JCO: RE: JCO & r.i.p.MAILER

Hi Cyrano

Thanks for pointing out "Getting and Spending." I read the story years ago, but hadn't connected that "Roger Craft" might be inspired by Mailer. I can see it very clearly in reading it now. It's an interesting piece, sort of a hesitant portrait of a vigorous, intelligent, violent man. The narrator is so inward and quiet, so hesitant to admit much about her own life that it's difficult to tell whether the two really did have an affair in the house in Maine as Roger later claimed. He comes across very vividly as someone so brutish and selfish, but admirable in a way for his tenacity. Really he's the complete opposite of the narrator in that he tries to find the answers to the philosophical questions of life by bullying his way through it. Whereas the narrator tends, at least in the beginning, to extreme introspection and withdraws herself from any combative situation. "Roger Craft" Surely one best observed from afar.

Eric

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From: Cyranomish@aol.com
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:25:29 -0500
Subject: Re: JCO & r.i.p.MAILER
To: erickarl78@hotmail.com

In a message dated 11/12/2007 8:21:12 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Cyranomish writes:

Hello, all.  I'm emailing you separately because my server does not connect reliably with Tone Clusters, and I haven't yet figured out how to fix it.

     Provincetown just isn't going to be the same without the looming, offstage presence of Norman Mailer, whose WWII novel The Naked & the Dead should be read by any serious lit-lover.  JCO cited him with admiration in her early-1970s NEWSWEEK profile. A few years later, she gently but very firmly reproached him for his unsympathetic attitude toward women's reproductive freedom.  (Randy can probably direct you to that article; I can't at the moment recall the magazine.)

     For a very thrilling JCO short story "about" (I think) the impact of NM on her art, please peruse the short story GETTING & SPENDING, collected in the 1975 book THE SEDUCTION & OTHER STORIES.  I'd love to hear your reactions. 

     Please forward this note on to other Tone Cluster folk I have overlooked in my haste.  Does anyone have Greg Johnson's email address?

Best,

Cyrano

 

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