The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History [Paperback]

Norman Mailer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 1, 1995

One of the first examples of "new journalism" daringly combines reportage with a novelistic style and garnered Mailer his first Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1968.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452272793
• ISBN-13: 978-0452272798
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Read the History, Skip the Novel (I was There) February 2, 2008

By John Hevelin

Format:Paperback

Forty years ago, Norman Mailer and I attended a major demonstration against the Vietnam War at the Pentagon. Our situations were very different. Mailer was then forty-four, an established author and celebrity, and a founder of the "Village Voice." He attended the demonstration in the company of the poet Robert Lowell (a conscientious objector jailed during World War II) and Dwight McDonald, a leftist contributor to the "New Yorker" and the "New York Review of Books." Mailer was the subject of a BBC documentary and was accompanied to the demonstration by a film crew. He was arrested early in the day for crossing a police line, spent a night in jail, and was released the following day after extensive efforts by his lawyers.

I was twenty-one, a penniless student in my third year at Antioch College. I was a comparative newcomer to mass demonstrations. Although I did not consider myself a pacifist, I was opposed on principle to military service, and I was opposed specifically to the Vietnam War. If drafted, I expected to go to prison. I did not go to the Pentagon to be disruptive, and I did not go to join the hippie "levitation/exorcism" exercise, which I considered juvenile. I attended with a Quaker who had been a conscientious objector in World War II, and a fellow classmate, who would become a conscientious objector. We felt it was important to make our opposition to Selective Service and the war visible. We had heard that some pacifists intended to commit civil disobedience (blocking doors or entering off-limits areas), and we went to support their action. I had neither the courage nor the self-discipline to commit civil disobediance myself at that point, and either arrest or injury would have been catastrophic for me. Simply participating was the bravest thing I had ever done in my life.

The week before the march had been marked by anti-draft demonstrations in many cities, and television news stories showing Oakland police beating demonstrators with riot batons were quite vivid in my mind. In the bus driving through Washington, D.C., to the staging area, I was startled to see the streets lined with paratroopers with fixed bayonets. Nineteen sixty-seven might have been the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco, but the summer had been marred by major riots in the ghettos of Detroit and Newark. Obviously, Washington city officials were afraid that the ghetto in NE D.C. might erupt.

I don't remember much about the march. I remember circulating through the grounds outside the Pentagon, trying to stay out of the way of the troops and MPs, trying to avoid getting clubbed, gassed, or arrested. The night was cold, and people built fires of abandoned picket signs. Eventually it was time to rendezvous with the bus home, and since there seemed little else we could do, my friends and I retreated to the bus back to Ohio.

Mailer was arrested early in the day, and I left late in the evening, so neither of us personally witnessed the systematic beating and arrest of hundreds of unresisting demonstrators by army units in an event called the "Battle of the Wedge" (reconstructed by Mailer from eyewitness accounts). A disproportionate number of those beaten were women.

It takes a certain kind of man to beat a defenseless, nonviolent woman with a riot baton. America had caught of glimpse of this kind of man during the Civil Rights demonstrations in the 1950s and early 1960s, men willing to use dogs and fire hoses against Negro children, but this was still seen as an aberration of the segregationist, racist South. It would not be until the following year when these men would gain greater visibility at My Lai, raping and butchering innocent women and children. It was white, middle-class America's introduction to the fact that "our boys" could be less than heros.

Mailer speculates at length why so much of the violence was directed at women, but I don't think his explanations suffice. For men who opposed the draft, the support of sympathetic women was crucial. Faced with accusations of being cowards and homosexuals, the love and compassion of activist women helped young men find the courage to resist induction and face prison and ostracism by society. (For an example, see the poster by Joan Baez and her sisters, "Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No".) Mailer says that soldiers at the Pentagon were "taunted" by hippie girls exposing their breasts, but he forgets about the "Summer of Love" and the counterculture affirmation of Life -- the hippie girls weren't taunting the soldiers, they were trying to remind them that there is an alternative to violence and death. Make love, not war. And for other women, opposing the war and the draft was a statement of their independence of the patriarchy. And that night, violent men took their revenge on independent women.

Mailer speculates that the demonstrators experienced a "rite of passage," and invites comparison with Valley Forge and the Alamo. He overlooks a far more recent rite of passage that I'm sure was uppermost in the demonstrator's minds -- the Civil Rights Movement and the profound courage exhibited during the Freedom Rides, the lunch counter sit-ins, and the march on Selma.

Sometimes Mailer sounds like refried Mickey Spillane. But this book must have been written quite hurriedly -- the march took place in October 1967, and the book was published in 1968.

"Armies of the Night" is divided into two books (I and II). Book I is divided into four parts (1-4). I would rate book II as a "5" -- if you want to understand the politics of the Sixties, book II is one of the best introductions you can find. If you're short of time, read book II and leave the rest. I would rate parts 3 and 4 of book I at "3", and I would rate parts 1 and 2 of book I at "1".

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Mailer Does It Again June 30, 2001

By Jason Baer

Format:Paperback

Those of you who are already familiar with the work of Norman Mailer don't need much of an introduction to the man who could perhaps be the most transcendant egoist of the century. For those of you who haven't read Mailer, know this: he writes unlike anyone of his peers, he can turn a phrase as well as Fitzgerald, he is a profound and unusual thinker, and has a great sense of humor.

In this, the book that won him his first Pulitzer Prize, Mailer gives us what he likes to think of as two books. First comes "History As A Novel," in which Mailer describes his experience (in the third person) participating in the largest anti-Vietnam War rally to have occured by 1967 when this book was published. In traditional fashion, a somewhat besotted Mailer makes rousing and unsettling remarks at a theater based event, lends his support to draft-card burners (actually, the group of protesters were to turn in their cards, rather than burn them), and walk in the historically significant march on the Pentagon. At the Pentagon, Mailer manages to get himself arrested (a goal he had previously set for himself), and spends the weekend in jail. He describes all of this with such wit and insight that Mailer himself becomes as much the subject matter as the march itself.

In the second book, "The Novel As History," Mailer gives us a historical perspective on the march and describes its genesis, reason for existance, movers and shakers, and then describes the march as it might have been seen by an unbiased reporter (although Mailer admits that no unbiased reports of this event could ever be given).

Mailer is an enjoyable author to read, as his utterly opinionated and iconoclastic personality cannot be kept apart from his subject matter, a fact that is all the more true for Armies of the Night. I was surprised how much self-awareness he actually posesses... writing in the third person allowed him to step outside himself and observe some of his more unusual personality traits.

You do not need a heavy interest in the Vietnam War to enjoy this book (although I suppose it may help)... all you need is your sympathy, intelligence, and sense of humor.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great style, but is it really a novel in any sense? July 20, 2005

By evanjamesroskos VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I'm not going to try to answer my own question. I will say that this is an interesting look at the 67 march from Mailer's perspective. The section on the development of the march itself and the organizers was very informative, as was the section entitled "Why are we in Vietnam?" (a clear reference to Mailer's previous novel, which was criticized for not answering the question clearly enough.

The analysis of the changing liberalism in the US is also quite good. Overall, there is no plot. And Mailer's attempts to avoid even the most minor suffering are laughable especially when held against the suffering of the Vietnamese and the US soldiers enlisted to fight a meandering war.

Reading the book in 2005, however, gives the book great significance. It's clear that liberals write books and conservatives work in politics. And unfortunately, neither side listens to the other very closely.

Mailer's style in this book is very fast and pulled me through the first section quickly. Things slow down in the second section, but not because the subject matter is slower. Mailer clearly wanted to switch styles (and even talks about how he prides himself on changing styles with every work).

Anyway. Enjoy it for the connections to 2005 America, but remember that Mailer is...Mailer. And he loves to talk about himself and how important he is to everyone around him.