Overall, this strikes me as a somewhat lazy book. Rather than offer any original writing, the editors simply cobble together previously published writings by Alex Haley (actually a "Playboy" interview of the young Ali by Haley), Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Peter Richmond, along with a very short introduction by James Earl Jones. The book jacket also boasts of "contributions from" the likes of Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson, George Plimpton, Jim Brown, and numerous others, but this turns out to refer simply to brief quotations that pepper the book, mostly as photo captions.

The quality of the text by the four featured writers is fine. Certainly you can't go wrong with Norman Mailer. His book "The Fight," from which the chapter in this book is excerpted, was one of the first serious works about boxing and Muhammad Ali that I read back in the 70s, and the first thing I ever read by Mailer. I was a big fan of Ali going in, and a fan of Mailer as well coming out.

One can always quibble with editing decisions in a book like this, but being familiar with Mailer's "The Fight," I found some of the choices made here rather peculiar. For example, in Mailer's very lengthy account of the Ali-Foreman fight itself, he presents the fifth round as the most dramatic, action-filled, significant round of the entire fight. In this excerpt, the editors choose to include some of Mailer's set-up for that round (e.g., "[Foreman] came out in the fifth with the conviction that if force had not prevailed against Ali up to now, more force was the answer, considerably more force than Ali had ever seen."), but then simply replace that entire climactic round with ellipsis.

I don't believe I had previously read the other three selections, or at most I had read excerpts from them. But none of them are newly rediscovered gems that will come as revelations to serious Ali fans. They are not weak or uninteresting, but they are recycled material with which many readers will already be familiar.

Similarly, there are many fine photos in the book, but little that has not appeared in one or more similar Ali books in the past. (In terms of both text and photos, I strongly prefer Wilfrid Sheed's superficially similar picture book "Muhammad Ali" to this one.) One exception is that this book includes many fight programs, posters, and tickets that I had not previously come across.

The book is marred by many factual errors committed by the editors in their photo captions. There are many things that a proofreader even minimally familiar with Ali's career should have caught, so one must unfortunately infer considerable sloppiness or laziness on the part of those who put this book together.

For example, contrary to what this book tells you, Ali did not defeat Joe Frazier by fifteen round decision in their third fight. Ali was awarded a technical knockout when Frazier's handlers conceded between the fourteenth and fifteenth rounds. Ali's 1972 fight against George Chuvalo was not a fifteen round decision, but a twelve round decision. (He had defeated Chuvalo by fifteen round decision in an earlier fight in 1966; that might be what confused the editors.) The book states flatly that Ken Norton broke Ali's jaw in the second round of their March 1973 fight. Maybe, but different parties have claimed anything from the first to the twelfth round, so the matter is not without uncertainty. The photo identified as being from Ali's 1971 fight against Jurgen Blin is in fact a photo from the 1974 fight against Foreman.

Though flawed, this book still has worthwhile elements. With such a compelling central character, you would expect nothing less. It's not the best Ali book out there by a long shot, but insofar as it recruits a few more young newcomers into the legions of Ali fans, and gives the rest of us an excuse to reminisce about an extraordinary man and his extraordinary life, it cannot be all bad.

A great book for Ali fans and boxing fans alike. It is a fun trip through the boxing exploits of one of America's, and the Worlds, greatest athletes. A fun table book that you can pick up over and over again. If you want the complete book of Ali's life- this isn't it. What it covers is Ali the Champ fight by fight!

If you're a boxing fan or just an Ali fan, this book will help you relive memories like no other photo book or biography will. If you're NOT, you will still marvel at the art and the wonderful writing on page after page. The text is not sappy, faceless writing like so many other photo or art books. Instead, these are well-written essays from people who know boxing and know Ali -- and their appreciation will make you appreciate Ali's achievements, charisma, and larger-than-life persona that has led so many to name him the athlete of the century. (If you're looking for more of a narrative, Davis Miller's new "The Tao of Muhammad Ali" is the perfect complement to this book.)

Mailer has a really enjoyable ego, and a rather likeable personality. This book describes vividly a March on Washington in '67 against the Vietnam War, and the main character is Norman Mailer. (This book is written in the third person; an ingeneous way for Mailer to take shots at himself).

Most interesting to me, being a rather apolitical person, was the way Mailer described his "image" as a being completely outside of himself, and how the character "Mailer" in the book can be seen as his image, while the Narrator can be seen as the real Mailer.

That last bit may not make complete sense but anyhow this book has moments of vivid excitement, of feeling the slow painful movements of history unfolding, the "existential moment" as Mailer calls it, of doing something uprecedented and thus not having any idea of what will come of it.

Unfortunately the prose shines only in patches and often i found myself skimming. This may be my fault, for though I like America and everything, i dont have the overwhelming enthusiasm and obsession for all things American that Mailer has. Nevertheless this is a really enjoyable read and Mailer, unlike most political people - and certainly unlike most "activists" both radical and conservative - can laugh at himself as well as those around him.

Winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for General-Non Fiction, Norman Mailer demonstrates his considerable skills of observation & insight: As Novelist, Historian, and Journalist in one book!

Necessary reading for understanding the United States of the 1960's, and perhaps the American psyche today, twenty something years later. Actually two books; History as a Novel, where he writes about himself intimately in the third-person. The second, The Novel as History, Mailer steps back and gives a more detached view of the 1967 march in Washington and its surrounding events.

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.

This book is a true curio of the times, of interest mostly to historians of the period. Mailer fails to describe the details of what went on at the conventions, although he does give the reader 'a feel' for events, and some of the snapshots he provides are good, especially those of the violence and terror of Chicago. In the end, the reader will be disappointed, both because of the failure to completely describe what is happening and because of the writer's verbose style and intrusive narrative devices. The writing style definitely is distracting and confusing, Mailers tendency to use bizarre metaphors and long wordy descriptions provides confusion rather than clarity. Recommended only as a companion piece to books like 'The Making Of The President 1968'by White and McGinnnis' 'Selling Of The President 1968'.

There's something really disconcerting about reading the nonfiction of Tom Wolfe and John McPhee wherein they describe events at which they are clearly in attendance but write in the third person. Someone must be overhearing the conversation that Wolfe so brilliantly reproduces and when folks describe their jobs in a McPhee essay, one assumes they are describing them to McPhee. Their absence from the text then becomes more intrusive than their presence would be, but, what the hey, they're two of the best writers of non-fiction ever to come down the pike, so we cut them some slack. Infinitely more annoying is the way that every hack writer on Earth who is assigned to write a profile of someone for a magazine, begins the piece by describing his own first meeting with the subject of the story, as if we freakin' care that the author ordered the shitaki on melba toast and Demi was ten minutes late for the interview. But topping them all for the most aggravating technique ever created is Norman Mailer who decided to include himself in his nonfiction but to write about himself in the third person, as "the reporter." This is not only a distraction when you are reading, it also just smacks of egotism run amok. Of course, this is Norman Mailer, the biggest publicity whore this side of Madonna, so that's exactly what it is, the attention grabbing stunt of a completely self-absorbed horse's rump.

That said, he does make for an irreverent, even ribald, chronicler of the 1968 conventions. His celebrity opened doors for him and gave him access to the placid doings of the GOP conclave in Miami and to the Democratic melee in Chicago. He uses his own distinctive patois of street tough language, acerbic commentary and apocalyptic hyperbole to recreate the mood, if not the actual events of the two conventions. But his analysis of events is completely laughable, teetering between the merely absurd and the genuinely deluded. Naturally, he revels in both the counter culture demonstrations in Chicago and in the somewhat heavy-handed response of Mayor Daley's police and the National Guard. Like Charlie Manson believing that Helter Skelter would bring about the revolution, Mailer thought that this kind of confrontation and the reaction it provoked revealed something about the strength of the youth movement on the one hand and weakness of American institutions on the other. In fact, these were pretty much the death throes of '60s radicalism. Just a few months later the American people would go to the polls and elect Richard Nixon, largely on the understanding that he would restore law and order to American society. And though his margin of victory was quite thin, it must be recalled that George Wallace received 13.5% of the vote; and I think it's safe to say that his voters disagreed with the kids who tried shutting down Chicago. Even as Mailer was predicting a new and glorious phase in some kind of class struggle, the electorate, the "silent majority" of Nixon's acceptance speech, was preparing to repudiate the radical movement by a truly staggering margin.

Interestingly, Mailer accidentally offers intimations of what was going on in the rest of the country when he is too revealing about what was going on within himself. The two most honest moments in the book are when he expresses how sick he is of listening to the demands of Black leaders:

[T]he reporter became aware after a while of a curious emotion in himself, for he had not ever felt it consciously before--it was a simple emotion and very unpleasant to him--he was getting tired of Negroes and their rights. It was a miserable recognition, and on many a count, for if even he felt this way, then what immeasurable tides of rage must be loose in America itself?

Note both the utter condescension to the unwashed masses and the visceral sense that things had gone far enough. Add in the fact that most Americans were also sick of listening to limousine liberals like Norman Mailer tell them what to do, when they knew perfectly well that he felt like this in his heart of hearts, and the rage is only compounded. Mailer's slip peeks out again during the violence in Chicago when he acknowledges an illicit thrill at watching the police hammer protesters into submission. These instances offer him a chance to understand what is truly going on in the country, but his knees jerk and he goes right back to singing a Dionysian song of praise to the scum in the streets.

A journalist who gets so involved in a story that he misjudges it by as much as Mailer did is hardly worthy of the title. Instead, the author was a partisan observer whose analytical skills appear to be nonexistent and whose judgment appears to have been clouded by emotion, but whose hands on approach to the story makes for a whiff of the atmospherics of the time and some mildly interesting moments.

GRADE: C

What is striking about 1968 in that political sense is that Daley of Chicago, a Democrat, is the recipient of more wrath from liberal writers than Richard Nixon. You remember him: The guy who went on to win it all that year, expanded the war, and broke a myriad of laws in the scandals that come under one word, Watergate. Mailer, who writes with the talented journalist's eye, beats up on Daley more than Nixon. I guess you couldn't do anything about Nixon. It's like going to a football game and heckling the head coach of your favorite team: The guy who is giving the game away.

KEVIN FARRELL

Full of characters who eat the excrement, flesh or [body parts] of a variety of animals in order to gain the wisdom and strength that they offer, Ancient Evenings journeys a path into a world of Ancient Egypt that I have never known. Nor frankly, for that matter, care to. Yet, Mailer's portrait of Rameses II, Usermare as he is known is this work, is incredible. Divine and human, Horus and Set are woven so well into the fabric of of this pharoah's character that his struggle to maintain harmony between these two opposing forces alone is worth wading through the rest of the book. My faith in Ancient Egypt as a whole and its actual traditions is restored by Mailer, however, by the conclusion of this work but not before I have been thoroughly disgusted by a variety of acts descibed by the protagonist Menehetet.

This is a great book, well researched and well written, and highly entertaining until you realize you've struggled through hundreds of difficult pages only to realize-this is going nowhere. But maybe that's the way it is, and there is no logical connection between AE and the now. Also, I have read only a third of Harlot's Ghost, and the same Mailer trait of focusing on individual characteristics prevails over the big picture. Mailer still is obsessed with sex: maybe the Clintonthing will loosen him to finish the 1965- 1999 CIA period in less than 2000+ pages.

I have read many mailer books and this is so good that I have read it three times and I am sure will read it many more times.
the imagination and story telling takes you to where the story takes.fantastic.I am going to get a hardback edition to go with my paperback as it is so special.

Why Are We At War? is a collection of Mr. Mailer's musings on the state of the union post-9/11, and it's wonderfully written and intellectually engaging. Whether or not you agree with the "liberal" angle taken in this book (I am much more conservative than Mailer) it is still well worth a read.

If you're looking for hardcore evidence or "proof" regarding the so-called war for oil you should look elsewhere. Most of Mr. Mailer's hard facts are simply borrowed from other prominent, and more exhaustive, sources. However, if you want a great discussion about how Mailer feels, and how many of us feel, in the midst of a war on a faceless enemy, then this monograph will do the trick.

Much of the book is set up as a discussion with Mailer's close friend, and that unique approach allows the reader to enter into the discussion. Although the title poses the question of the day, Mailer's answers are fleeting and inconclusive. Mailer never establishes the "reason" for the current (and ongoing) incursion, but he tackles the issue head-on. Mailer doesn't profess to have all of the answers, and that is the beauty of this book. Turn off the noise, and enter into an honest discussion of an issue that cannot be explained by the pundits, both liberal and conservative, feeding the public pre-packaged "truths." None of us can honestly profess to know the true motivations behind this war, but trying to pin down reasons and motives is a laudable, if not trying, affair. Mailer takes the occasion to guide the reader through this debate with style, insight, and, at times, confusion. He's one of us after all.

NORMAN MAILER REVEALS HOW THIS WAR IS THE RESULT OF OUR FEAR DRIVEN COLLECTIVE SUBCONCIOUS AND ITS MANIPULATION BY THE ADMINISTRATION FOR THEIR OWN AGENDA AFTER THE EVENT OF 9/11 .
IT IS A GREAT EYE OPENER REGARDING THE CONSTRUCTIVE PATRIOTISM OF THE ANTI WAR CROWD VERSUS THE REASSURING DRUG ADDICTION TYPE PATRIOTISM OF THE PRO WAR PEOPLE. THE BOOK WARNS US HOW A DEMOCRATIC NATION CAN BE LEAD BLINDLY AND UNWITTINGLY INTO A FASCISM SIMILAR TO HITLER'S NAZISM. IT SHOWS US AS WELL THE MOTIVATIONS AND DANGERS OF IMPERIALISM AND ITS HYPOCRISY IN THE CONTEXT OF OUR FREEDOM LOVING COUNTRY. MAILER TRIES TO TEACH THE READER THAT REAL CONCERN FOR ONE'S COUNTRY IS NOT IN DENIAL AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE BUT IN THE RECOGNITION OF AND ACTING UPON ITS QUALITIES AND ITS DEFECTS.

This slim volume, consisting mainly of some of Mailer's conversations and speeches after 9-11 and prior to the second Gulf War, gives us a disturbing answer to the cover's question that more than rings of truth.

You will have to read the book to understand why Mailer answers as he does. But as you might suspect, Mailer's answer is simply that our war on Iraq is motivated by a desire by many in the Bush administration to extend American influence directly, through military action, all across the globe. In the absence of another super-power to keep us at bay, as the Soviets did through the eighties, many now in power feel that there is no reason that America shouldn't spread its influence across the globe, that in fact it is our right, our duty, our God-given purpose, to do so.

The implication that America is edging closer to empire, similar to Rome, is not unique or necessarily original to Mailer. What Mailer does, however, is shed a great deal of light on why that theory makes sense, and why such a direction for America is a dangerous and potentially fatal path.

This book appeared in print just prior to the actual declaration of war against Iraq, and I doubt that many Americans gave it much credence. In light of the new revelations, being made by our own Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz no less, of what really motivated our war in Iraq, I highly recommend that Americans read this book now and take the time to ask the current question, "Why Were We At War?"

This book, wriiten when the women's liberation movement was still in its nascent stage, is a reponse to some of the writings of the movement's leaders, in particular, Germaine Greer, Kate Millet, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem. While the author makes some valid points (I agree, political correctness does tend to have a chilling effect and censorship is to be avoided.), it is nothing more than an overrated, pretentious, self-indulgent polemic. His response to the writings of feminist intellectuals is over the top, treating their writings as mere diatribes, rather than as the cutting edge views of a segment of society that was rising up to be heard and reckoned with. Women were, indeed, the prisoner of sex, before the feminist movement loosened societal restrictions on women. Men, too, were prisoners of sex, but it was they, who were the wardens and jailers of those prisons. They were the ones who set the ground rules. The feminist movement merely ponted this out.

Moreoever, Mailer's views are often put forth in a rambling, stream of consciousness fashion, ponderous and pedantic, and often incoherent, so puffed up with self importance is the writer in his ostensible defense of the male sex. He misreads the feminist movement, thinking it to be an attack on manhood, his, in particular, when all it really was calling for was the full inclusion of women in society. Were it not for the feminist movement, women of today would still be very limited in terms of opportunities to be all that they could be, constrained by their sex. One should be mindful, however, that while women may have come a long way, they still have a way to go. There are, unfortunately, still a lot of Mailer types out there. Like the dinosaur, however, they will one day cease to exist.

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.

I'm only eighteen, and it's 30 years since most of what Mailer talks about in "The Prisoner of Sex" occurred, but I find this to still be an important book. It introduced me to Miller, and denounced those who would censor some of this centuries most important artists, for the sake of a deluded political correctness. One of the above reviews disliked Mailer's romantic mysticism--his criticisms of birth control and masturbation--but though I do not necessarily agree, I would hardly call it lunacy. Mailer has conveyed his message with dignity, and I can certainly respect it.

I read this book because I had heard the name "Norman Podhoretz" bruited about in the odd book review here and there. He is, or at any rate was, the editor of a journal called "Commentary", which I have only ever heard of in the context of the Woody Allen joke: "I heard that 'Commentary' and 'Dissent' have merged, and now they're called 'Dysentery'". It seems that the author once knew some people who are now way more famous than him, and he wants to tell us all about how he believes they went wrong.

It is not easy for a non-American reader to care more than two shakes of a lamb's tail about what this apparently well-known person thinks. He starts the book with what he obviously regards as a priceless witticism ("If I want to drop names, I just list my ex-friends"). If I had fallen out with the likes of Lillian Hellmann, Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg, I would be inclined to think that there was something wrong with me, but... He goes on to quote some not-terribly-interesting gossip about various writers, and seems to feel that he has said something extraordinarily important and significant by doing so. Who is this guy? What, exactly, is the sum total of his contribution to human joyfulness? I've never heard of him, outside the context of the odd book review (of somebody else's work), and I still don't understand why a presumably solvent publisher sees fit to print his dull grumbling about people who are obviously more talented than him.

What is this book for? I am as much a fan of literary chat as the next person, but this book is almost entirely about the private whinges of somebody I've never heard of. It doesn't tell me anything about American cultural life, except that the author is not interested in the subject. He's not even funny. Can somebody explain how this thing got published?

The book is interesting in that it deals with famous members of mid-century intelligencia, but it also explores the nuances of political thought happening among members of the left in that time period. Also interesting is the fact that Podhoretz had his falling out with people sometimes for reasons other than his right-wing conversion in the 1970s and 1980s.

The book is quite good at explaining the subtle differences in opinion among left-wing American intellectuals of the time. Almost everyone had trifled with Communism or fellow travelerism, but out of that start grew many different points of view that Norman and his Ex-Friends would argue about again and again. Being philosophical writers, they would tend to explore many different avenues from one another. It's a wonder that any two writers remain life-long friends.

I grew less interested in these characters as the book progressed though. The pattern gave me the "heard it once, heard it a thousand times" feeling. By Hannah Arendt, I was tired from a long journey. But not because Mr. Podhoretz isn't a fine writer, he most certainly is. Only, I'll be ready for another subject matter from him next time around.

Norman Podhoretz's Ex-Friends is a fascinating look into the Culture Wars that have rumbled across our intellectual landscape for the past 50 or 60 years. Podhoretz has been in the trenches throughout, though his alliances changed radically as he came to see, with more and more acuity, the destructiveness of leftist thought. He reveals a great deal about the characters he called friends--and then ex-friends--as he made his own journey from the left to the right. "Rigid ideologue" he may be, but only someone reading this book with the "left side" of his brain would claim that the subjects of his study are enlightened and tolerant. How else to explain the vitriolic attacks on Podhoretz for having honest questions about the motives and tactics of the liberal establishment? Is Norman Podhoretz a "paranoid little bigot" as one (no doubt open minded) reviewer claims? Only if love of country and the desire to see true democracy flourish are malignant ideas. As it stands, Ex-Friends is a brilliant expose of the lunacy of the left, an often thinly veiled totalitarianism passing itself off as progressivism. (The chapters on Ginsberg and Mailer are sufficient to illustrate this point.) Podhoretz's contribution to this discussion is invaluable, and only a recalcitrant liberal would call it "amusing garbage." I only hope, Mr. Podhoretz, that there is more where this came from.

I wouldn't guess that Mailer was one of America's Greatest Writers Ever by this book. It seemed too contrived. The ending was a bit too Matlock for me (we learn the conspiracy through much monologue). But, then again, Mailer gets away with this, since it's done fairly well. Definitely a good book, hence the Star Rating I give. If you do enjoy this book, read Denis Johnson's ALREADY DEAD, for it's extremely similar ; I do believe Johnson did it on purpose.

Although Norman Mailer himself directed the feature length film of this movie (starring his sometime sparring partner Ryan O'Neal) it would be a shame if potential readers of this powerful novel refused to give it chance because they already rented the cinematic result. I dug parts of the film, too (the casting of Lawrence Tierney as Tim Madden's father was an inspired choice) but the honest magic of the book rests, as it often does with Mailer, in the prose -- a skillfully rendered, poetic narrative with sustaining magic and spellbinding storytelling. I bought this book when I was going through my first divorce. I can attest to the self-loathing and egocentricity that such an event inspires. Now, when I present a page or two of it to my freshman English classes, I'm transported instantaneously to that difficult time, and I find myself pulling for the protagonist, even if he may be an alcoholic mass murderer. It's a more important, universally appealing book than a look at the film would lead you to believe

"Tough Guys Don't Dance" is a good old fashioned thriller set in a decaying seaside New England town inhabited by a motley assortment of wealthy elitists, drug dealers, fishermen, psychopaths, and brooding alcoholic tough guys like the hero Tim Madden. Someone has it in for Tim--a struggling novelist and former criminal. After a night of heavy drinking and quazi-amnesia, severed heads are turning up on his property and the passenger seat of his car is drenched in blood. Can he find the killer (s) before he gets blamed for the killings? Mailer builds up the suspense like a true master of mystery (even though mystery is not his primary field). There is also some fine writing in this book. It should be read aloud like poetry. More than a decade before "Pulp Fiction" Mailer knew how to mix a thrilling crime drama with interesting conversations and musings about life, love, and amature philosophy. As Tim tries to solve the mystery, he broods about ethnic and cultural differences {he is a mixture of Irish and Jewish and the town is mostly Portugese}, history {he is obsessed with the Pilgrims and other aspects of local history like "hell town" a 19th century vice district}, wives, parents and family life, cops, prison, alcohol, drugs, war and on and on. In the hands of a bad {or even average} writer, this would just get anaoying, but Mailer carries it off well.