Originally published in 1959, Advertisements for Myself is an inventive collection of stories, essays, polemic, meditations, and interviews. It is Mailer at his brilliant, provocative, outrageous best. Emerging at the height of "hip," Advertisements is at once a chronicle of a crucial era in the formation of modern American culture and an important contribution to the great autobiographical tradition in American letters.
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Review
Anyone with a serious interest in American and in twentieth-century literature will applaud the reprinting of Norman Mailer's Advertisements for Myself. No single work of his, before or since, is as important to an understanding of his literary career or of his emergence as an authentic public personality, and none is as fully representative of the range and variety of his concerns.
--Richard Poirier (Rutgers University )
This is a wonderful exercise in American autobiography, and in that self-mocking, self-glorifying, cynical, naive, outrageous, intelligent, uniquely his own and uniquely American autobiographical voice of which Mailer is the modern master.
--Wendy Lesser (Threepenny Review )
Combining fictional fragments, autobiography, journalism, polemic...with a running commentary tracing the ups and downs of a novel-in-progress (Dos Passos for our times?) and asserting the author's place in the batting order of GREAT AMERICAN WRITERS, the book contains some of the best stuff Mailer ever produced.
--Karal Ann Marling, University of Minnesota
At the very time that he is perhaps too insistently trying to recall the audience and himself to the importance of the task of the novelist, he is creating another public persona, part clown, part vulgarian, fool and genius, whose arena is not the imagined story, but the imagined life, led first in the pages of newspapers or on television screens, and then (giving us the story behind the spectacle) turned into essays (or are they stories?) whose main character is this endlessly revised 'Norman Mailer'--a kind of expository confessional poetry.
--Jay Cantor, author of Krazy Kat
--Richard Poirier (Rutgers University )
This is a wonderful exercise in American autobiography, and in that self-mocking, self-glorifying, cynical, naive, outrageous, intelligent, uniquely his own and uniquely American autobiographical voice of which Mailer is the modern master.
--Wendy Lesser (Threepenny Review )
Combining fictional fragments, autobiography, journalism, polemic...with a running commentary tracing the ups and downs of a novel-in-progress (Dos Passos for our times?) and asserting the author's place in the batting order of GREAT AMERICAN WRITERS, the book contains some of the best stuff Mailer ever produced.
--Karal Ann Marling, University of Minnesota
At the very time that he is perhaps too insistently trying to recall the audience and himself to the importance of the task of the novelist, he is creating another public persona, part clown, part vulgarian, fool and genius, whose arena is not the imagined story, but the imagined life, led first in the pages of newspapers or on television screens, and then (giving us the story behind the spectacle) turned into essays (or are they stories?) whose main character is this endlessly revised 'Norman Mailer'--a kind of expository confessional poetry.
--Jay Cantor, author of Krazy Kat
About the Author
Norman Mailer was an American novelist and essayist.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Originally appearing in 1959, "Advertisements for Myself" remains one of the most unusual books ever published by a novelist. Containing stories, essays, reviews, interviews, novel excerpts and poems, all with detailed, italicized annotations courtesy of the author, this book displays a massive, raging talent assessing itself and the world around it. It is sometimes poignant, sometimes maddening, but never less than compelling. I love this book.
Today, Mailer's reputation is rather up in the air. To me, his career is an example of an artist constantly pushing himself, writing with breathtaking ambition even if it exceeded his skill. There has never been another writer like Norman Mailer, and it is touching to read here of his desire to write a novel on the level of Dostoyevsky, Mann and Tolstoy, and to read his pithy, sometimes hilarious assessments of his contemporaries. His commentary on the ups and downs of his career and his disgust and sadness about the decline of American literature are illuminating, but his self-aggrandizement and egocentricity are often difficult to stomach. However, one has to stand in awe at the monument of his talent and his passion.
Reading this book today, one has to ask, "Did he fulfill his expectations?" I think so. "Harlot's Ghost," "Ancient Evenings," "The Executioner's Song" and numerous other works, both fiction and nonfiction, will endure, in my opinion. But I, for one, would like to know whatever happened to the self-promoted masterpiece of a novel he excerpts here. The small sections make for very stimulating reading.
All in all, "Advertisements for Myself" is a required text for everyone who loves great literature or aspires to write it for themselves.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Writing in the New York Times Book Review, James Shapiro, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, says, "The passage of time has dimmed the reputation of 'The Naked and the Dead,' but time has also cleared the way to a finer appreciation of what to my mind is one of the most daring works of the postwar years, 'Advertisements for Myself' (1959), required reading for any aspiring novelist." He goes on to say, parenthetically, "The sad fact that it is currently in print only because Harvard University Press picked up the lapsed rights says a lot about the state of contemporary trade publishing."
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By AJ
Format:Paperback
This was one of the strangest and most engaging fictional works I have ever read. An autobiographical narrative consisting of novel excerpts, social commentary, reviews and short stories. Brutally honest and at times hilarious, I find myself regularly rereading many parts of the book and I'm always stunned by ,above all else, Mailer's humor and the vivid and unforgettable stories and characterers that he creates.
One reviewer remarked that Mailer's reputation in somewhat up in the air. Certainly Over the years Mailer has suffered much harsh criticism, from charges that he is misogynist to claims that he never fulfilled his own potential.
Nonetheless, Ancient Evenings and this book are his best works and I'm sure they will survive the test of time.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, Terrible, Strange
Mailer's memoir is sui generis- it is an unbelievably arrogant exercise in self-creation. Although Mailer complicates the relation of the work to the creator through an eclectic... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Steiner
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mailer promised so much more than he ever delivered
All during the 1960s, when authors still appeared on The Tonight Show, The Dick Cavett Show, etc, the two authors who had the most exposure and most proclaimed their... Read more
Published on October 25, 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars
Advertisements for Myself
Advertisements for Mysel
Published on March 9, 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars
I read it ten times in the 1960s. Tenth time was best!
This book is filled with fiction, essays, and, literally, advertisements for Mailer. The ad he took out for "The Deer Park" is the classic of classics. Read more
Published on January 21, 1999 by Bruce A.
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