Norman Mailer, the pugnacious two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who
was a dominating presence on the US literary scene for more than
half a century, died on Saturday of kidney failure, his family
said. He was 84.
Known for his biting prose, penchant for controversy and as an
antagonist of the feminist movement, Mailer had struggled with his
health for months, undergoing lung surgery in October and spending
five days in a Boston hospital in September.
"With great sorrow, the family of Norman Mailer announces his
passing on November 10, at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York City," the
statement said.
In more than 40 books and a torrent of essays, Mailer provoked
and enraged readers with his strident views on US political life
and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
Mailer's first book, The Naked and the Dead, is
considered one of the finest novels about World War Two and made
him a celebrity at age 25 when published in 1948.
"From one end of his life to the other he sat in solemn thought
and left so much to read, so many pages with ideas that come at you
like sparks spitting from a fire," said columnist and author Jimmy
Breslin.
In 1969, Mailer waded into politics with a run for New York
mayor, with Breslin running for city council president.
"He argued brilliantly for the absolute necessity of the minds
of whites and blacks growing by being in the same city school
classrooms," said Breslin.
Mailer's works were often filled with violence, sexual obsession
and views that angered feminists. He later reconsidered many of his
old positions but never surrendered his right to speak his
mind.
"I found him to be extremely kind and gentle," best-selling
novelist Luanne Rice, a friend of Mailer, told Reuters in an
interview. "The Norman Mailer that I knew was very different from
the angry, contentious man that was famous."
Rice, now 52, was just starting out as a writer when she met
Mailer in the late-1980s.
He invited her to join him for a drink, they talked, and over
the years she said he became a mentor and father figure to the
budding writer.
Feuded with fellow authors
Detractors considered him an intellectual bully and he feuded
with authors such as Truman Capote, William Styron, Tom Wolfe and
Norman Podhoretz.
Feminists like Germaine Greer and Kate Millett considered him
the quintessential male chauvinist pig.
Some of the feuds even turned physical for the former college
boxer, who stabbed one of his six wives at a party and also decked
writer Gore Vidal.
"He always had this great voice, even when he was on crutches
and canes, he still had that great voice that would get everyone
excited," said Dr Thomas Staley, director of The Harry Ransom
Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which houses the
complete Norman Mailer archives.
"I knew him in the last five or six years of his life, when he
had mellowed, and he was quite charming," Staley said.
(China Daily November 12, 2007)
