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Περί Θεού, μια ασυνήθιστη συζήτηση με τον Μάικλ Λένον
Σε αυτό το τελευταίο βιβλίο του πριν από το θάνατό του, ο Μέιλερ αποκαλύπτει τις απόψεις του για τη φύση του Θεού. Στις συζητήσεις που διεξήχθησαν σε ένα χρονικό διάστημα τριών ετών με το φίλο και συνεργάτη του, Μάικλ Λένον, ο συγγραφέας εμφανίζεται πιο προκλητικός παρά ποτέ. "Νομίζω", λέει ο Μέιλερ, "ότι η ευλάβεια λειτουργεί καταπιεστικά. Κάνει την ελεύθερη σκέψη να ασφυκτιά", και θεμελιώνει το προσωπικό του σύστημα ιδεών απορρίπτοντας την οργανωμένη θρησκεία αλλά και τον αθεϊσμό. Επιμένει στην οπτική ενός κόσμου που δημιουργήθηκε από έναν Θεό καλλιτέχνη ο οποίος άλλοτε πετυχαίνει στις επιδιώξεις του και άλλοτε αποτυχαίνει, εξαιτίας των σθεναρών αντιστάσεων που δέχεται από αντίπαλες δυνάμεις του σύμπαντος, με τις οποίες βρίσκεται σε αέναο πόλεμο διεκδικώντας τις ψυχές των ανθρώπων. Σε εμάς, βέβαια, δίνεται η ελευθερία να επιλέγουμε μόνοι ποιο δρόμο θα ακολουθήσουμε. Και ο Μέιλερ πιστεύει πως η ατομική μας συμπεριφορά -ένα μόνιμο, περίπλοκο μείγμα καλού και κακού- θα ανταμειφθεί ή θα τιμωρηθεί με μια μετενσάρκωση ανάλογη της ζωής που ζήσαμε.
246 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
29 people are currently reading
282 people want to read
About the author
Norman Mailer
344 books1,422 followersNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
April 12, 2019
This is one I've been wanting to get to for quite some time.
Let me just say: I get it. Norman Mailer is a massive loud mouthed boorish prick and yawning asshole of a man. His views towards women were...well, they were pretty fucked up for lack of a better French. And his opinions on minorities has always been rather peculiar. As in very very strange.
But all that being said Mailer was probably, for my lack of money anyway, one of the last literary pioneers that the American canon has so far produced. This in no way excuses his litany of flaws as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a person, at all. But in that labored dialectic of person versus art it might go a ways towards explaining just what it was he was trying to achieve and what it was he actually did.
Firstly, Mailer himself was a secular Jew out of New York something he made no secret or grand production. It was a part of who he was in the same way as white anglo saxon protestantism (or its variants) is for so many gentile Americans. But unlike those Christian writers your Faulkners, your Hemingways, Mailer was never unconscious of his minority status within this country, or 'outsider' status is probably a better appellation. But unlike, say, a Saul Bellow who attempted (with some success and many less than's) a Dickensian Judaic milieu by way of the street smart and the philosophical, Mailer decided instead to make his a literature of the ego, of the preternatural self. And at this he succeeded. For unlike the stiff formalism and labored humor of Bellow, Mailer's works always felt genuine, if only genuine to the world as he saw it and not as he tried to manicure it through precocious turns of phrase and wooden references to Talmudic lore.
Without going too much into Mailer's work in a whole (more so than I've done already) I have to say I enjoyed the quite frankly bizarro theological directions Mailer went through in his suppositions about God, the Devil, and evil as well as good. His declaring God to be a flawed artist (not unlike a writer which his literary executor and interlocutor slyly points out) has same real traction to it as, unlike many, Mailer's ideas are not the result of flash in the pan emotion, be it joy or dread or anger, against a world as it is, but a deeply thought out set of beliefs predicated on a lifetime's experiences as he perceived them.
This isn't Mailer's Summa Theologica or his own Guide for the Perplexed, but it is something of an arrogant but brilliant asshole's De Rerum Natura. I loved it because it was his, Mailer's bulbous, arrogant, surprisingly insightful take on the world as he saw it, felt it, and believed it. It's flawed and not for everyone. As was Mailer. So there you go.
Let me just say: I get it. Norman Mailer is a massive loud mouthed boorish prick and yawning asshole of a man. His views towards women were...well, they were pretty fucked up for lack of a better French. And his opinions on minorities has always been rather peculiar. As in very very strange.
But all that being said Mailer was probably, for my lack of money anyway, one of the last literary pioneers that the American canon has so far produced. This in no way excuses his litany of flaws as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a person, at all. But in that labored dialectic of person versus art it might go a ways towards explaining just what it was he was trying to achieve and what it was he actually did.
Firstly, Mailer himself was a secular Jew out of New York something he made no secret or grand production. It was a part of who he was in the same way as white anglo saxon protestantism (or its variants) is for so many gentile Americans. But unlike those Christian writers your Faulkners, your Hemingways, Mailer was never unconscious of his minority status within this country, or 'outsider' status is probably a better appellation. But unlike, say, a Saul Bellow who attempted (with some success and many less than's) a Dickensian Judaic milieu by way of the street smart and the philosophical, Mailer decided instead to make his a literature of the ego, of the preternatural self. And at this he succeeded. For unlike the stiff formalism and labored humor of Bellow, Mailer's works always felt genuine, if only genuine to the world as he saw it and not as he tried to manicure it through precocious turns of phrase and wooden references to Talmudic lore.
Without going too much into Mailer's work in a whole (more so than I've done already) I have to say I enjoyed the quite frankly bizarro theological directions Mailer went through in his suppositions about God, the Devil, and evil as well as good. His declaring God to be a flawed artist (not unlike a writer which his literary executor and interlocutor slyly points out) has same real traction to it as, unlike many, Mailer's ideas are not the result of flash in the pan emotion, be it joy or dread or anger, against a world as it is, but a deeply thought out set of beliefs predicated on a lifetime's experiences as he perceived them.
This isn't Mailer's Summa Theologica or his own Guide for the Perplexed, but it is something of an arrogant but brilliant asshole's De Rerum Natura. I loved it because it was his, Mailer's bulbous, arrogant, surprisingly insightful take on the world as he saw it, felt it, and believed it. It's flawed and not for everyone. As was Mailer. So there you go.
April 10, 2017
Here lie the rantings of a would-be cult leader, if he had any ambition to convert others to his ways of thought.
Okay, I'm just going to lay out the basics of Mailer's theology here:
1) God is a creative god (i.e., God as novelist), limited in goodness, power, and knowledge.
2) The devil is another god, in a constant war against God, though they may work together at times with a common aim.
3) When we die, we are reincarnated by God into new bodies, usually but not necessarily human.
That's pretty much all that Mailer will say definitely; everything else is unknowable. There is a lot of speculation, but he's always careful to say that he's uncertain about most everything. For example, Mailer theorizes that humans were ultimately meant to develop telepathy, but the devil uses technology to dampen our telepathic senses, to thwart the intentions of God. He's fascinated by the logistical nightmare of trying to reincarnate millions of souls in such a short amount of time after, say, the Holocaust or the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He also thinks that dogs probably have souls and that we might be reincarnated as dogs every now and then, and that wouldn't be so bad.
The reason for this last theory of dogs with souls, of course, is that Mailer likes dogs. That's what all of Mailer's ideas come down to. Mailer likes to think of God as a novelist because he is himself a novelist. He likes the idea of reincarnation because that's what makes him feel better in his old age, as opposed to disappearing into the dirt. One time he said some phrase at the exact same moment as someone else, so he likes to think that was a hint of telepathy.
These are just the wishful and dotty ramblings of an (admittedly, very smart) old man, but I'll allow it, because ridiculous as they are, it's all pretty entertaining.
Okay, I'm just going to lay out the basics of Mailer's theology here:
1) God is a creative god (i.e., God as novelist), limited in goodness, power, and knowledge.
2) The devil is another god, in a constant war against God, though they may work together at times with a common aim.
3) When we die, we are reincarnated by God into new bodies, usually but not necessarily human.
That's pretty much all that Mailer will say definitely; everything else is unknowable. There is a lot of speculation, but he's always careful to say that he's uncertain about most everything. For example, Mailer theorizes that humans were ultimately meant to develop telepathy, but the devil uses technology to dampen our telepathic senses, to thwart the intentions of God. He's fascinated by the logistical nightmare of trying to reincarnate millions of souls in such a short amount of time after, say, the Holocaust or the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He also thinks that dogs probably have souls and that we might be reincarnated as dogs every now and then, and that wouldn't be so bad.
The reason for this last theory of dogs with souls, of course, is that Mailer likes dogs. That's what all of Mailer's ideas come down to. Mailer likes to think of God as a novelist because he is himself a novelist. He likes the idea of reincarnation because that's what makes him feel better in his old age, as opposed to disappearing into the dirt. One time he said some phrase at the exact same moment as someone else, so he likes to think that was a hint of telepathy.
These are just the wishful and dotty ramblings of an (admittedly, very smart) old man, but I'll allow it, because ridiculous as they are, it's all pretty entertaining.
November 4, 2023
I’ve never read anything by Mailer but I will now!
What an original and unfettered mind this man had. I felt like I was sitting down with him while reading this book. So many wonderful thoughts and ideas, some of which really surprised and enlightened me. Just the notion that God is not an all-powerful emperor but an artist perfecting his work through eons of evolution and reincarnation. Love that!
What an original and unfettered mind this man had. I felt like I was sitting down with him while reading this book. So many wonderful thoughts and ideas, some of which really surprised and enlightened me. Just the notion that God is not an all-powerful emperor but an artist perfecting his work through eons of evolution and reincarnation. Love that!
September 15, 2025
Really interesting book. There were so many ideas that I'd never heard of or never seen delved into so much. For a book that's essentially a Q&A about religion, it reads well. Kind of feels like a podcast even. I like Mailer's thesis of God as an artist; it leads to some interesting connections between God and the novelist. Just a fascinating book, though not one that converted me to any new ideas (most closely related to Gnosticism). Worth checking out if you like religion or writing.
November 3, 2019
Good.
51,000 words.
Here are some highlights from the first 5 chapters:
——————————————————
I have spent the last fifty years trying to contemplate the nature of God.
It took a good number of years to recognize that I did believe in God—that is, believed there is a divine presence in existence.
I am a novelist. The best of us spend our lives exploring what might be human reality. In consequence, the conviction grew that I had a right to believe in the God I could visualize: an imperfect, existential God doing the best He (or She) could manage against all the odds of an existence that not even He, our Creator, entirely controlled.
God, as I could visualize such a being, was an Artist, not a lawgiver, a mighty source of creative energy, an embattled moralist, a celestial general engaged in a celestial war, but never a divinity who was All Good and All Powerful.
My ongoing question is whether the Enlightenment was for good or for ill.
Reason, ultimately, looks to strip us of the notion that there is a Creator.
——————————————————
. . . my understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions.
. . . my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome.
. . . my argument is that it has become a contest among three protagonists. It isn’t that we are passive onlookers while God and the Devil wage a war within us. We are the third force and don’t always know which side we are on in any given moment,
. . . accept my notion that technology may be the most advanced, extreme, and brilliant creation of the Devil ... Half the human universe must by now be on the side of technology.
I would also say that it is ennobling to face existence with the recognition that you are not going to have clear answers.
If goodness is assured an ultimate victory over evil, we are in a comedy, and I must say it is an ugly farce, considering how we suffer in the course of the contest.
existence consists of a continuing set of achievements and defeats.
Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There’s no reason to receive a [eternal] reward if you’re 57% good and 43% bad—why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med?
. . . bureaucracies could be human representations of the notion of how [the afterlife] might work—and not work—in the heavens. We can’t stand bureaucracy because of the boredom, repetition, and slowness. But it may be that there are also elements in Heaven that do not work with high efficiency even when there are angels at the switchboard rather than humans.
One of [Carl Jung’s] conclusions was that nobody could be cured of their neurosis until they found their own vision of God.
“God was not love but courage. Love came only as a reward.”
It struck me that everyone I knew, including myself, was always looking for love. “Ah, if I could find love, it would solve my problems. “Some years ago, however, I found myself saying to my children, “Don’t go searching for love. Love is not a solution but a reward.” So long as you go searching for love directly, you will fail. Because love is a grace, and you don’t pursue grace.
. . . where is the artist who does not have ... profound disputes within?
God was in the slime from the beginning, and God was less in those days. God has grown with us. God has grown with evolution.
——————————————————
One of the beliefs I hold is that the Hereafter is less different than we assume. We may have the same frustrations and difficulties in the afterlife—overcrowding, for example, or even, conceivably, waste. After the Holocaust, we were forced to recognize there was something absolutely murderous in our species—obviously, it was not just reserved for the Germans;
. . . can it be that God sometimes says, “I’m too weary to think about this now”? After all, if God is an artist, is it always necessary to make instantaneous judgments?
To say “existential” means you are in the midst of an activity to which you cannot see the result. Rather, you are living in the midst of an intense question.
My guess is that the Devil sees God as incompetent.
. . . our fear is that [God] could destroy the whole world in order to start over again.
Technology is an arm of the Devil
. . . technology could be a third force, ready to destroy both God and the Devil
. . . technology is indeed the Devil’s force. Why? I feel it viscerally. That’s the best I can offer. I think of all the things I’ve detested for all these years, starting with plastic. It seems to me plastic is a perfect weapon in the Devil’s armory, for it desensitizes human beings. Living in and with plastic, we are subtly sickened.
I would say some characters in Dostoyevsky are both nihilistic and immensely ambitious. The two go together. Frustrated ambition can turn quickly to nihilism. A rotten fruit can grow poisonous.
It may be that Hitler was not only the Devil’s greatest achievement but also destroyed any possibility of thinking along the lines he laid out.
Hitler did more than anyone to spoil the possibility of exploring our time—the world was left with no more than conservatism and progressivism. The more interesting human philosophies, like existentialism, were cut off.
The Devil adores Fundamentalism because it keeps people from thinking. So long as people are incapable of pursuing a thought to where it leads, they can’t begin to carry out God’s notions.
The point of writing novels is to show what the costs are in human activities.
I’ve been saying all along, God does not control our destiny.
We learn from God, and God learns from us. This is a family relationship of the deepest sort. The parent can be enriched by the child; the child acquires strength and wit from the parent.
Do we have anyone around today who’s as wonderful and marvelous and godawful as Baudelaire? No. The modern equivalent would probably be Andy Warhol.
——————————————————
I see no reason for a divinity to put everything into a Book and expect that to be our only guide. He gave us free will. Or She gave us free will. ... If we were given free will, then the Book is the first obstacle to it.
we must trust the authority of the senses because that is the closest contact we have to the Creator;
Almost everything I dislike in the modern world is super-rational: the corporation, the notion that we can improve upon nature, to tinker with it egregiously, dramatically, extravagantly. Nuclear bombs, as one example, came out of reason.
You have to ask yourself at a given moment, “Who is speaking within me?”
The worst to be said about Fundamentalism is that it reduces people to the reflexes of a good dog.
Kierkegaard ... was probably the most profound Christian.
We are God’s artistic vision....
God is immensely powerful but is not All-Powerful. ... if God is All-Powerful, then how can you begin to explain the monstrosities of modern history?
We only find out about ourselves as we proceed through life.
Jean Malaquais once made a splendid remark: “There are no answers. There are only questions.”
What I’m offering to people as an ethic is to have the honor to live with confusion.
we are all engaged in a vast cosmic war and God needs us.
There are certain people who worship sex, good sex. I might be one of them. What I’ve noticed about good sex, when it’s really good, is the extreme sensitivity with which you proceed.
stop leaning on God, stop relying on God, and start realizing that God’s needs could be greater than ours, God’s woes more profound than our own. God’s sense of failure may be so deep as to mock our sense of failure. God, I believe, is, at present, far from fulfilling His own vision. He is mired in our corporate promotions all over the globe, our superhighways, our plastic, our threats of nuclear warfare, our heartless, arrogant, ethnic wars, our terrorism, our spread of pollution all over His environment. How can God’s sorrow not be immeasurably greater than ours?
I have a tremendous distrust of what people think is the good. At any given moment, 90 percent of that is fashion.
[Henry James’ novels are] a great guide to a very limited mountain pass that few people will ever have to traverse.
Once you’ve had a wild time or two, you can often support your imagination for a long time. In the harshest sense, you can say the trouble with Henry James is he never fucked another human.
——————————————————
I hardly subscribe to the modern notion that all disease is evil and is to be eradicated at all cost,
I do believe our final judgment in this life is given by the form of our rebirth. The only divine judgment we receive is our placement in the next life.
in the Middle Ages, there was one chance in ten a woman would die in childbirth.
God does not understand us completely any more than we understand our children.
I think technology tends to curtail our possibilities and accelerate our dependencies.
I do believe that there are two elements now on the horizon that can yet destroy the world as we know it. One of them is technology and the other is organized religion.
51,000 words.
Here are some highlights from the first 5 chapters:
——————————————————
I have spent the last fifty years trying to contemplate the nature of God.
It took a good number of years to recognize that I did believe in God—that is, believed there is a divine presence in existence.
I am a novelist. The best of us spend our lives exploring what might be human reality. In consequence, the conviction grew that I had a right to believe in the God I could visualize: an imperfect, existential God doing the best He (or She) could manage against all the odds of an existence that not even He, our Creator, entirely controlled.
God, as I could visualize such a being, was an Artist, not a lawgiver, a mighty source of creative energy, an embattled moralist, a celestial general engaged in a celestial war, but never a divinity who was All Good and All Powerful.
My ongoing question is whether the Enlightenment was for good or for ill.
Reason, ultimately, looks to strip us of the notion that there is a Creator.
——————————————————
. . . my understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions.
. . . my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome.
. . . my argument is that it has become a contest among three protagonists. It isn’t that we are passive onlookers while God and the Devil wage a war within us. We are the third force and don’t always know which side we are on in any given moment,
. . . accept my notion that technology may be the most advanced, extreme, and brilliant creation of the Devil ... Half the human universe must by now be on the side of technology.
I would also say that it is ennobling to face existence with the recognition that you are not going to have clear answers.
If goodness is assured an ultimate victory over evil, we are in a comedy, and I must say it is an ugly farce, considering how we suffer in the course of the contest.
existence consists of a continuing set of achievements and defeats.
Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There’s no reason to receive a [eternal] reward if you’re 57% good and 43% bad—why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med?
. . . bureaucracies could be human representations of the notion of how [the afterlife] might work—and not work—in the heavens. We can’t stand bureaucracy because of the boredom, repetition, and slowness. But it may be that there are also elements in Heaven that do not work with high efficiency even when there are angels at the switchboard rather than humans.
One of [Carl Jung’s] conclusions was that nobody could be cured of their neurosis until they found their own vision of God.
“God was not love but courage. Love came only as a reward.”
It struck me that everyone I knew, including myself, was always looking for love. “Ah, if I could find love, it would solve my problems. “Some years ago, however, I found myself saying to my children, “Don’t go searching for love. Love is not a solution but a reward.” So long as you go searching for love directly, you will fail. Because love is a grace, and you don’t pursue grace.
. . . where is the artist who does not have ... profound disputes within?
God was in the slime from the beginning, and God was less in those days. God has grown with us. God has grown with evolution.
——————————————————
One of the beliefs I hold is that the Hereafter is less different than we assume. We may have the same frustrations and difficulties in the afterlife—overcrowding, for example, or even, conceivably, waste. After the Holocaust, we were forced to recognize there was something absolutely murderous in our species—obviously, it was not just reserved for the Germans;
. . . can it be that God sometimes says, “I’m too weary to think about this now”? After all, if God is an artist, is it always necessary to make instantaneous judgments?
To say “existential” means you are in the midst of an activity to which you cannot see the result. Rather, you are living in the midst of an intense question.
My guess is that the Devil sees God as incompetent.
. . . our fear is that [God] could destroy the whole world in order to start over again.
Technology is an arm of the Devil
. . . technology could be a third force, ready to destroy both God and the Devil
. . . technology is indeed the Devil’s force. Why? I feel it viscerally. That’s the best I can offer. I think of all the things I’ve detested for all these years, starting with plastic. It seems to me plastic is a perfect weapon in the Devil’s armory, for it desensitizes human beings. Living in and with plastic, we are subtly sickened.
I would say some characters in Dostoyevsky are both nihilistic and immensely ambitious. The two go together. Frustrated ambition can turn quickly to nihilism. A rotten fruit can grow poisonous.
It may be that Hitler was not only the Devil’s greatest achievement but also destroyed any possibility of thinking along the lines he laid out.
Hitler did more than anyone to spoil the possibility of exploring our time—the world was left with no more than conservatism and progressivism. The more interesting human philosophies, like existentialism, were cut off.
The Devil adores Fundamentalism because it keeps people from thinking. So long as people are incapable of pursuing a thought to where it leads, they can’t begin to carry out God’s notions.
The point of writing novels is to show what the costs are in human activities.
I’ve been saying all along, God does not control our destiny.
We learn from God, and God learns from us. This is a family relationship of the deepest sort. The parent can be enriched by the child; the child acquires strength and wit from the parent.
Do we have anyone around today who’s as wonderful and marvelous and godawful as Baudelaire? No. The modern equivalent would probably be Andy Warhol.
——————————————————
I see no reason for a divinity to put everything into a Book and expect that to be our only guide. He gave us free will. Or She gave us free will. ... If we were given free will, then the Book is the first obstacle to it.
we must trust the authority of the senses because that is the closest contact we have to the Creator;
Almost everything I dislike in the modern world is super-rational: the corporation, the notion that we can improve upon nature, to tinker with it egregiously, dramatically, extravagantly. Nuclear bombs, as one example, came out of reason.
You have to ask yourself at a given moment, “Who is speaking within me?”
The worst to be said about Fundamentalism is that it reduces people to the reflexes of a good dog.
Kierkegaard ... was probably the most profound Christian.
We are God’s artistic vision....
God is immensely powerful but is not All-Powerful. ... if God is All-Powerful, then how can you begin to explain the monstrosities of modern history?
We only find out about ourselves as we proceed through life.
Jean Malaquais once made a splendid remark: “There are no answers. There are only questions.”
What I’m offering to people as an ethic is to have the honor to live with confusion.
we are all engaged in a vast cosmic war and God needs us.
There are certain people who worship sex, good sex. I might be one of them. What I’ve noticed about good sex, when it’s really good, is the extreme sensitivity with which you proceed.
stop leaning on God, stop relying on God, and start realizing that God’s needs could be greater than ours, God’s woes more profound than our own. God’s sense of failure may be so deep as to mock our sense of failure. God, I believe, is, at present, far from fulfilling His own vision. He is mired in our corporate promotions all over the globe, our superhighways, our plastic, our threats of nuclear warfare, our heartless, arrogant, ethnic wars, our terrorism, our spread of pollution all over His environment. How can God’s sorrow not be immeasurably greater than ours?
I have a tremendous distrust of what people think is the good. At any given moment, 90 percent of that is fashion.
[Henry James’ novels are] a great guide to a very limited mountain pass that few people will ever have to traverse.
Once you’ve had a wild time or two, you can often support your imagination for a long time. In the harshest sense, you can say the trouble with Henry James is he never fucked another human.
——————————————————
I hardly subscribe to the modern notion that all disease is evil and is to be eradicated at all cost,
I do believe our final judgment in this life is given by the form of our rebirth. The only divine judgment we receive is our placement in the next life.
in the Middle Ages, there was one chance in ten a woman would die in childbirth.
God does not understand us completely any more than we understand our children.
I think technology tends to curtail our possibilities and accelerate our dependencies.
I do believe that there are two elements now on the horizon that can yet destroy the world as we know it. One of them is technology and the other is organized religion.
November 9, 2007
A former atheist, Mailer has now developed what seems to be his very own theology. There's a lot in it that's interesting (enough to warrant two or three stars), and some crap, too. He's all about God as Creator, but anthropomorphizes him to such an extent that it just gets a bit silly. Although it's only a little over 200 pages, I did start to wonder at some point...why should I care so much about Norman Mailer's personal conception of God?
March 23, 2009
I learned from this book how it is easier for people to believe what newspapers say or what is on the internet than what Bible say. People (like Norman Mailer) are spending all their time finding arguments to justify that God doesn't exist.Unfortunately their arguments are not coherent.If I could ask him a question it would be: what was your main goal when you decided to published the book?
July 13, 2019
I didn't know Norman Mailer before I picked up this book. The reason I picked up this book is that my favorite radio show host once introduced pieces of Mailer's theology and I found them very interesting. That being said, I started the book with a high expectation, expectation that I would obtain new understanding about God and perhaps be able to think of it in new light.
As it turns out, the conversation style of this book makes the discussion of various topics annoyingly shallow. True, there are a few interesting ideas to begin with; yet based on the information given by the book these interesting ideas are far from being developed into propositions that lay any foundations for serious contemplation. As the conversation drags on, the topics become more and more tedious and the original ideas become less and less convincing. Although I finished almost 2/3 of the book I lost my momentum to reach the end.
On the other hand I really appreciate the author's efforts to share some of his personal ideas about God, and the book does prompt a few questions I have on this topic:
1. When we think and describe God, is it proper to use glossary such as "happy", "content" etc that are supposed to describe human emotional states. Is it even possible to personalize God?
2. Many biblical constructs are more convincing when we think of soul as a single unalienable identity that propagates beyond death. Good is worth striving for when you know justice will be served eventually for "you". Therefore Mailer speaks highly of the idea of reincarnation. Yet if we replace this single personal soul with collective "good" and hope that this "good" would propagate beyond personal death, many of the biblical constructs will lose their appeal. If God and His institutions exist, we need to find a way to think of them beyond the emotion of selfishness.
As it turns out, the conversation style of this book makes the discussion of various topics annoyingly shallow. True, there are a few interesting ideas to begin with; yet based on the information given by the book these interesting ideas are far from being developed into propositions that lay any foundations for serious contemplation. As the conversation drags on, the topics become more and more tedious and the original ideas become less and less convincing. Although I finished almost 2/3 of the book I lost my momentum to reach the end.
On the other hand I really appreciate the author's efforts to share some of his personal ideas about God, and the book does prompt a few questions I have on this topic:
1. When we think and describe God, is it proper to use glossary such as "happy", "content" etc that are supposed to describe human emotional states. Is it even possible to personalize God?
2. Many biblical constructs are more convincing when we think of soul as a single unalienable identity that propagates beyond death. Good is worth striving for when you know justice will be served eventually for "you". Therefore Mailer speaks highly of the idea of reincarnation. Yet if we replace this single personal soul with collective "good" and hope that this "good" would propagate beyond personal death, many of the biblical constructs will lose their appeal. If God and His institutions exist, we need to find a way to think of them beyond the emotion of selfishness.
May 21, 2020
I haven't read Mailer's other work, but this one was not to my liking at all.
The only positives I found were the lovely jacket design, the typeset, and the actual pages. Nearly everything else was like nails on a chalkboard. The only way I could find any positive in the book is by taking it as satire, but unfortunately it appears to be a serious work.
There were some decent parts: God as an imperfect artist and the idea that good/bad (God/devil) are ever-present in everyone, but almost nothing was original, and the derivative ideas Mailer arrived at could have easily been further developed had he actually bothered reading more in this area.
Even with the fawning interviewer (unsurprising, given he's president of the Norman Mailer Society) all but feeding him answers contained within his questions, the sheer arrogance and ignorance of Mailer is breathtaking to behold. The "theology" he espouses is nonsensical in so many ways, but the hubris of not having actually done much in the way of research or reading, while still holding forth on topics far beyond his depth, is truly "uncommon."
This is especially true because Mailer prefaces nearly everything with "oh, I don't know much about [x]," and then proceeds to go on for paragraphs on the topic. Why, if you admittedly know so little, do you feel compelled to speak such volumes? Ego. It is like the old Lao Tze saying, "those who don't know, speak; those who know, don't speak."
While most of the his errors are of a more philosophical/logical nature, there were a couple of truly stunning examples of ethno-centrism and downright racism that I found galling.
I'll update this review to list some (I have to condense my list, as it was too long for Goodreads).
The only positives I found were the lovely jacket design, the typeset, and the actual pages. Nearly everything else was like nails on a chalkboard. The only way I could find any positive in the book is by taking it as satire, but unfortunately it appears to be a serious work.
There were some decent parts: God as an imperfect artist and the idea that good/bad (God/devil) are ever-present in everyone, but almost nothing was original, and the derivative ideas Mailer arrived at could have easily been further developed had he actually bothered reading more in this area.
Even with the fawning interviewer (unsurprising, given he's president of the Norman Mailer Society) all but feeding him answers contained within his questions, the sheer arrogance and ignorance of Mailer is breathtaking to behold. The "theology" he espouses is nonsensical in so many ways, but the hubris of not having actually done much in the way of research or reading, while still holding forth on topics far beyond his depth, is truly "uncommon."
This is especially true because Mailer prefaces nearly everything with "oh, I don't know much about [x]," and then proceeds to go on for paragraphs on the topic. Why, if you admittedly know so little, do you feel compelled to speak such volumes? Ego. It is like the old Lao Tze saying, "those who don't know, speak; those who know, don't speak."
While most of the his errors are of a more philosophical/logical nature, there were a couple of truly stunning examples of ethno-centrism and downright racism that I found galling.
I'll update this review to list some (I have to condense my list, as it was too long for Goodreads).
April 9, 2023
Enjoyable enough, quirky, vintage Mailer I guess, though I have never actually read anything by him except a short story years and years ago. Occasionally quite funny and refreshing, as he has this crusty, cut-through-the-sh!t quality.
I guess this is sort of in the realm of "philosophy" and it wasn't too dry, so was a breezy read. Also it has that element of, having a chat with someone (well because that is literally what it is: subtitle, "An Uncommon Conversation"--with Michael Lennon.)
A fair bit to ponder in here, without it feeling heavy.
I guess this is sort of in the realm of "philosophy" and it wasn't too dry, so was a breezy read. Also it has that element of, having a chat with someone (well because that is literally what it is: subtitle, "An Uncommon Conversation"--with Michael Lennon.)
A fair bit to ponder in here, without it feeling heavy.
November 17, 2018
Discussions on theology with academic/literary titans? YES PLEASE. I loved hearing Mailer's thoughts on God, (and how they've changed) related to politics, evolution and organized religion. Please, algorithms, work your magic and recommend all the "you might like"'s based on my love of the conversations in this book.
July 20, 2023
Ακατάσχετη αρλουμπολογία( για κάποιον που δεν πιστευει σε θεους, διαβολους, στρατιές γραφειοκρατών αγγέλων, κάρμα, μετενσάρκωση κ. α.) Για τους υπόλοιπους δεν έχω ιδέα.
October 24, 2024
Over 5 hours of bozo takes, but this book gets 3 stars because the interviewer is knowledgeable and asks good questions of Mailer. Wouldn’t recommend
Read
December 30, 2024forever a norman mailer apologist
October 29, 2025
Intellectual manna. I listened to the audiobook, and it was a fascinating conversation.
April 12, 2010
Norman Mailer has spent a good deal of his fifty plus year career as a writer wrestling with the issue of God and the nature of His being, speculations that have helped make his books rich texts for advancing limitless sets of dualisms about the condition of America and the growing complexity in the issue of good vs. evil. He has now brought us his new book, "On God:An Uncommon Conversation", a series of discussions with his literary archivist, professor J.Michael Lennon. It is a fascinating discussion, intriguing quite despite Mailer's confessed lack of theological training. The lack of training works to Mailer's advantage; his God is less an all seeing General Manager of the universe than he is an artist trying to fill a page with beautiful words , or a canvas with arresting figures in sublime colors and shades.
Mailer is that rare creature, an actual American religious existentialist, a philosophy that insists that we cannot have a meaningful faith unless we face the circumstances of our life straight on, without reservation, and take a creative action to deal with them, sans the comforting catechisms priests, rabbis or monks might offer us. The point is that we advance toward a solution, create a meaningful context for ourselves in an existence where greater assurances are impossible, and that we take full responsibility for the consequences of the acts we do; we commit acts of faith that God is with us, without guarantees, and that we make mistakes along the way.
Mailer is taken with the notion that we're created in his image, and speculates that he also gave us his temperament and fallibility as well as his best graces, all without the supernatural abilities. God is more like us, let us say, than we are like him, and it is in this area where religious existentialism finds another nuance. Far from being the silent Kierkegaardian God who is static,cold and despairing, apropos for Northern European weather conditions, Mailer is considering a God of Action, something of a Hemingway in deistic form who must prove himself with creative acts, a deity in the trenches, making mistakes, failing, succeeding, learning from his mistakes, constantly evolving.The God that interests Mailer is one guided by intuition no less than we, His creations whom we are said to resemble.One might say that it's a pity that Mailer hadn't followed through on his spiritual notions and developed a fully argued theology, but he is a novelist and storyteller, after all, and his long held ideas about God's motive, condition and instincts have served him splendidly as a source of metaphor in his fiction, journalism and essays. Mailer and Lennon go through Mailer's ruminations at length, and there is something of great interest in how his conception of The Lord as literary figure, an artist have informed and enlarged his fiction and nonfiction writings; it is in the books, from "Presidential Papers" through his latest novel "The Castle in the Forest "where one finds the greatest and most provocative application of his religious thinking. "On God" , always intriguing, quietly quirky, lacks the energy and , one may say, the conviction of older writings.Lacking a novel or a major essay to reinvigorate his metaphors and thus surprise himself and the reader with the limitless ambiguities involved in reconciling Higher Powers with the flux of actual experience, he sounds weary,as if he's explaining himself yet again one time too many . Mailer's spiritual thinking is best witnessed elsewhere, in his novels " An American Dream","Ancient Evenings and "Castle in the Forest", and his journalism, especially in "Armies of the Night".
Mailer is that rare creature, an actual American religious existentialist, a philosophy that insists that we cannot have a meaningful faith unless we face the circumstances of our life straight on, without reservation, and take a creative action to deal with them, sans the comforting catechisms priests, rabbis or monks might offer us. The point is that we advance toward a solution, create a meaningful context for ourselves in an existence where greater assurances are impossible, and that we take full responsibility for the consequences of the acts we do; we commit acts of faith that God is with us, without guarantees, and that we make mistakes along the way.
Mailer is taken with the notion that we're created in his image, and speculates that he also gave us his temperament and fallibility as well as his best graces, all without the supernatural abilities. God is more like us, let us say, than we are like him, and it is in this area where religious existentialism finds another nuance. Far from being the silent Kierkegaardian God who is static,cold and despairing, apropos for Northern European weather conditions, Mailer is considering a God of Action, something of a Hemingway in deistic form who must prove himself with creative acts, a deity in the trenches, making mistakes, failing, succeeding, learning from his mistakes, constantly evolving.The God that interests Mailer is one guided by intuition no less than we, His creations whom we are said to resemble.One might say that it's a pity that Mailer hadn't followed through on his spiritual notions and developed a fully argued theology, but he is a novelist and storyteller, after all, and his long held ideas about God's motive, condition and instincts have served him splendidly as a source of metaphor in his fiction, journalism and essays. Mailer and Lennon go through Mailer's ruminations at length, and there is something of great interest in how his conception of The Lord as literary figure, an artist have informed and enlarged his fiction and nonfiction writings; it is in the books, from "Presidential Papers" through his latest novel "The Castle in the Forest "where one finds the greatest and most provocative application of his religious thinking. "On God" , always intriguing, quietly quirky, lacks the energy and , one may say, the conviction of older writings.Lacking a novel or a major essay to reinvigorate his metaphors and thus surprise himself and the reader with the limitless ambiguities involved in reconciling Higher Powers with the flux of actual experience, he sounds weary,as if he's explaining himself yet again one time too many . Mailer's spiritual thinking is best witnessed elsewhere, in his novels " An American Dream","Ancient Evenings and "Castle in the Forest", and his journalism, especially in "Armies of the Night".
November 27, 2011
"By now, philosophically speaking, atheism is more incomprehensible to me than the notion that there's a creator." (N.M.)
In an era dichotomously characterized by a drive toward secularism and a reluctance to completely abandon the concept of God, Norman Mailer's last book effectively outlines his life's effort to "work out his own salvation" and to understand his place in the world.
Presented in an interview format with Michael Lennon, this relaxed work offers Mailer's personal insights into the natures of God, the Devil and humankind, and the roles of each in the universal sense.
In fewer than three-hundred pages, the author concisely visits topics as diverse as free will, life after death, and political philosophy. He even speculates that "good" may not ultimately triumph over "evil," and suggests that neither God nor the Devil are all-powerful or all-knowing. Perhaps, Mailer says, God isn't even all good--he may be 80% good, while the Devil is 80% evil.
As human beings, Mailer suggests, we place a burden too great on God with our expectations that he will always help us, or even that he is always able to answer our most pressing needs. God's power is limited according to Mailer and, often, God fails to understand his own creation.
Obviously, just entertaining these notions meets fundamentalist criteria for pure blasphemy-100%. But it gives us something to think about, because it's only blasphemous if we believe in that external, personal God. On the other hand, if we believe God is what we make him, then Mailer's hypothesis seems somewhat ineffectual as an explanation.
Specifically, isn't God supposed to represent the ideal? Shouldn't the concept of God embody and encourage human aspiration? And if the ideal is less than perfect, how can it be ideal? If I'm inventing my own God, I'm not sure I want anything less than ideal. Who would aspire to 80% of anything?
By Mailer's approximation though, God is an artist above all else. As an artist, he expresses himself through his creation, but his creation is never complete and, since he has endowed us with free will, we sometimes surprise him. As God learns about us, then, he learns about himself; and as we learn about God, we learn about ourselves.
"On God"--in an approach bold, but not offensive to the more open minded among us--nudges the reader toward curiosity, reflection and introspection. In the end, Mailer even offers his vision of the perfect society: a synthesis of the social, political, economic and religious ideals he suggests would most greatly benefit the human race.
A surprising exit for a former atheist.
In an era dichotomously characterized by a drive toward secularism and a reluctance to completely abandon the concept of God, Norman Mailer's last book effectively outlines his life's effort to "work out his own salvation" and to understand his place in the world.
Presented in an interview format with Michael Lennon, this relaxed work offers Mailer's personal insights into the natures of God, the Devil and humankind, and the roles of each in the universal sense.
In fewer than three-hundred pages, the author concisely visits topics as diverse as free will, life after death, and political philosophy. He even speculates that "good" may not ultimately triumph over "evil," and suggests that neither God nor the Devil are all-powerful or all-knowing. Perhaps, Mailer says, God isn't even all good--he may be 80% good, while the Devil is 80% evil.
As human beings, Mailer suggests, we place a burden too great on God with our expectations that he will always help us, or even that he is always able to answer our most pressing needs. God's power is limited according to Mailer and, often, God fails to understand his own creation.
Obviously, just entertaining these notions meets fundamentalist criteria for pure blasphemy-100%. But it gives us something to think about, because it's only blasphemous if we believe in that external, personal God. On the other hand, if we believe God is what we make him, then Mailer's hypothesis seems somewhat ineffectual as an explanation.
Specifically, isn't God supposed to represent the ideal? Shouldn't the concept of God embody and encourage human aspiration? And if the ideal is less than perfect, how can it be ideal? If I'm inventing my own God, I'm not sure I want anything less than ideal. Who would aspire to 80% of anything?
By Mailer's approximation though, God is an artist above all else. As an artist, he expresses himself through his creation, but his creation is never complete and, since he has endowed us with free will, we sometimes surprise him. As God learns about us, then, he learns about himself; and as we learn about God, we learn about ourselves.
"On God"--in an approach bold, but not offensive to the more open minded among us--nudges the reader toward curiosity, reflection and introspection. In the end, Mailer even offers his vision of the perfect society: a synthesis of the social, political, economic and religious ideals he suggests would most greatly benefit the human race.
A surprising exit for a former atheist.
June 20, 2011
I read "Miami and the Siege of Chicago" shortly after it was published. It was a fairly decent book. But I saw Mailer was a second-tier novelist who considered himself, vainly, to be absolutely first-tier. He admired Hemingway too much and modeled his behavior after that vastly more talented American novelist. Mailer wanted to be Hemingway. But Mailer never really evidenced Hemingway's bold grace or prolific talent and never really pulled off the clownish, public ruses, which ultimately now diminish him. As for existentialism, Mailer liked to quote Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky. I'm not sure how well he really understood Sartre or Kierkegaard or Gabriel Marcel or Heidegger. But Mailer brands himself as an existentialist because he seems to love the sound of the word, which he too often repeats, and wants you to believe he is "authentic" -- the real thing. Mailer comes off as a narcissist, which he is, of course, and lives at the center of his own cosmos: God is an author, God forbid. Having said all of this candidly, "On God" offers some fresh and profound theology: it turns out that Mailer is far superior, later in life, as a theologian than over a long career as a novelist. His approach to the big question as to "If God is good and all powerful, why is there so much evil?" is convincing and cogent and enlightened. Read the book for Mailer's answer to this one question alone. He offers some of the most insightful, however speculative, perspective on the authentic reality of the relationship between God and the Devil since the epic poetry of Milton in "Paradise Lost." He attacks the inauthenticity rampant among organized religion. Despite his criticisms of the faithful to buy too readily the church's easy advice that the mystery of life is a panacea to its fundamental absurdity, Mailer worked at it and had infinite faith in his own ability to forge understanding from nothingness and to find meaning in the unknowable. My best advice is not to read Mailer as a novelist, read Hemingway instead. But do read Mailer's theology in this short but intriguing book. Mailer made almost no impression upon me at any point as a novelist and even less as a literary bon vivant. But his insight and perspective and intelligent speculation on God will linger and lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of God. One only hopes that Mailer has now found temporary paradise as, if his theory on reincarnation is accurate, God is likely to be sufficiently amused by his spirituality and Mailer is gamely inspired to participate in Nietzsche's eternal recurrence so that we see Mailer in one shape or form, again.
October 26, 2007
If anybody can convince this jaded atheist of the existence of God, it's Norman Mailer. His beliefs about God as expounded in his latest book, a series of interviews with Michael Lennon, are nothing new from the great writer. From a 1958 interview collected in Advertisements for Myself:
". . . God is in danger of dying. In my very limited knowledge of theology, this never really has been expressed before. . . . Man's fate [is] tied up with God's fate. God is no longer all-powerful. The moral consequences of this are not only staggering, but they're thrilling; because moral experience is intensified rather than diminished. . . . I think that the particular God we can conceive of is a god whose relationship to the universe we cannot divine; that is, how enormous He is in the scheme of the universe we can't begin to say. But almost certainly, He is not all-powerful; He exists as a warring element in a divided universe, and we are a part of -- perhaps the most important part -- of His great expression, His enormous destiny; perhaps He is trying to impose upon the universe His conception of being against other conceptions of being very much opposed to His. Maybe we are in a sense the seed, the seed-carriers, the voyagers, the explorers, the embodiment of that embattled vision; maybe we are engaged in heroic activity, and not a mean one."
Mailer's theological understanding hasn't changed much since this comment. He believes in God, in the Devil, and in Man, three forces at battle with no predetermined outcome. God is an existentialist god, and that works for me: it's the best explanation I've yet heard to explain the deity. Unfortunately, Mailer is in his mid-eighties now and aside from The Castle in the Forest has of late published collected or reworked interviews such as in this book, The Big Empty, and The Spooky Art. Like The Big Empty, On God is easy to read but often goes in circles, with the same questions repeatedly posed and the same ideas repeatedly expressed. Mailer has worked his theological vision into novels like An American Dream and Ancient Evenings, and I think those are more important and rewarding works. On God puts forth Mailer's ennobling, unorthodox concept of God directly, but without the imaginative contours that allow this higher power to operate in a chaotic, albeit fictional, world.
". . . God is in danger of dying. In my very limited knowledge of theology, this never really has been expressed before. . . . Man's fate [is] tied up with God's fate. God is no longer all-powerful. The moral consequences of this are not only staggering, but they're thrilling; because moral experience is intensified rather than diminished. . . . I think that the particular God we can conceive of is a god whose relationship to the universe we cannot divine; that is, how enormous He is in the scheme of the universe we can't begin to say. But almost certainly, He is not all-powerful; He exists as a warring element in a divided universe, and we are a part of -- perhaps the most important part -- of His great expression, His enormous destiny; perhaps He is trying to impose upon the universe His conception of being against other conceptions of being very much opposed to His. Maybe we are in a sense the seed, the seed-carriers, the voyagers, the explorers, the embodiment of that embattled vision; maybe we are engaged in heroic activity, and not a mean one."
Mailer's theological understanding hasn't changed much since this comment. He believes in God, in the Devil, and in Man, three forces at battle with no predetermined outcome. God is an existentialist god, and that works for me: it's the best explanation I've yet heard to explain the deity. Unfortunately, Mailer is in his mid-eighties now and aside from The Castle in the Forest has of late published collected or reworked interviews such as in this book, The Big Empty, and The Spooky Art. Like The Big Empty, On God is easy to read but often goes in circles, with the same questions repeatedly posed and the same ideas repeatedly expressed. Mailer has worked his theological vision into novels like An American Dream and Ancient Evenings, and I think those are more important and rewarding works. On God puts forth Mailer's ennobling, unorthodox concept of God directly, but without the imaginative contours that allow this higher power to operate in a chaotic, albeit fictional, world.
February 22, 2009
Norman Mailer ~ I offer nothing but my own ideas - which is the classic error of the amateur.
How then can I defend this venture? The answer may be legitimate: I have spent the last fifty years trying to contemplate the nature of God. If I speak specifically of fifty years, it is because my pride in the initial thirty-odd years of my life was to be an atheist-how much more difficult and honorable I then considered that to be, rather than having a belief in an All-Mighty Divinity. .......... It took a good number of years to recognize that I did believe in God-that is, there is a divine presence in existence.
___
Norman Mailer ~ My notion of the Devil depends to a good degree on Milton.I think he fashioned a wonderful approximation to what the likelihood might be. In one way or another, there was a profound argument between God and some very high angels-or between God and gods-and the result was finally that one god won, the God we speak of as our Creator. God won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, because Lucifer, if you will, also became well installed. And this war has gone on ever since, gone on in us.
Whatever the form this takes, my understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions. As I've said many times over the years, when we work with great energy it's because our best motive and our worst motive-or to put it another way, God and the Devil-are equally engaged in the outcome and so, for a period, working within us. There can be collaboration between opposites, as well as war. This collaboration can consist of certain agreements-"The rules of war will be..." And of course, the rules can be broken. The Devil can betray God. Once in a while, God also breaks the rules-with a miracle. But my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome. (Their differences will be settled later.) Whereas when we work with little energy, it's because They are not only at odds but are countermanding each other's impact upon us.
____
How then can I defend this venture? The answer may be legitimate: I have spent the last fifty years trying to contemplate the nature of God. If I speak specifically of fifty years, it is because my pride in the initial thirty-odd years of my life was to be an atheist-how much more difficult and honorable I then considered that to be, rather than having a belief in an All-Mighty Divinity. .......... It took a good number of years to recognize that I did believe in God-that is, there is a divine presence in existence.
___
Norman Mailer ~ My notion of the Devil depends to a good degree on Milton.I think he fashioned a wonderful approximation to what the likelihood might be. In one way or another, there was a profound argument between God and some very high angels-or between God and gods-and the result was finally that one god won, the God we speak of as our Creator. God won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, because Lucifer, if you will, also became well installed. And this war has gone on ever since, gone on in us.
Whatever the form this takes, my understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions. As I've said many times over the years, when we work with great energy it's because our best motive and our worst motive-or to put it another way, God and the Devil-are equally engaged in the outcome and so, for a period, working within us. There can be collaboration between opposites, as well as war. This collaboration can consist of certain agreements-"The rules of war will be..." And of course, the rules can be broken. The Devil can betray God. Once in a while, God also breaks the rules-with a miracle. But my argument is that when we act with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome. (Their differences will be settled later.) Whereas when we work with little energy, it's because They are not only at odds but are countermanding each other's impact upon us.
____
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2009
Listening to the audio / recorded book version. I find Mailer's conceptions of God, the Devil and humanity's part in the cosmic contest very interesting. Mailer moved from atheism to a position somewhere between Gnosticism and Catholicism having been raised in a Jewish family. Mailer's deity is not omnipotent, which resolves, for Mailer, the issue of theodicy since God can be good, but may not be able to intervene to stop unjust suffering and heinous human actions like the holocaust and various other genocides and atrocities. Mailer expresses a deep mistrust of science and technology that I feel is misplaced or excessive.
The book is based on a series of interviews/conversations with Michael Lennon, who wrote his PhD Dissertation about Mailer and is apparently more conversant with academic / scholarly theology than Mailer.
I find Mailer's naive and idiosyncratic ideas very interesting, at times amusing, often thought provoking and sometimes disappointing and silly.
The book is based on a series of interviews/conversations with Michael Lennon, who wrote his PhD Dissertation about Mailer and is apparently more conversant with academic / scholarly theology than Mailer.
I find Mailer's naive and idiosyncratic ideas very interesting, at times amusing, often thought provoking and sometimes disappointing and silly.
January 22, 2009
Mailer's On God is what one might expect - except I can't shake a feeling of sadness about it too. One, Norm is gone and two, he didn't sound as crisp and vigorous as desired. He is still there completely, bringing what is left from force of will, which is admirable, but...note to self, do not speak of God to other people if you reach your 80s. The ideas might be on the right path, but it might be near impossible to bring them to life for other people. God, for Norm, you might easily guess, is the Greatest Artist, of limited power, and we are his greatest works. Maybe so. The argument might be too delicate for the format of the book (a long conversation). I think of what Mordecai Richler once said of Norm when he saw him speak at the Mayfair Theatre: "Once more you had to admire his courage, but regret his recklessness." RIP, Norm, I hope you found your reincarnation of choice.
March 21, 2011
I rather enjoyed this as a philosophical interpretation on the nature of God and the afterlife. While there was not a lot of earth-shattering insight that Mr. Mailer had to offer, (usually people that read things of this nature or genre have tended to tread these paths previously), he posed points worth pondering considering reincarnation, ritualistic behavior and prayer. I see Mailer's dogma, or lack thereof, pointed squarely at the beliefs of the fundamentalists, who would probably consider this book vitriolic and the basis of a never-ending argument. I would think that the most open to Mailer's thoughts would be agnostics, who not only question the existence of God, but also seem to be the most questioning of the stringent application of the nature of God as organized (and even some less) denominational and non-denominationals attempt to apply.
March 11, 2013
This guy is interesting, and this strange Q & A with Norman Mailer let's you hear about his very tangible views he has on religion and many other topics. I certainly have reservations recommending this author, but I have to say that The Armies of the Night was really good. Other books by him not so much.
I have lived a humble life, and reading explicit details of amoral conduct doesn't exactly perk my interest. This book could determine whether a person would like to read something written by this controversial author. I think this is the last published work Norman Mailer did before passing, and for what it's worth, the man does seem to stick to his guns with angst and research, pleasant or unpleasant.
February 4, 2009
Came across a bit like the talkative and intelligent old man at a tavern. Some of his concepts seemed like he made them up just to have something interesting to say. But the book is thought-provoking, especially for people of a Judeo-Christian background. He believed that God is not all-powerful, that he makes mistakes, and that he has evolved as the planet has evolved, learning as he goes along. He believed, too, that God is not all good -- that nothing is 100% good -- and that this can come out in his moments of destruction. My favorite line from the book is "I have no notion whether God is in command of black holes in space or is terrified of them."
July 21, 2016
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It will make you think. It is written in the style of an extended interview between Michael Lennon and Norman Mailer. Not everyone will agree with all that Mr. Mailer says in this conversation - but at the least it should force you to question and consider the tenets of whatever faith you may have (or to seek to answer big questions of life and existence outside the context of a religion if you are an atheist, agnostic or other non-specific spiritual seeker).
October 1, 2009
I started reading this right after finishing Vonnegut's "A Man Without A Country" so it was interesting to balance the two perspectives. This definitely falls into the category of "when you're over 65, you can say or do whatever you want - you've earned it!" Mailer has some interesting ideas but I really respect that he had a belief system of his own that he adhered to and got him through life. Some of the concepts were quite thought-provoking and I enjoyed the interview style of the book.
July 8, 2016
It's worth reading Mailer just for his concept of 'Process Theology.' Some of his ideas are plain bonkers, but like 'Bono on Bono' and John McCarthy's 'A Ghost..' you get a deep dive that is illuminating and you kind of feel you are in the room with the guy.
I enjoyed the book and have read it cover to cover twice... and I left post it notes in there on a few pages so I can rapid access some of his one-liners.
Cost me a tenner, money well spent in my opinion.
I enjoyed the book and have read it cover to cover twice... and I left post it notes in there on a few pages so I can rapid access some of his one-liners.
Cost me a tenner, money well spent in my opinion.
February 24, 2008
this book was okay, but i don't agree with a lot of mailer's ideas about God and so the book drug on a bit. he repeated himself quite a bit and if you don't agree with his premise it gets to be tiring. there were some interesting ideas, but nothing earth shattering. it was an interesting book, but not fascinating.
January 17, 2009
Mailer, a man's man, has not been an author to whom I've gravitated. As a result, I was surprised by this book, a set of conversations over a period of years on the subject of theology and Mailer's personal construction of God as an artist. Mailer has clearly thought long and hard about the subject and has interesting things to say for anyone, from whatever faith (or lack thereof).
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