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Review
‘Mailer recorded every foul thought and word of his characters, wrote about ignorant, savage, primitive men. For maturity of viewpoint, for technical competence, and for stark dramatic power, The Naked and the Dead is an incredibly finished performance.’ New York Times
‘The best war novel to come out of the United States.’ The Times
‘Brutal, agonising, astonishingly thoughtful.’ Newsweek
Product Description
Reissue of a modern classic – the book that catapulted Norman Mailer to fame on its first publication in 1948.
Based on Mailer’s own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, ‘The Naked and the Dead’ is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in the glories of the Allied victory, it altered forever the popular perception of warfare.
Focusing on the experiences of a fourteen-man platoon stationed on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific during World War II, and written in a journalistic style, it tells the moving story of the soldiers' struggle to retain a sense of dignity amidst the horror of warfare, and to find a source of meaning in their lives amisdst the sounds and fury of battle.
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My only (minor) complaint is that Mailer, who was trained as an engineer at Harvard, tries too hard to make everything connect, when perhaps, in dealing with human affairs, and wartime especially, the point is that life doesn't always connect. Thus I felt at times the book went on too long, a few hundred pages too long, though I want to say it was still a great reading experience, one I recommend to anyone even remotely interested.
And don't stop there! If you like this one, try Gore Vidal's World War II novel, Williwaw, set in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska (a "Williwaw" is a freak storm up there that whips down from the mountains causing freak seas and havoc to shipping - one such storm features in the book.) Williwaw has a cool style and controlled prose that reminds me of Joseph Conrad. Also consider John Horne Burns' WW II novel, The Gallery, set in Naples at the end of the war. This is a lyrical, almost Tennessee Williams' style-novel, about a hick/yob North American soldier coming into contact for the first time with the older, softer culture of the Mediterranean and falling for it, in the form of a decent and beautiful Neapolitan woman down on her luck in collapsed-economy Naples.
A great book by a great writer.
Brutal, realistic story-telling.
Quite simply the best WWII book I have ever read. Read more
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