Norman Mailer has evolved a theory that an author must create a
public personality for himself in order to sell books, and in
accordance with this theory he here publishes everything he has
ever written, each piece accompanied with a long and frequently
fascinating introduction concerning how the work was written, what
he thought about it when he wrote it, and how he thinks about it
now. The materical includes five excellent early short stories, his
columns for the Village Voice, his now famous essay The White
Negro, a couple of other (and much better essays) on David Riesman
and Western Defense, a pair of passages from his forthcoming novel,
as yet untitled but than which nothing more clinical has been seen
since Edmund Wilson's notorious Princess with the Golden Hair. Mr.
Mailer also includes a lot of opinions of his peers in the field of
literature which are back-breakingly honest and also pretty shrewd.
Mr. Mailer is by far the most articulate (literarily speaking)
exponent of the way of life he prefers to call Hip (rather than
Beat), and it is therefore the more unfortunate that another of his
theories requires him to use Anglo- Saxon monosyllables on
principle, because his Advertisements is practically certain to be
banned in many localities, and possibly nationally. There is a good
deal of nonsense in this, much very strong meat, and a lot that
stands up well in spite of the framework. This is sure to be some
kind of succes de scandal, but the bullheaded integrity behind the
undertaking compels a certain respect. (Kirkus Reviews)
Originally published in 1959, "Advertisements for Myself" is an
inventive collection of stories, essays, polemic, meditations, and
interviews. It is Mailer at his brilliant, provocative, outrageous
best. Emerging at the height of "hip," "Advertisements" is at once
a chronicle of a crucial era in the formation of modern American
culture and an important contribution to the great autobiographical
tradition in American letters.
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