An American Dream | Norman Mailer | Captures the essence of male anxiety and drives

An American Dream | Norman Mailer | A fantastic view of the drive of man and of NYC

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An American Dream

	An American Dream Norman Mailer Vintage, 1999 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 31 reviews view larger image
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Captures the essence of male anxiety and drives

Mailer's most riveting novel, closely followed by Tough Guys Don't Dance, American Dream hits the target again and again of the male drive to sex, power and adventure. Mailer's real ouvre is the post-war world of urban abandonment and existential adventure. This novel reeks of what the 20th C was all about, and has never been bettered by any author. Oddly, for such a masculine writer, Mailer's understanding is all about intuition and dark intimations. He is a magus not a rocket scientist. I read this book when I was going through my own puny version of the life of Stephen Rojack and could not believe how splendid it was.

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A fantastic view of the drive of man and of NYC

Mailer exudes genius in this novel at every sentence! The book is very short (if you can't make it through in a day, try popup books) and the writing flows easily, yet maintains enormous depth. I highly recommend this novel for both its views of man and decadent society of NYC as well as its intriging writing style.

Life in New York city drives you crazy...

Norman Mailer writes like a man possessed. His prose is dazzling and vivid but difficult to negotiate, consisting as it does of a torrent of words conveying so many images it's sometimes hard to follow. Its updated stream of consciousness style left me giddy and breathless, not always a pleasurable experience when you have to re-read large tracts to get the meaning. Non-American readers like me may find the colloquilism and some of the references difficult to connect with, but that limitation is mine alone. The novel's premise is fascinating. Stephen hears the moon urging him to suicide. He is tempted but hesitates, then goes home to murder his wife. Hard as nails (Mailer implies that's the only way to survive in New York City), Stephen's self protective instincts rises to the fore to help him make it through the murder investigation and the much anticipated confrontation with his father-in-law, but not without a good dose of tender loving care administered by a moll named Cherry. Naturally, Stephen escapes death yet again but guess who pays for it ? "An American Dream" is Mailer's masculine and testosterone-charged account of sex, politics, corruption and sleaze in the Big Apple. It is a highly impressive piece of work but I confess to being a little out of my depth with the lyricism which I found excessive.

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Nightmarish read

This is my first Mailer novel and i was worried that it would be boring and journalistic. But I was hugely surprised at how bizzare and subjective the imagery was - imagery which seizes upon the mind almost violently. The world of Stephen Rojack is drunken, amoral, and continually teetering between the shadowy, nightmarish underworld, and the respectable day to day world. This book in many ways does read as some awful dream, a dream in which the moon speaks to you, the ledge outside begs to be walked on as a test of courage, and murder is seen as some type of primitive, sexual release. Being somewhat sentimental I can only like a novel like this so much (I did not become attached to the characters, or want to immerse myself in the world of this novel), but that does not take away from the fact that this is a really enjoyable novel, even though I was almost relieved when I was finished. This book is like when you have an awful nightmare that keeps you up all night, and even though the nighmare terrified you, you cant help thinking about how interesting the images and mental landscape of the dream was. That being said I am definitely looking forward to more Mailer because he obviously has original talent.

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Live-wire writing but ultimately tedious

My first read of Mailer. The writing is vivid, descriptive and hard. The classic New York world of male lead surrounded by liquor, nightclubs, allusions of money is well described. Plot is interwoven but I couldn't wait to finish the book so that I could read something new!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7

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