It was as if he had arrived at the recognition, nothing lost, that cheap perfume might be one of the hundred odd scents of mystery in the poet‘s apothecary–let us not, however, forget the smell of gasoline… Gasoline and cheap perfume–half the smell in American adventure.
One of the oldest devices of the novelist–some would call it a vice–is to bring his narrative (after many an excursion) to a pitch of excitement where the reader no matter how cultivated is reduced to a beast who can pant no faster than to ask, ‘And then what? Then what happens?‘ At which point the novelist, consummate cruel lover, introduces a digression, aware that delay at this point helps to deepen the addiction of his audience.
What a good novel that could make! About once a week Mailer bypassed wistfully around the excitements of the new book which had just come into his head. He would leave it to his detractors to decide that the ones he did not write were better than the ones he did.
pickThis is a vivid and compelling portrait of the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon. That said, Mailer often gets in his own way (a sentiment with which he might be obliged to agree, based on his own role in the story). Not without reason is he counted among the so-called Midcentury Misogynists and not infrequently does his prose begin to feel rather like the tiresome monologue of a man who greatly enjoys hearing himself talk. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The pen may be mightier than the sword, yet at their best, each belong to extravagant men.
"The pen may be mightier than the sword, yet at their best, each belonged to extravagant men."
The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History | 
