Customer Reviews

Harlot's Ghost

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This sprawling 1,000+ page epic about two generations of CIA officers is difficult to characterize: part history, part period piece, and part fiction. Mailier mixes the comings and goings of historical figures and real events with a well-developed cast of fictional characters in a way that reminds the reader of E.L.Doctorow's masterpiece Ragtime.

Harlot's Ghost impresses as an authentic and comprehensive glimpse inside the inner workings of the CIA. The book's strongest message is that this infamous organization of spooks and bogey-men is no more than the sum of it's parts - the officers and agents - and by giving us a view of their motivations and desires we understand a bit more about how and why the CIA does what it does.

The protagonist, Harry Hubbard, is a second generation CIA officer who bounces around the globe from assignment to assignment, managing to land in each hotspot long enough for us to see the Agency's role through his eyes as events unfold - from Cold War Berlin to the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Enjoyable though this novel is, not everything works. Hovering as a backdrop to all the action is the idea of deceit and duality: East vs. West, intelligence vs. counterintelligence, information vs. misinformation, the means vs. the ends, idealism vs. pragmatism. This theme is captured by the theory of Alpha and Omega - a theory developed by Kitterdge Montague, CIA research psychologist and love interest of Harry Hubbard. The theory, in brief, states that there are two fully formed and competing personalities trapped within every individual, and that the key to human nature is to understanding the relationship between these two personalities. In an early scene a soon-to-be-wed Kittredge offers an elegant explanation of this theory while flirting with Hubbard. The problem is that over the next thousand pages the same theory pops up every ten pages or so, until the reader feels beaten over the head with this particular bit of symbolism. Enough already. We get it.

But overall, this is an immensely enjoyable novel. Mailer creates realistic three-dimensional characters that mingle seamlessly with real historical figures and actual events. Mailer has taken on a hugely ambitious task and manages to pull it off. This is not only a definitive view of the CIA, but an excellent piece of literature as well. Through Hubbard's first person accounts, thoughts, and letters the reader experiences an amazing range of events and environments - from seedy Berlin safe-houses to luxurious Uruguayan villas to combat on the Cuban beachhead.

The book's thousand pages notwithstanding, there are huge questions which Mailer leaves unanswered. Harlot's Ghost would have benefited from a more aggressive editor, but my final analysis is that I'll be the first in line to slog through the sequel to learn the resolution to the questions that the book's "to be continued" ending leaves. Highly recommended.

Note: In the final pages Mailer includes a glossary of names, code-names, events, and places. Very useful for keeping track of the acronyms, aliases, and code-words. I didn't discover the glossary until I was a third through the book; don't make the same mistake.

There is a pretty good 600 to 700 page novel in here. Unfortunately, this opus is 1300 plus pages so you can guess that I found a lot of excess in Harlot's Ghost. Frankly, there are reams of it, and a lot of it is pretty tough sledding to get through.

Before his passing, Norman Mailer cited Harlot's Ghost as one of the 5 or so novels he was proudest of and considered his best work. I can understand his pride because he had obviously done a prodigious amount of research for the novel and throughout the book you have the sense that he got a lot of the spycraft and the inner workings of the CIA right. He also caught the very WASPy air of the early CIA and its founders and practioners, and he recreated the Cold War mindset quite well. As I said, there is a very good book within this encyclopedic epic.

But there is an awful lot of rubbish too. I found all the frabba jabba about the Alpha and Omega theory to be silly. I found pages upon pages of elaboration that neither moved the story along nor offered any pertinent insights or interest. I found the object of our hero's romantic affection, Kitteridge, not very interesting, and many of their letters (which form a substantial part of the book) overdone, and overly precious.

The book finally picks up interest in the last quarter with its sometimes gossipy-but-accurate, anecdote-laden recitation of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Kennedy brothers, Castro, and the CIA characters involved. Having just read the history of the CIA in Legacy of Ashes, I thought Mailer fleshed all of this out quite well and entertainingly.

I am glad I finally forced myself to persevere in working through this monster, for in the end I found it a worthwhile read, although I wonder if some of my satisfaction is simply the fact that I finished the damn thing; but no, there was much that was quite good. I just found the jewel that is in there is buried amongst a ton of well-researched, but often extraneous and boring detail. Detail became filler. No, it wasn't the length of the book (I've read War in Peace twice and never felt that a single page could be cut), it was just an awful lot of the book spent a tremendous amount of verbiage to little effect.

Undeterred however, I am about to tackle Mailer's Ancient Evenings which looks to be another long haul. I'll let you know.

"Harlot's Ghost" is a major novel by a major, and unique American novelist, Norman Mailer. Originally published in 1992, it was a return to form for Mailer after many years in which he was better known for his non-fiction and his highly public boozing and brawling lifestyle. While it is worthy of being celebrated for many not inconsiderable virtues, it is also seriously flawed: overlong, plodding and inconclusive (the novel closes with the words "To Be Continued" but it never was.) It is probably best enjoyed by someone who shares some of the author's obsessions with the CIA, the Kennedy assasination and the ideals associated with male vigor that the generation that came of age during World War II adhered to prior to the sexual revolution of the 60s.

It is a fictionalized account of the CIA, focusing on the years between 1955 and 1963, culiminating in the assasination of President Kennedy. (As a point of reference, Robert deNiro's recent film "The Good Shephard" covers similar ground.) It's sweeping narrative encompasses a number of factual tales along the way, including the spying tunnel built by the CIA under East Berlin in the 50's and the book's centerpiece, the CIA's involvement in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, the CIA's bungled attempt at an invasion of Cuba to foment a counter-revolution against Castro. It is informed by the extensive airing of the CIA's penchant for "dirty tricks" that became public in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Mailer's novelization covers this factual ground in a relatively entertaining fashion using a fictinal narrator named Herrick (Harry) Hubbard. He is himself a CIA operative and witness to many of these real-life events. Hubbard is a Company insider, to the manor born through both his father and his godfather (whose code name is Harlot of the title), both legendary OSS agents during WWII who are then present at the creation of the American spy agency built to contest the Soviet KGB at the outset of the Cold War. Harlot is modeled on the famous CIA superspy James Jesus Angleton, and Harry Hubbard doing his bidding is Harlot's ghost of the title.

There are a number of serious problems with the book which are perhaps accentuated by that tantalizing "To Be Continued." The narrative arc of Hubbard's education into both his chosen profession and the erotic mysteries of sex is episodic & inconclusive. Hubbard's memoir is awkwardly fashioned mainly from a clandestine correspondnce he carries on with Harlot's attractive young wife, Kittredge, who also happens to be employed by the CIA. The voluminous and unctuous letter-writing campaign is fatal to the book. The secret letters are explicit acts of betrayal and confession for both Harry and Kittredge. But instead of having an edge that sparkles, the letters fizzle and our interest in the authors wanes. The correspondence is downright boring in large patches, and elsewhere strains the credularity of the Reader -- who are these people? -- in many other passages. Neither Harry or Kittredge ever develop into characters with any spark of life. They are not believable. The Reader never musters much sympathy for these rather wooden, one-dimensional protagonists. Another problem is they are really on the edge of most of the action, never comprehending the bigger picture, murky as it is in this nether-world of spooks (real and imnagined) and double agents. Mailer labors mightily to make this creaky narrative apparatus work, but it doesn't quite.

Numerous real personages put in both cameo and extended appearances, among them E. Howard Hunt (later of Watergate fame), Allen Dulles, J Edgar Hoover, Robert Kennedy, Wild Bill Harvey (who unmasked the high ranking British double agent Kim Philby), and a juicy, fictionalized version of Judith Campbell Exner, the beautiful and sexy mistress of both JFK and mob kingpin Sam Giancana (by way of Frank Sinatra). The CIA's tragic-comic experiments with LSD, its collusion with organized crime to assasinate Castro, the extensive wire-tapping on US citizens performed by FBI under J Edgar Hoover are well-documented events that are woven into the plot. In Mailer hands, it is a rich brew, even if it all doesn't quite come together. The narrative gels in many sections as young Harry learns his tradecraft during a stint in Uruguay in the late '50s or makes a daring midnight raid on the coast of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

But the length of the book, its many sodden passages, and its lack of any sort of a coherent conclusion may cause you to wonder -- a 1000+ pages later -- whether it was worth the ride.

No final review can be given of Harlot's Ghost since it is apparently only the first part of a continuing novel. Like The Deer Park and Ancient Evenings, this novel is alternately brilliant and frustrating. It is full of great writing (the mountain climbing sequences, for instance) yet also full of long passages that feel strangely lifeless and obligatory (the sections involving JFK are surprisingly muffled and unsuccessful). Mailer's style almost always revives when he has extended scenes to play out, but too much of the book passes in summary form, with drab overviews of months and years filling page after page. The epistolary sections between the narrator and his future wife also fall rather flat, and there are so many of them that they feel a bit lazy, as if Mailer were giving himself a rest from sustaining the usual level of the narrative. At the same time, the tentative and somewhat bland tone of much of this book seems to be deliberate, a set-up for the not-yet-published second half of the story. The narrator is still a young man when this volume of Harlot's Ghost ends, and there are strong suggestions that his general conservatism and dullness will give way to something more complex and interesting later. As far as I know, Mailer has given no precise idea of what form the novel's continuation will take, but this volume at least promises that a potential masterpiece is possible. If anyone knows more about the continuation and when it might appear, please tell me.

There are two espionage novels I love: A Perfect Spy by John La Carre' and Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer. To be continued...when?

"Harlot's Ghost" is one of the most inconsistent novels that I have ever come across. I am admittedly a fan of Norman Mailer but his great strengths and weaknesses as a writer are on center stage in this seemingly endless novel about the CIA. As he so often did in his later novels, Mailer presents an interesting narration even if his narrator as a character is not that interesting. The first chapters are some of the most dynamic writing that Mailer ever produced but once Harry Hubbard, the son of one of the grand old men of the CIA and a prep school kid turned agent himself, begins narrating his formative years, the book starts to unwind. While Mailer offers interesting takes on Berlin in the 1950s, the Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose, the book encounters a serious detour when Uruguay becomes the center of attention. The narrator and his chief love interest are not particularly strong characters but Mailer shines when he plays puppet master on a number of real life people thrown in his novel-Alan Foster Dulles, E. Howard Hunt, William Harvey, even JFK and Bobby Kennedy (strangely enough Mailer almost totally ignores the enigmatic CIA leader Richard Helms). Parts of the book are brilliant and will stay with you, from the opening narration to a wonderful take on what happened in the CIA headquarters on November 22, 1963. But the reader has to slouch through some pretty long dull spots to encounter these scenes. Still, after well over a 1,000 pages, I was anxious to know what the final outcome was and hoped Mailer would produce the sequel that he promised. However Mailer never followed up on "Harlot's Ghost." 15 years after first reading the book, I still wonder how Mailer was going to wrap it all up. While not a great novel, this ambitious book remains a good one despite its many flaws.

You know that a book is good when you feel compelled to reread all 1200+ pages of it. Each passing page casts new lights on events and relationships described only a few hundred pages earlier. The passage where Harlot questions the evolutionary record of the fossil beds and god's role in it is absolutely priceless and crystallizes the essence of this book. IF YOU'VE EVERY READ LeCARRE, YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!

If you are a Mailer fan, you know he can go a bit overboard on his descriptions. His verbosity and the missing sequel are the only shortcomings of Harlot's Ghost, (1991), which is otherwise a Tour de Force in Mailer's favorite style: the novel as history.

In this novel, which is as close to non-fiction as it gets, Mailer closely mirrors the events that were the pinnacle of the Cold War: the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the assassination of JFK. It is a must-read if you want an almost eye-witness account of this hyper-anticommunist/Soviet period.

He offers insight into the Cuban-exile mentality, the Warren Commission, the failure of foreign policy to deal with Castro, the philandering ways of JFK, Sinatra's mob ties, along with an unbelievably detailed description of the inner workings of the CIA.

The 1289 pages read a bit slow, but are woven incredibly with a story line that leaves one waiting for the sequel, which I hope comes soon.

If you crave closure, and have never read Mailer, pick up Executioner's Song. If not, grab this and The Naked and the Dead and wait with me.

This postmodern novel by Mailer is inarguably the most informed novel of the CIA. This is not callow, veneered, cinema-informed CIA, or any of the "tell-all" non-fiction embellishments of CIA activity. This is a psychological study of the necessary duality of agents, teased from the central soul of the duality of humankind. Mailer has a comprehensive insider's knowledge of the structure and workings of the CIA.

Paradox lives on every layer; the characters in this fiction, other than the main characters, are people such as Howard Hunt, Che Guevara, Marilyn Monroe, John and Robert Kennedy, Allen Dulles--and the list goes on. Mailer cheekily provides notes at the end of the book stating that changing the names to fictional ones would cause readers to say, "That is really Howard Hunt," or, "John F Kennedy," etc., "He just changed their names." By using their known names, he expects readers to say the opposite. There is a very thin membrane separating historical fiction from fact. With cozening and cunning guile, Mailer writes about cozening and cunning in the CIA.

The prose is gorgeous, with sharp imagery, layered references, wry observations, and poetic paragraphs.

This novel also has Mailer's most fully realized female character, Kittredge. She is a CIA psychologist specializing in duality of spirit in both academics and in her career. The public self, the secret self and the inner conflicts that cloud an agent's ethics and takes over his soul are well-developed in Kittredge, as well as in the characters of Harlot and Harry.

This book contains the intricacies of Cold War politics and treachery. I was deeply fraught after reading about Operation Mongoose (as well as other subversive operations) in all its explication. It allowed me to connect the dots better on the enigma of 9/11. I was deeply disturbed, enlightened, and exhilarated to read a colossal, mammoth, unafraid novel about how trespasses into other minds and other countries are accomplished; this does not exclude state-sponsored terrorism by our government.

This is astonishing literature and a spine-tingling filter remover.

Eric Roth (screenwriter of Forrest Gump and The Insider), heavily based the movie, The Good Shepherd, on material from Harlot's Ghost.

Mailer really deserves credit for not just his innate writing ability (as good as any living writer's) but for the immense effort he must have put into this. It is impossible to read Harlot's Ghost and not be utterly amazed at the brilliant metaphors or beautiful characterizations of Maine, Berlin, Moscow, Harlot, CIA men, power, the world, life... THIS IS THE WORK OF A GENIUS AT HIS BEST.