events as if viewing them from a great distance (i.e., 1,000 years in the future). All perspectives on political upheaval have their place, though right now I feel choked by the unified, hectoring voice of blogs and news editorials that circulate through social media. Mailer offers a way out.
The vantage point is that of someone attempting to write a novel AND a history of something that had just happened - the 1967 march on the Pentagon. I'm not sure that The Armies of the Night really works as either a novel OR a history, but instead feels more like the mix of personal history and extended essay that became New Journalism. Whatever you want to call it, its chief asset is the personal voice, and Mailer's is more traditionally masculine - more earthy, more aggressive, and drunker - than the rest of his New Journalism cohort (something closer to Hemingway or Bellow). He's not for everyone. But even if you wouldn't like to hang out with the guy, he does have a way with words.
It's also instructive to read an attempt to historicize the present because of the ways in which it fails to predict how the subject would eventually live on in cultural memory. Pretty much the only things I knew about the march on the Pentagon were that hippies stuffed flowers into soldiers' gun barrels (which is mentioned in passing in the book) and that Abbie Hoffman actually believed that protesters could make the Pentagon levitate with concentrated psychic energy. Mailer's account makes the event seem more ragged and disorderly and real, more like something you can imagine happening next month.
There's also a funny little cameo by Noam Chomsky who, at the time the book was written, wasn't the relatively-well-known public intellectual he would become. It's hard not to speculate as to who the nascent public intellectuals of today's political movements might be, but it's better to leave such speculation aside while reading this book and appreciate it for what it is: an insider's attempt to process an event that could've been just another protest, a comic failure, or the start of a political revolution as it is happening, not knowing the outcome.
It is the art (and, sometimes, the coherence) that is missing from most accounts of political foment, because most accounts are either of the moment (news), designed with persuasion as the goal (many documentaries; many histories; many pop political science books), or are an attempt at chronicling human events as if viewing them from a great distance (i.e., 1,000 years in the future). All perspectives on political upheaval have their place, though right now I feel choked by the unified, hectoring voice of blogs and news editorials that circulate through social media. Mailer offers a way out.
The vantage point is that of someone attempting to write a novel AND a history of something that had just happened - the 1967 march on the Pentagon. I'm not sure that The Armies of the Night really works as either a novel OR a history, but instead feels more like the mix of personal history and extended essay that became New Journalism. Whatever you want to call it, its chief asset is the personal voice, and Mailer's is more traditionally masculine - more earthy, more aggressive, and drunker - than the rest of his New Journalism cohort (something closer to Hemingway or Bellow). He's not for everyone. But even if you wouldn't like to hang out with the guy, he does have a way with words.
It's also instructive to read an attempt to historicize the present because of the ways in which it fails to predict how the subject would eventually live on in cultural memory. Pretty much the only things I knew about the march on the Pentagon were that hippies stuffed flowers into soldiers' gun barrels (which is mentioned in passing in the book) and that Abbie Hoffman actually believed that protesters could make the Pentagon levitate with concentrated psychic energy. Mailer's account makes the event seem more ragged and disorderly and real, more like something you can imagine happening next month.
There's also a funny little cameo by Noam Chomsky who, at the time the book was written, wasn't the relatively-well-known public intellectual he would become. It's hard not to speculate as to who the nascent public intellectuals of today's political movements might be, but it's better to leave such speculation aside while reading this book and appreciate it for what it is: an insider's attempt to process an event that could've been just another protest, a comic failure, or the start of a political revolution as it is happening, not knowing the outcome.
coffeecrusader's review against another edition
4.0
"Once History inhabits a crazy house, egotism may be the last tool left to History."
Mailer is an egotist and not ruled by shame. He revels in the negative portrayal of himself, constantly debases himself. The egotist's self knows no bounds. The narcissist is empty and is ruled by shame. Mailer, in all his issues, saw ego everywhere and hated those who operated behind suppressed ego. Here, as evidenced by the book's subtitle (History as a Novel, the Novel as History) Mailer looks for the contradictions which synthesize into human personality. Armies of the Night is a book of human error. He does this all with astounding language that occasionally bumps up against the border of poetry--a language which nearly means nothing.
This is Mailer as prophet, as a self-professed "Left Conservative," as he understand the US in Vietnam as the product of the Left (but not the New Left). This is a book about the promise of America through one's lived experience; Mailer challenges the reader to mine that for themselves.
Mailer is an egotist and not ruled by shame. He revels in the negative portrayal of himself, constantly debases himself. The egotist's self knows no bounds. The narcissist is empty and is ruled by shame. Mailer, in all his issues, saw ego everywhere and hated those who operated behind suppressed ego. Here, as evidenced by the book's subtitle (History as a Novel, the Novel as History) Mailer looks for the contradictions which synthesize into human personality. Armies of the Night is a book of human error. He does this all with astounding language that occasionally bumps up against the border of poetry--a language which nearly means nothing.
This is Mailer as prophet, as a self-professed "Left Conservative," as he understand the US in Vietnam as the product of the Left (but not the New Left). This is a book about the promise of America through one's lived experience; Mailer challenges the reader to mine that for themselves.
quinndm's review against another edition
3.0
Mailer's mastery of the word is astounding, but his style... his books leave me in inspired awe and, at the same time, exhausted and frustrated.
This book -- his firsthand account of the 1967 March on the Pentagon -- reminds us about how important, and dangerous, those times were and how vital it was for more people to stand up and speak out. And, now, almost 50 years later, the book is more relevant than ever.
This book -- his firsthand account of the 1967 March on the Pentagon -- reminds us about how important, and dangerous, those times were and how vital it was for more people to stand up and speak out. And, now, almost 50 years later, the book is more relevant than ever.
jackb_93's review against another edition
Finally finished the goddamn thing as even though it isn't very long, my patience flagged halfway through and I put it down for a while. It was worth getting to the end though, as that's where the thing comes together and the poetic insights start coming thick and fast. There are sentences that knock you out all the way through, but when Mailer gets on his sustained stretch of greatness like he does in the last 20 pages of this, he really starts to live up to his reputation. Mailer posits that in 1968 America was pregnant with possibility, and could either birth a new world of compassion or a new style of totalitarianism in which corporation-land wages daily war on the human condition. Reading this from the vantage point of 2020, it's a rather heartbreaking ending. The lessons from the war in Vietnam are very much unlearned
laurelinwonder's review against another edition
3.0
Mailer's writing style in this book is very fast and pulled me through the first section quickly. I can easily see how Mailer’s book has been compared to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which was the first non-fiction novel, whereas Mailer has created here an early example of historical and fictional journalism; which seems to combine novel style with reporting. The book reads as split between two sections, in "History As A Novel," Mailer uses the third person to describe his own experience participating in a anti-Vietnam war rally. By using the third person Mailer himself becomes just as much a part of the subject matter, as the march he participated in. In the second section, "The Novel As History," Things slow down in this section, but not because the subject matter is slower. Mailer focuses on the historical perspective on the march. Including why it happened, who was involved, and then describes the march as it might have been seen by some sort of an unbiased reporter. It was an interesting read, and Mailer’s opinionated voice is a never separated from the subject matter. I was mostly intrigued by the self-awareness Mailer was able to portray through writing in the third person. Since this move allowed him to step outside of himself and observe, he used this to the full potential.
jamesvw's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a fascinating picture of a seminal moment in the early anti-war movement of the 1960s. But I actually would recommend it more to explore the structural problems of the New Left and as a way of understanding the slow turning radius that many of these radicals, including Norman Mailer, had to include broader understanding of race and class impact on mid-century war capitalism.
To begin with a comment on the writing style, the reader is forced to go through the struggle of take-off with the writer. The book is written with Norman Mailer as the main character - but written in 3rd person - and it seems (to use a term that fits with his scatological proclivities) thematically constipated to start. While Mailer's writing style is filigreed, each sentence wrought with intentional wit, odd analogies and intentional digressions, it takes him a long time to get going. He is self-aware of his narrow scope of understanding by writing a book about himself, but that doesn't mean that at times his long winded inner dialogue didn't cause me to space out and have to reread passages. His digressions at the beginning often are absurd - well written to be sure, but going nowhere. For example, a particularly lengthy overwrought sentence, smart if you keep focused, though hardly relevant to the surrounding paragraphs ...
On the political merits of the book, the largest problem that emerges is in the way the New Left, through the lens of Mailer, treats race and the Black radical activists involved in the anti-war and anti-racism movements at the time. The language Mailer uses to talk about African-Americans is dated, somewhat surprisingly so for a writer theoretically steeped in the radical civil rights movement of the late 1960s. But this lends credence to the reluctance of Stokley Carmichael, the Black Panther party and other Black activists to fully trust their white counterparts – if even Norman Mailer could not be trusted not to make sweeping generalized statements such as “Was a mad genius buried in ever Negro? How fantastic they were at their best – how dim at their worst.” (115), surely it was correct to draw some delineation from complete integration with white anti-war activists. Their causes seem clearly distinct from what Mailer, who proclaims himself a "Left Conservative" in the book, is preaching. To read this today added an insight to the weaknesses of the left-wing white protest movement, failing to cleave away the linguistic racism of the time.
These seem like large criticisms - perhaps I overstate based on my level of surprise at finding such problems in the book - but overall it is a smart, agile book that gets better as it moves along. The ending section, "a novel written as history", is also particularly well crafted and fills in gaps in a style that I can imagine was revolutionary for journalistic writing at the time. I do recommend it but be ready to fight with Mailer. Though frankly he comes across as the kind of writer who would take great pleasure in any intellectual battle he could enter, much more so perhaps than the physical battles he endured getting arrested at the Pentagon.
To begin with a comment on the writing style, the reader is forced to go through the struggle of take-off with the writer. The book is written with Norman Mailer as the main character - but written in 3rd person - and it seems (to use a term that fits with his scatological proclivities) thematically constipated to start. While Mailer's writing style is filigreed, each sentence wrought with intentional wit, odd analogies and intentional digressions, it takes him a long time to get going. He is self-aware of his narrow scope of understanding by writing a book about himself, but that doesn't mean that at times his long winded inner dialogue didn't cause me to space out and have to reread passages. His digressions at the beginning often are absurd - well written to be sure, but going nowhere. For example, a particularly lengthy overwrought sentence, smart if you keep focused, though hardly relevant to the surrounding paragraphs ...
“If the novelist had never heard of Hell’s Angels or motorcycle gangs, he still would have predicted, no, rather invented motorcycle orgies, because the orgy and technology seemed to come together in the sound of 1200 cc’s on two wheels, that exacerbation of flesh, torsion of lust, rhythm in the pistons, stink of gasoline, yeah, oil as the last excrement of putrefactions buried a million years in Mother Earth, yes indeed, that funky redolence of gasoline was not derived from nothing, no, doubtless it was the stench of the river Styx (a punning metaphor appropriate to John Updike no doubt) but Mailer, weak in Greek, had nonetheless some passing cloudy unresolved image no of man as Charon on that river of gasoline Styx wandering between earth and the holy mills of the machine.”
On the political merits of the book, the largest problem that emerges is in the way the New Left, through the lens of Mailer, treats race and the Black radical activists involved in the anti-war and anti-racism movements at the time. The language Mailer uses to talk about African-Americans is dated, somewhat surprisingly so for a writer theoretically steeped in the radical civil rights movement of the late 1960s. But this lends credence to the reluctance of Stokley Carmichael, the Black Panther party and other Black activists to fully trust their white counterparts – if even Norman Mailer could not be trusted not to make sweeping generalized statements such as “Was a mad genius buried in ever Negro? How fantastic they were at their best – how dim at their worst.” (115), surely it was correct to draw some delineation from complete integration with white anti-war activists. Their causes seem clearly distinct from what Mailer, who proclaims himself a "Left Conservative" in the book, is preaching. To read this today added an insight to the weaknesses of the left-wing white protest movement, failing to cleave away the linguistic racism of the time.
These seem like large criticisms - perhaps I overstate based on my level of surprise at finding such problems in the book - but overall it is a smart, agile book that gets better as it moves along. The ending section, "a novel written as history", is also particularly well crafted and fills in gaps in a style that I can imagine was revolutionary for journalistic writing at the time. I do recommend it but be ready to fight with Mailer. Though frankly he comes across as the kind of writer who would take great pleasure in any intellectual battle he could enter, much more so perhaps than the physical battles he endured getting arrested at the Pentagon.