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50 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Progressive Acknowledges God, Good & Evil, March 28, 2008
I have always admired Mailer for his writing style, but not his opinions. It came as a major shock that a Progressive like Mailer would even acknowledge the existance of God, Good and Evil. Maybe there is hope for the Dark Side after all. It seems that Mamet also has finally seen the Light.
I think people of all Faiths would find this book a worthwhile read even though some of Mailer's opinions may be offensive. Give it a chance.
A good read from an newly-enlightened man as he approached mortality.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mailer's Cosmology, November 26, 2007
During much of his long and illustrious career in American letters, Norman Mailer wrote extensively about his beliefs concerning God, the Devil and the war between good and evil, as well as man's role in this cosmological struggle. The foundation of Mailer's cosmology is based on the idea that God is not all-good and all-powerful, but is an existential God doing the best that He/She can do. His thoughts and beliefs relating to his religious system were often expressed implicitly in his novels and more explicitly in his non-fiction. Now, with the publication of this excellent book, On God, we have Mailer's thoughts on these topics systematized and expanded over the course of more than two hundred fascinating and stimulating pages. The book is in the form of an interview as indicated by the subtitle "An Uncommon Conversation." This interview took place at intervals over the course of three years - from June 2003 to June 2006. The interrogator, Michael Lennon, is very skillful at extracting Mailer's thoughts, getting further explications, always probing deeper, reminiscent, in a way to Melville's description of peeling the onion, layer by layer, to get to the deeper meanings one finds below. The reader is often as pleased with the manner in which ideas develop as in the actual ideas themselves. The book seems spontaneous and fresh even though Mailer had been thinking about the topics covered for the past fifty years.
On God will certainly prove to be invaluable to Mailer scholars or for that matter to anyone who loves to read his books since an intelligent comprehension of his works is not possible without an understanding of his metaphysics. This book should also be of interest to anyone who has an open mind with regard to religious questions. One does not need to be an expert or even familiar with Mailer's prior work to get much from this book. Most especially, it should prove to be of great interest to anyone who is not an atheist but who also cannot accept the dogma of organized religion. Somewhere, deep in the vast body of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, there is a statement very similar to this - "religion starts at the point where the mind shuts down." I think Mailer would have been in agreement with the spirit of this remark since its target is organized religion. In contrast, Mailer's cosmology requires an actively working mind, constantly probing, trying to discover the nature of reality. This task, however, can never be completed since Mailer's God is more Creator than Lawgiver and He is involved in a cosmic battle, the outcome of which cannot be known. In Mailer's system everything is in process, nothing has been completed. Final answers will not be found. Nevertheless, we must search for the right questions.
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mailer's theology is a legacy deeper than his novels., November 10, 2007
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.
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