The Armies of the Night
Norman Mailer · 1968
Mailer invented a form: nonfiction written in third person about the author as historical participant. The March on the Pentagon as essay, self-aggrandizement as method. Won the Pulitzer Prize. Made literary journalism a serious form.
The case against
Mailer in the third person, narrating Mailer, admiring Mailer, forgiving Mailer: the method is the point, and the method is also a man hogging both ends of a conversation for three hundred pages. Book two, the historiography lecture, is where momentum goes to die. He invented something real here. He also never once got out of its way.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
