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A towering figure in American literature, Norman Mailer has in recent years reached a new level of accessibility and power. His last novel, The Castle in the Forest, revealed fascinating ideas about faith and the nature of good and evil. Now Mailer offers his concept of the nature of God. His conversations with his friend and literary executor, Michael Lennon, show this writer at his most direct, provocative, and challenging. “I think,” writes Mailer, “that piety is oppressive. It takes all the air out of thought.”
In moving, amusing, probing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years but whose topics he has considered for decades, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism. He presents instead a view of our world as one created by an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of determined opposition by contrary powers in the universe, with whom war is waged for the souls of humans. In turn, we have been given freedom–indeed responsibility–to choose our own paths. Mailer trusts that our individual behavior–always a complex mix of good and evil–will be rewarded or punished with a reincarnation that fits the sum of our lives.
Mailer weighs the possibilities of “intelligent design” at the same time avowing that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments–because adultery, he avers, may be a lesser evil than others suffered in a bad marriage–and he holds that technology was the Devil’s most brilliant creation.
In short, Mailer is original and unpredictablein this inspiring verbal journey, a unique vision of the world in which “God needs us as much as we need God.”
From The Naked and the Dead to The Executioner’s Song and beyond, Mailer’s major works have engaged such themes as war, politics, culture, and sex. Now, in this small yet important book, Mailer, in a modest, well-spoken style, gives us fresh ways to think about the largest subject of them all.
Famed novelist and playwright Mailer here embarks on a journey into all aspects of God and religion with Lennon, president of the Norman Mailer Society. Written shortly before Mailer's death in 2007 and done in a Q&A format, the narrative focuses on an eclectic variety of subjects that revolve around Mailer's assertion that God is an artist. Mailer believed in the existence of God but argued that he (or she) is like an artist because God is not perfect. He created the dinosaurs and then realized that they were too large to survive, so they had to become extinct. The authors leave no stones unturned, covering reincarnation, the state of world religions, fundamentalism, the Holocaust, poverty, intelligent design, and prayer. Their conversations make reference to numerous disciplines, including literature, art, philosophy, and theology. As with his life and all his writings, Mailer took no prisoners with this work. He was unapologetic in his criticism of all of the major religions for stifling creative thought in both their leaders and their followers. This audiobook is not leisurely material for the car or the beach; it is scholarly and a tough go at times. However, readers Kent Bateman (Mailer) and Malcolm Hillgartner (Lennon) do an admirable job of trying to keep the listener engaged in the often dense and meandering thoughts of this brilliant and controversial writer. Recommended for large academic libraries.
—Emma Duncan
Norman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1955, he was one of the co-founders of The Village Voice. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Naked and the Dead; The Armies of the Night, for which he won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Executioner’s Song, for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize; Harlot’s Ghost; Oswald’s Tale; The Gospel According to the Son; and The Castle in the Forest. Mr. Mailer passed away Saturday November 10th, 2007.
Excerpted from On God by Norman Mailer Copyright © 2007 by Norman Mailer. Excerpted by permission.
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broken6string
Posted April 11, 2010
"By now, philosophically speaking, atheism is more incomprehensible to me than the notion that there's a creator." (N.M.)
In an era dichotomously characterized by a drive toward secularism and a reluctance to completely abandon the concept of God, Norman Mailer's last book effectively outlines his life's effort to "work out his own salvation" and to understand his place in the world.
Presented in an interview format with Michael Lennon, this relaxed work offers Mailer's personal insights into the natures of God, the Devil and humankind, and the roles of each in the universal sense.
In fewer than three-hundred pages, the author concisely visits topics as diverse as free will, life after death, and political philosophy. He even speculates that "good" may not ultimately triumph over "evil," and suggests that neither God nor the Devil are all-powerful or all-knowing. Perhaps, Mailer says, God isn't even all good--he may be 80% good, while the Devil is 80% evil.
As human beings, Mailer suggests, we place a burden too great on God with our expectations that he will always help us, or even that he is always able to answer our most pressing needs. God's power is limited according to Mailer and, often, God fails to understand his own creation.
Obviously, just entertaining these notions meets fundamentalist criteria for pure blasphemy-100%. But it gives us something to think about, because it's only blasphemous if we believe in that external, personal God. On the other hand, if we believe God is what we make him, then Mailer's hypothesis seems somewhat ineffectual as an explanation.
Specifically, isn't God supposed to represent the ideal? Shouldn't the concept of God embody and encourage human aspiration? And if the ideal is less than perfect, how can it be ideal? If I'm inventing my own God, I'm not sure I want anything less than ideal. Who would aspire to 80% of anything?
By Mailer's approximation though, God is an artist above all else. As an artist, he expresses himself through his creation, but his creation is never complete and, since he has endowed us with free will, we sometimes surprise him. As God learns about us, then, he learns about himself; and as we learn about God, we learn about ourselves.
"On God"--in an approach bold, but not offensive to the more open minded among us--nudges the reader toward curiosity, reflection and introspection. In the end, Mailer even offers his vision of the perfect society: a synthesis of the social, political, economic and religious ideals he suggests would most greatly benefit the human race.
A surprising exit for a former atheist.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 25, 2007
This book brings a new light of thought, interesting, outstanding book!
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Overview
A towering figure in American literature, Norman Mailer has in recent years reached a new level of accessibility and power. His last novel, The Castle in the Forest, revealed fascinating ideas about faith and the nature of good and evil. Now Mailer offers his concept of the nature of God. His conversations with his friend and literary executor, Michael Lennon, show this writer at his most direct, provocative, and challenging. “I think,” writes Mailer, “that piety is oppressive. It takes all the air out of thought.”
In moving, amusing, probing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years but whose topics he has ...