Saturday, November 10, 2007

The news that the novelist Norman Mailer died earlier today at the age of 84 has already elicited little hagiographical murmurs. That hushed choir will doubtless turn into a deafening chorus of praise in the coming days and weeks—how much space do you suppose The New York Times will devote to its (I predict) front-page obituary? What grand superlatives will be dusted off and rolled out to commemorate the polyphiloprogentive wife-stabber and booster of homicidal misfits?

When a friend called me yesterday morning with the news that Susan Sontag had died at the age 71, just about the first thing I thought was, "well, we'll have a huge, hagiographical, front-page obituary tomorrow in The New York Times." Check to see if I am correct. In the meantime, as you prepare yourself for the Times's litany about 1) what a penetrating critical intelligence Sontag wielded and 2) what a "courageous" and challenging "dissident" voice she provided (those quotation marks are proleptic: let's see if the Times uses those words), here is another "courageous," "penetratingly intelligent" dissident voice, that of Salman Rushdie, who provided this bouquet in his capacity as President of the PEN American Center....

Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sux

Sorry I don't have anything more to say about Norman Mailer. I've never read his books. I read the mean things Kate Millet wrote about him in "Sexual Politics," back around when that picture was taken of me.

ADDED: Sorry, I read "The Executioner's Song." I even wrote an article about it, called "Standing, in Fluffy Slippers" (PDF).