Since author Norman Mailer has just died – and so close to Veteran’s Day — I must take this opportunity to put in a plug for his first novel, “The Naked and the Dead.†It is set on the Pacific front in World War II and centers on a group of American soldiers. They are something of a cross-section of Americans at the time (although they did not include any African-Americans due to segregationist policies of the time period) but Mailer is careful to individualize each character. Readers of Men’s News Daily should be especially appreciative of this novel as it is specifically a study of men in war since it takes place during a time the “risk rule†was firmly in place and only men were required to risk their lives in battle. Indeed, there is a character in the book named Sgt. Croft who, when he wants to revile the soldiers, contemptuously shouts that they are “a bunch of Goddam women!†However, if they had actually been women, they would not have been forced into the singularly dehumanizing situation they were in.
I believe Mailer showed his talents off to special effect with a character named Gallegher. We learn of this Gallegher’s activities with racially and religiously bigoted groups at about the same time as we experience with him the horrible grief he suffers when he learns that his wife has died in childbirth. That Mailer, who was Jewish, could make this anti-Semitic character both repulsive and powerfully sympathetic is a tribute to Mailer’s considerable powers as a writer.
“The Naked and the Dead†is no paean to war. Far from it. It features one character who is so desperate to get away from it that he tries to fake insanity and it shows us men we care about dying in gross and humiliating ways because of war.
War has always been, and probably will continue to be, a hideous burden borne primarily by men. Anyone interested in men, war, and how they intersect ought to read “The Naked and the Dead.â€Â
