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The Naked and the Dead (Hardcover)

by Norman Mailer (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 736 pages
  • Publisher: Henry Holt & Company Inc; 50th Anniversary ed edition (May 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0805060189
  • ISBN-13: 978-0805060188
  • Product Dimensions: 21.9 x 14.7 x 5.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,284,258 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #52 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Mailer, Norman

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Product Description

Review
"Nightmarish masterpiece of realism."--"Celeveland News""The most important American novel since "Moby Dick,""--"Providence Journal""The best novel to come out of the . . . war, perhaps the best book to come out of any war."--"San Francisco Chronicle""Brutal, agonizing, astonishingly thoughtful."--"Newsweek""Vibrant with life, abundant with real people, full of memorable scenes. To call it merely a great book about the war would be to minimize its total achievement."--"The Philadelphia Inquirer""Best novel yet about World War II."--"Time"

Synopsis
Portrays the contrasting personalities and nostalgic reminiscences of a group of World War II American soldiers engaged in a combat operation against the Japanese.

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest war books of all time., 5 Sep 2000
By Mr. Colin Rankin "Colin Rankin" (Braintree, essex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: The Naked and the Dead (Flamingo Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Not only is this a classic piece of war fiction it delves deeply into the psyche of men under intolerable pressure.The result is not pretty and Mailer makes no apologies for his unforgiving portrayal of the base and primitive side of men at war.It is as fresh today as it was when first written shortly after the end of World War 11 and still is deeply relevant.This is a powerhouse of a novel with stunning charecterisations of men from the weak General Cummings to the more down to earth but nevertheless phiposophical Sergeant Croft.It is a classic novel by any standards.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A multiple-levelled marvel, 30 Jul 2003
By Caterkiller (Darlington, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Naked and the Dead (Flamingo Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Although superficially a war novel the predominent themes of this book are escapism and the disappointment of unfulfilled desires. Each chapter ends with a potted biography of each protagonist and the life they have left behind in the US, academic failure, an unfulfilling job or a loveless marriage and effectively juxtaposes these incidents against the grind, boredom and sheer physical trauma of war. In these cases these men have escaped an imagined hell for a real one. Although in the main this book is downbeat it remains rivetting, in particular a 300 page passage covering the platoons mission through the jungle which demands to be read at one sitting and ends with a bizarre piece of Catch 22 style black humour.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic; It's Just That It's Written By An Engineer, 28 Jan 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Naked and the Dead (Flamingo Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I though this a classic novel of World War II, set in the Pacific (U. S. American) theatre. What Mailer does so well is to describe an average group of American Joes, who are not always very likeable, and, taking them through the war, make it all so believable and compelling. The battle descriptions are sometimes horrific, but it is Mailer's willingness to describe the tedium and routine, indeed the pettiness, of war, that is ultimately the book's enduring strength - sometimes war is not heroic or even bloody, but just mundane and squalid.

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.

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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars fulfils, and surpasses its formidable reputation
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer's war novel of highest repute, charts a short campaign on a Japanese island in WW II. Read more
Published 4 days ago by Talc Demon

4.0 out of 5 stars Earth moving..
This could have gone on for another 700 pages and i would've been fine.
A great book by a great writer.
Brutal, realistic story-telling.
Published 9 months ago

5.0 out of 5 stars War for real
The Naked and the Dead remains the most realistic war novel I have read. It is neither a romance of heroic deeds nor the grinding, dehumanised tragedy that WWI novels tend to be... Read more
Published 12 months ago by reader 451

5.0 out of 5 stars Very impressive
There's nothing much to say really: together with James Jones' "The thin red line" this is the best account of WW II combat that I know of. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Didier

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than just a War Novel
The mental tussle between Hearn and Cummings provided some great moments of tension, you are never sure how the General will react to Hearns challenges. Read more
Published on 24 Jan 2006 by Nickolai Toposky

5.0 out of 5 stars The Naked and the Dead
I picked up this book at random and have been hooked on Mailer ever since.

Quite simply the best WWII book I have ever read. Read more

Published on 23 Jun 2005 by junk2838

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
It's not a bad book, just not a great book, and I had expected more on my first journey into the world of Mailer. Read more
Published on 6 Aug 2004 by Dr. D. Tracy

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but dragged out
A good book but could easily have been trimmed down to two thirds of its length. I found the time machines pieces (where he writes about each of the characters' lives up to the... Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2000

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