book data
567 ratings,
3.48
average rating, 61 reviews
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published
April 1st 1987
by Henry Holt & Co (P)
(first published 1965)
details
Paperback, 288 pages
isbn
0805003495
(isbn13: 9780805003499)
description
Few modern American novels have ignited more controversy and contention than this story of Stephen Richards Rojack, war hero and congressman turned pr…more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 809)
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5 stars (108)
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4 stars (171)
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2 stars (69)
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1 star (22)
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avg 3.48
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
recommends it for:
Phalluses
I'm not sure where to begin with this book. On the one hand, it's well written and rife with promiscuity, devious sex, murder and booze. All of which sort of kicks ass. On the other hand, Norman Mailer has succeeded in writing a story that actually made me wish there was LESS testosterone and more actual insight. (Yes I know that the beatniks didn't write to provide insight, they just wrote matter-of-fact-ly and made a mark by letting the readers find their own insight, but fuck that. The beatni...more
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5 comments
Read in March, 2009
About a quarter in my general impression was: filthy and dark and well written.
After finishing it my general impression was: filthy and dark.
I read a Mailer before but don't have strong memories of it. So I don't really have a handle on his style yet. But overall this was heavily laden with metaphors, and I don't mean some grand over-arching metaphor of a plot, I mean every single blasted thing was compared to something else, often quite random. Similes everywhere. During...more
After finishing it my general impression was: filthy and dark.
I read a Mailer before but don't have strong memories of it. So I don't really have a handle on his style yet. But overall this was heavily laden with metaphors, and I don't mean some grand over-arching metaphor of a plot, I mean every single blasted thing was compared to something else, often quite random. Similes everywhere. During...more
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bookshelves:
bullshit,
classics,
comedy-parody,
contemporary_fiction,
i-lack-objectivity-on-this-one,
mystery-thriller,
porn,
read-but-dont-recall-much,
read-when-young
Read in January, 1986
An utterly ridiculous, oftentimes despicable novel. Its greatest merit is that it is short. Offensive attitudes toward women (as is true of pretty much all of Mailer), toward the underclass, toward sex and violence, toward everything. Ugh. But compulsively readable. And, if its title is taken to mean anything, this violent, soft-porn soap opera of a novel is intended as a portrait of America's dream of itself in the mid-sixties, and its hero someone males of the time might secretly aspire to be....more
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Thoroughly enjoyable book of Mailer debauchery. Essentially the story is about a ordinary guy, fat and mediocre, who married into a rich family, pushes his wife out of a window and then goes on a drinking and fucking spree. It's not about the money for him, it's about freedom. His wife was a total bitch anyway. So the book is about him running around New York getting into trouble until eventually his dead wife's father catches up with him. Definitely a funny novel and worth a read.
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Read in September, 2007
I read it and I liked it. Partially because I am still smarting from reading "That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana" and anything else seems like a welcome reprieve. There's some murder, some equating murder to knocking boots, and then some boot knocking to kick the book off right. And then after that, there's a whole lot of talk about stuff that stinks and how it stinks -- as in smells bad -- and that keeps me turning pages.
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ah... mailer at his worst. throwaway prose, boring characters, obvious plotting and tired themes (amongst mailer's 'important' themes is the whole american masculinity/infantliazation thing that hemingway did with considerably more force and thought a few decades earlier). at his best, mailer is a god. at worst - as is evident here - he's not fit to write a cheap pulp novel.
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Hmm...four stars. Not sure if that will hold up in court but I have to admit this book had all the odors of an awful pop-murder noir novel but Mailer's motivations to be AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL (both a writer and a renegade) forged this into a far more interesting, disturbing and enlightening territory. And seriuosly, Mailer is the most reckless of talents, as the cover so pointedly punctuates. The first two chapters of this contain some of the most reckless and dangerous prose confessions I've...more
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Read in November, 2009
Having read Mailer's The Fight - a great, evocative book that is occasionally spoilt only by the author becoming the protagonist - I wanted to read one of his novels to see if he created the same intensity.
And he does - sometimes. There are passages which grip you by the throat, there are others which you can't peel your eyes away from.
But ultimately the plot is stretched beyond credulity, characters come and go almost without explanation and certainly without reason, so ...more
And he does - sometimes. There are passages which grip you by the throat, there are others which you can't peel your eyes away from.
But ultimately the plot is stretched beyond credulity, characters come and go almost without explanation and certainly without reason, so ...more
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Read in January, 1972
Mailer's meditation on violence and evil will not be everyone's idea of a good novel to read on the beach, but An American Dream is a fully realized male fantasy wherein one set-upon, White, alcoholic , protagonist berserks himself into sequential delirium fueled rages to rid himself of the crushing banality of the culture that he feels is killing him by the inch. To do this, he commits a series of violent and insane acts, in an alcoholic haze; challenges sent him by the moon (really) whose succ...more
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Read in August, 2009
recommends it for:
Ryan O'Neal
A whack masterpiece of writing espousing some bizarro Mickey Spillane gone hipster prose that puts you in a Jack Daniels-fueled hammerlock of Cape Cod psychosis. I like the way the book started with a reference to JFK as the book was written shortly after his assassination. Everything in this book is nuts and by the laws of physics I shouldn't even like it but its so brain-fried it gives me a boner.
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This book is written with such assurance and force I couldn't not be impressed. It is derogatory to nearly everything and there is a very real sense of menace throughout, this is Mailer really, take him or leave him. He does write brilliantly though and I did feel compelled to read all his books after this one. I do think we need writers like this, rightly or wrongly.
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To me this is the definative Norman Mailer book. Unfortunately due to the subject matter and content, it was deemed a gross story by a misogynist. But, read it, please read it! The writing is superb and the pacing and rhthym of the words are phenomenal. Really is Mailer's best book and one of the best books to come out of the 60s.
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Read in January, 2004
It should be stipulated that this book is quite misogynistic in many ways, which, for some readers, could derail the reading experience entirely.
Aside from that, this is a great work of American fiction that has really stuck with me over the years, particularly the iconic final scene of Las Vegas glittering in the desert.
Aside from that, this is a great work of American fiction that has really stuck with me over the years, particularly the iconic final scene of Las Vegas glittering in the desert.
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Alright, i think some editing is due here. I mean substantive editing concerning mailer's inability to separate his dream reality from the reality he writes. Maybe this is impossible. Maybe it is also impossible to stop mailer from simply writing about himself, or positioning himself as the most virile man on the block. but this book was full of him fucking and drinking as much as possible, with the intense intellectualism that comes from fucking and drinking. i have to hand it to him thoug...more
Read in July, 2008
recommended to Sami by:
mike duncan
some things in this book i haven't really read in print before... resembling the scary sides of stuff and how you might turn that blind eye. i dont know, very drunken, n.m. forgives himself as much as his characters do his antihero but the thing winds up eerie and familiar and i thought it held up... and my grandma really did not like this book at all she thought it was trash!!!
dunno the dialogue is so silly sometimes but its like harkening back to this olfactory fear and power and i wou...more
dunno the dialogue is so silly sometimes but its like harkening back to this olfactory fear and power and i wou...more
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Read in January, 2008
I think I need to revisit this one. I was reading it for a class, so I didn't get to spend all the time I needed to peel through the layers of what was going on in this book. The language was good--I'll have to give it another go.
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Read in February, 2004
I have a complex relationship with Mailer’s work. His writing is eloquent, but I often feel like it’s a pimp’s eloquence, for the plot & characters tend to smack of soap opera.
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Read in January, 2009
I just finished this, my first Norman Mailer book. Murder, illicit sex, lies and the rich and powerful buying their way out of the criminal justice system. An American Dream indeed.
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Read in October, 1986
Early in the novel, the protagonist kills his wife. After, he has sex with the maid, goes to a nightclub, has sex with a singer, goes to a conference with his producer, talks to his wife’s father, etc. He philosophizes about his situation, like a Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment) or a Mersault (The Outsider). He does not think much about the possibility of arrest, and indeed there is little in the novel with regard to police investigation. Rather, in juxtaposing the violent action with wh...more
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Read in April, 2009
My first experience with Mailer and I loved it. A spectacular study of violence, dysfunctional relationships, and the psyche that accompanies both. Scarier than most "horror" out there. Highly recommended.
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