The Prisoner of Sex [Hardcover]

Norman Mailer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1971

Price on front flap is "$5.95". 1972 National Book Award nominee for contemporary affairs.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown; 1st edition (January 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316544132
• ISBN-13: 978-0316544139
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mailer as Literary Critic Intrigues, February 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoner of Sex (Paperback)

There is much to argue with in "The Prisoner of Sex", and though I'm in sympathy with the aims of the womens' movement, I cheer Mailers' defense of the artists right to use their sexuality and sense of the sensual world as proper fodder for poetic expression.

There are times when Mailer- the- mystic clogs up an otherwise lacerating arguement,where his romanticism veers dangerously towards a lunatics hallucinations, but his defense of Miller, Lawrence and Genet against the clumsier moments of Millets' orginal critique in "Sexual Politics" is literary criticism at its most emphatic.

"Prisoner of Sex" is, I'm afraid, incoherant at times, but there are long passages of rich knock-out prose that demonstrate why Mailer is thought by many to be one of the premiere stylists of the times, and if nothing else, his lyrical defense of D.H.Lawrence is worth the purchase by itself.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overall pleasing review with an agreeable portrait of Millet, October 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoner of Sex (Paperback)

This work, although not typical of Mailer, was of his best. Mailer portrays his views of feminism by tearing apart Kate Millet and her take on feminism. Despite the common perception of this book as an anti-feminist work, Mailer clearly respects the basis of feminism.

9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mailer shreds the cant of women's liberation, March 5, 2006

By 

Ted Burke "Ted Burke" (San Diego) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Prisoner of Sex (Hardcover)

There is much to argue with in "The Prisoner of Sex", and though I'm in sympathy with the aims of the womens' movement, I cheer Mailers' defense of the artists right to use their sexuality and sense of the sensual world as proper fodder for poetic expression. What makes the book important is precisely the fact that Mailer felt there was a need for a man to stand up and have a word against and about the rising tide of Feminist theory; while many male writers were too confused, adrift in daydreams of irony or bottled up rage, and while the academy was surrendering its arms without a shot being fired, Mailer spoke up and wrote that there was a profound and important difference between the sexes, and that while social justice must and will prevail regarding the rights of women in the work place and overall social sphere, one cannot maintain, straight faced, that the only difference between the sexes has to do with genitalia.

There are times when Mailer- the- mystic clogs up an otherwise lacerating arguement,where his romanticism veers dangerously towards a lunatics hallucinations, but his defense of Miller, Lawrence and Genet against the clumsier moments of Millets' orginal critique in "Sexual Politics" is literary criticism at its most emphatic. "Prisoner of Sex" is, I'm afraid, incoherent at times, but there are long passages of rich knock-out prose that demonstrate why Mailer is thought by many to be one of the premiere stylists of the times, and if nothing else, his lyrical defense of D.H.Lawrence is worth the purchase by itself.