Mailer Interview

In this interview the recently deceased Norman Mailer talks about things in a voice that often evokes wisdom and compassion. Over a long life Mailer seems to have learned something--an notion I once heard him travesty--about not just abstractions and fictions but about the nitty-gritty and thorny ethical issues that make a life worth having lived.

To talk about Hitler in the way he does is illuminating. To talk about the possibility of a future life and the repercussions of one's acts in this life is edifying. Though I cast a shadow over ideas as bloodless wraiths invoked by equally bloodless souls, Mailer's thoughts and ideas come across as lived observations. Not as one trying to take a god-view of life, but one who's been educated by a power and process that refines and shapes the spirit into a personality that sees things in all their particularity. I

n this way, the wonder and awe that might lead to something bigger and beyond which perhaps begins to come into view.