[NPK]≫ Libro Gratis Why Are We in Vietnam? A Novel Norman Mailer 9780312265069 Books

Why Are We in Vietnam? A Novel Norman Mailer 9780312265069 Books

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Why Are We in Vietnam? A Novel Norman Mailer 9780312265069 Books

Don't waste your time with Mailer's literary pyrotechnics.


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Why Are We in Vietnam? A Novel Norman Mailer 9780312265069 Books Reviews

A vulgar and profane metahporical rant, "Why Are We In Vietnam?" is highly entertaining and certainly unique, but pales in comparison to "The Executioner's Song," which is far and away Mailer's best work.
If the author wanted to make an iconoclastic statement about America and it's people, fine. But in terms of an anti-Vietnam message it's a bit of a reach.
Meh. Really good insight into the american male. Its a shame that that insight is still relevant 40 years later. Mailer fails when he tries too hard. The interludes just. Don't work
When I got back from Vietnam in 1970, I sought out every voice I could find that might answer, for me, the question in the title.
And while it's important to know the politics and history and economics and all that jazz, I think the Final Key to understanding America's worst self-inflicted wound might be in this book.
This kid, D.J., belongs on the same shelf as Scout and Jeb in "Mockingbird" and Holden Caulfield in "Catcher" and Benjamin in "The Graduate", and that anonymous American Hero in "Red Badge of Courage."
They all say that our children have something important to teach us.
Two boys in their older teens, nicknamed D.J. and Tex, go with their corporate executive fathers on a hunting trip to Alaska. They all hope to carry home the heads of bears and other animals as trophies. Both boys, who are close friends, live in the lap of luxury with their families in Texas. Their excursion becomes a last fling before they enter the real world of adulthood and the horrible realities of Vietnam of the mid to late 1960s. The wooded environment into which they enter not only mesmerizes the boys, but proves to be as shocking as a pitcher of icy cold water being splashed in their faces. While in Alaska they experience nature, in all its beauty, grandeur, and horror. In part of their hunting trip they fly over the terrain in a helicopter; other times they walk carrying no weapons at all. Mailer also delves, often scurrilously I might add, into the adults' past sexual adventures with women, much of it probably fantasy and male braggadoccio. While there are some lulls in the beginning of the book, the action eventually starts to build and build and build until a crescendo is reached. In the wild, they discover, it is kill or be killed; it is the survival of the fittest. D.J. and Tex become caught up in this and D.J., especially, sees their relationship, fleetingly, in a sexually predatory way.

While becoming immersed in this whirlwind of a novel, I thought of the "The Deerhunter," a powerful film also addressing the issues of macho behavior against the backdrop of the War in Vietnam. Norman Mailer's novel, as good as it is, confirms many of my worst beliefs about male hubris, love of violence, and war.
Why Are We in Vietnam? reads like Ernest Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa and William Faulkner’s “The Bear” as channelled through Doonesbury. Norman Mailer’s 1967 novel purports to answer the title question through the story of a big game hunt in the wilds of Alaska, which seems to imply that Americans (or at least Texans—the president at the time was a Texan, you know…) are in Vietnam because they like killing and harbor a latent craving for buggery.

I evaluate novels on whether they entertain me, so Mailer’s goofy political theory and pretentious title make little difference to my review. What does make a difference, however, is that is that while Mailer sets up a good story dynamic, he sabotages it with juvenile posturing.

At its core, the book is about the growing conflict between teenaged D.J. and his father Rusty, a senior corporate executive undergoing a midlife crisis who plans the hunting trip in order to bag a grizzly bear and thereby validate his manhood. Joining the two on the trip are D.J.’s best friend Tex, a couple of Rusty’s flunkies and a pair of local guides. The story is told in alternating chapters narrated by D.J. in a bratty foul-mouthed voice and a third person narrator in a bratty foul-mouthed voice.

The best parts of Why Are We in Vietnam? are those describing the actual hunting activities and the behavior of the wildlife, which do evoke Hemingway and Faulkner, and that’s a good thing. However, Mailer’s descriptions of the humans’ activities are undermined by the caricatured way they are presented and by narrative voices that sound like Beavis and Butthead on an off day. Sample of the humor level a helicopter is referred to as the “Cop Turd”…

I get it that Mailer was really P.O.’d by Vietnam (he would be arrested later the same year protesting the war at the Pentagon) but his oblique attempt at criticism is too cute by half and not particularly convincing even in its best moments (Americans hardly have a monopoly on exalting in violence, just for starters). Worse, the story, which has real promise, is sacrificed to the larger didactic message.

I really liked Mailer’s debut, The Naked and the Dead, but its four followups—Barbary Shore, The Deer Park, An American Dream and Why Are We in Vietnam?—are all problematic in different ways. Perhaps Mailer realized this and that explains why he wouldn’t publish another true novel for more than 15 years (Ancient Evenings in 1983), preferring to concentrate on journalism and nonfiction (or fictionalized nonfiction like The Executioner’s Song and Of Women and Their Elegance).
Calling this book "classic", "war", or "journalism" is totally incorrect. When it came out, the rumor was that Mailer wrote it one weekend while drunk. If you read it, you'll probably see where the rumor came from. It's not about the war, it's about a kid & his friend who are preparing to be inducted and go on a hunting trip to Alaska, and actually, as I remember, the only place Vietnam is mentioned is on the last page, when the narrator says "Vietnam? Hot damn!" You really just read the first paragraph of the book to get an indication of what gibberish it is "Hip hole and Hupmobile, Braunschweiger. You didn't invite Geiger and his counter for nothing. Let go of my dong, Shakespeare" (I realized that I have had that opening line memorized for 50 years, since it first came out). "The Red Badge Of Courage", it ain't
I only wish there was a 0 rating. I found this book vulgar and nothing to due with the title. I would not recomend to anyone.
Don't waste your time with Mailer's literary pyrotechnics.