Although its in fact questionable if Norman Mailer was a Great Writer rather than simply an occasionally good one, but his final novel The Castle in the Forest, about Adolf Hitler and purportedly an analysis of evil, which resurrects evil spirits, must be one of the very worst I''ve read by anyone. Twice I've attempted to read it and twice failed dismally-or its failed me.
Aida, there are certain things you have to look for in a novel. Those aspects include structure, even sometimes as in On The Road and say Sons and Lovers when the structure is not clear, but becomes clear afterwards. In both these the structure involves intrinsic notions of interaction, the forging of relationships. In On The Road that relationship is between the two main male characters and their adventures and their final point of departure reminding you of many other American male adventure stories-Huckleberry Finn for example. The writing may be clear and through style and vocabulary provide support to content. Usual stuff. It has an internal vision that slowly unwraps. It is in the end hard to put down. Such qualities involve perceptible intelligence.
Mailers Naked and the Dead, fits these criterion/and more. It has a claim on being the greatest American war novel.
The Castle in the Forest does not present a new or coherent perspective on evil-it doesn't find it in Hitlers background, in his psychology, in the psychology or history of his country. It doesn't find it in his time presenting an analytical interpretation of life and people. It fudges it. It goes for a cartoon representation and externalises it and creates less a wonderful and fulfilling read but what is in effect a medieval fable, but not a good one, or a children's story. The characters fail to convince. The story line fails to convince, unless I suppose your demands are limited. We do not read much popular literature of a hundred years ago because it tends to lack the qualities I've itemised here.
Mailer could write excellent prose but truly many of his novels are not at the same artistic and intellectual level of his non/fiction. So, subjective? Only if you know little of literature. Personal? Only if you have no criterion to go by. Art of all kinds isn''t about the subjective and personal, it has to carry something beyond both these rather unlikely factors.
But if you like it, please say why.
Aida, there are certain things you have to look for in a novel. Those aspects include structure, even sometimes as in On The Road and say Sons and Lovers when the structure is not clear, but becomes clear afterwards. In both these the structure involves intrinsic notions of interaction, the forging of relationships. In On The Road that relationship is between the two main male characters and their adventures and their final point of departure reminding you of many other American male adventure stories-Huckleberry Finn for example. The writing may be clear and through style and vocabulary provide support to content. Usual stuff. It has an internal vision that slowly unwraps. It is in the end hard to put down. Such qualities involve perceptible intelligence.
Mailers Naked and the Dead, fits these criterion/and more. It has a claim on being the greatest American war novel.
The Castle in the Forest does not present a new or coherent perspective on evil-it doesn't find it in Hitlers background, in his psychology, in the psychology or history of his country. It doesn't find it in his time presenting an analytical interpretation of life and people. It fudges it. It goes for a cartoon representation and externalises it and creates less a wonderful and fulfilling read but what is in effect a medieval fable, but not a good one, or a children's story. The characters fail to convince. The story line fails to convince, unless I suppose your demands are limited. We do not read much popular literature of a hundred years ago because it tends to lack the qualities I've itemised here.
Mailer could write excellent prose but truly many of his novels are not at the same artistic and intellectual level of his non/fiction. So, subjective? Only if you know little of literature. Personal? Only if you have no criterion to go by. Art of all kinds isn''t about the subjective and personal, it has to carry something beyond both these rather unlikely factors.
But if you like it, please say why.
Poor Stanley! So much effort wasted. If you think it's crap let it go. Two lines of "Oliver Twist" was enough for me. But it might prudent for me to refrain from mentioning that.
Christopher NOCK
Readable book may not be worst written by great writer
'Worst' may be incorrect message to 'Society'
Instead of "worst books" let me mention two that are memorable because I just could not finish them: Lord of the Rings (couldn't get past 40 pages); Atlas Shrugged (gave up after about 100). I agree with Stanley Wilkin that books can be flawed for the reasons he intimates, but a deeply flawed book can still be engaging and readable (and I've eagerly devoured many of those). On the other hand, some edifying books can be tedious as hell.
Lost on your comment Pankaj as 'worst' is a comparative.
Nick, Oliver Twist is a truly marvellous book, but why people differ in their responses is interesting. Dickens' marvellous changes in style throughout the book, his creating a liminal world from the shadows of a real one-London recreated faithfully (underworld and underclass of the day) as purgatory of passages and gloom leading to its dark heart.
Karl, you say memorable but both books had the same effect on me. I find Lord of the Rings poorly written, full of clichés and trite.
Stanley, rarely have I seen you so serious! Just read the first few lines of the book and revisit my original answer...then just admit I'm a genius!
NOCK
To clarify, it would be "prudent for me to refrain from mentioning".
I read that around 12 years old. I put the book down, and never opened it again. Maybe I'm a memory man, not a genius!
NOCK
explain, nick-Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter. For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country
Well Stanley, I myself did find the first sentence off-putting. It's a bit precious and merely functions as a disclaimer of the sort that is usually put in the front matter; quite a contrast with the masterly opening lines of Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. However, this is not to deny that Oliver Twist is a great book. One should not judge a book by its opening lines. Sometimes a book needs to be given a chance to get underway.
It was Dickens's first book but in fact I cannot stand Tale of Two Cities-melodramatic, too sympathetic to the ghastly French aristocrats and with Dickens's most rhetorical bombast. ´The first line I found and still find sham: It was the best of worlds, it was the worst of worlds. The ham actor getting his Shakespeare mixed up.
I tried to read it again recently but gave up. Karl, if you get the chance have a look at my piece on Oliver Twist (here) and Jung. I think, although people say its a bit crude (and Dickens's certainly took to heart the accusations of anti-Semitism) I prefer it to much of his over-written later work.
Before I left London, I was teaching A Christmas Carol to undergraduates and I pointed out Dickens's mannerism, such as interminable lists-the resort of a brilliant imagination stuck in waffle. As-the table was full of countless bountiful, gleaming fruits: huge red apples, juicy green pears, grapes, ballooning melons, sun-hot oranges and beside them plump vegetables, round pea projectiles of the brightest green, half-moon runner beans, dusty thick turnips-
If he'd been in the classroom I would have requested he shut up!
The problem with the beginning of Oliver Twist is that he couldn't decide what kind of book he was writing, straight comedy, satire, or a straight gothic thriller.
She always did, when the plot was lost.
I couldn't put that down until p.2!
NOCK
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