Now that Norman Mailer is dead, I am starting to get seriously concerned about my
career.
For reasons that I will justify at length in the paragraphs below, I had built my entire
career plan around punching Norman Mailer on the nose. This brilliant plan relied
heavily on Mailer being alive, or at least upright.
Admittedly, I am no lawyer, and I am only speculating here, but it is probably not
even legal these days to dig up a dead writer and punch him in the hole where his
schnozzle used to be. How times have changed! The history of the written word is
littered with tales of authors’ corpses getting whomped. Jane Austen was routinely
beaten up by angry schoolchildren several decades after she was laid to rest in
Winchester Cathedral. Shakespeare’s head was used as a football in a 1903 match
between Nottingham Forest and Notts County (County won 2-1).
What’s more, it might not look too good on my résumé:
career.
For reasons that I will justify at length in the paragraphs below, I had built my entire
career plan around punching Norman Mailer on the nose. This brilliant plan relied
heavily on Mailer being alive, or at least upright.
Admittedly, I am no lawyer, and I am only speculating here, but it is probably not
even legal these days to dig up a dead writer and punch him in the hole where his
schnozzle used to be. How times have changed! The history of the written word is
littered with tales of authors’ corpses getting whomped. Jane Austen was routinely
beaten up by angry schoolchildren several decades after she was laid to rest in
Winchester Cathedral. Shakespeare’s head was used as a football in a 1903 match
between Nottingham Forest and Notts County (County won 2-1).
What’s more, it might not look too good on my résumé:
Norman Mailer has ruined my career
1993: Thrown out of school.
1994-2006: A fug.
2007: Dug up Norman Mailer’s corpse and thumped it on the banger. (Case
pending)
1994-2006: A fug.
2007: Dug up Norman Mailer’s corpse and thumped it on the banger. (Case
pending)
As literary giants go, at four foot two inches, Norman Mailer simply towered over his
similarly self-adoring contemporaries (like Susan “Sontag” Suntan and Henry
Wadsworth Longbeardedfellow). He also embodied certain playful characteristics
typical of writers of his generation that some of his closest friends liked to call
“outstandingly psychotic”. For example, Mailer was married at least six times. (It
doesn’t get much more outstandingly psychotic than that!) Also, he stabbed his
second wife with a kitchen knife (though, in his defence, his record was considerably
cleaner than Henry VIII who beheaded at least two of his six wives, including his six-
digited second wife, Anne Boleynboleynboleyn-Boleynboleynboleyn-
Boleynboleynboleyn-Rawhide!).
But the crowning achievement of Mailer’s literary odyssey was the infamous moment
he headbutted Gore Vidal, something anyone who has ever heard of, seen, met or
read Gore Vidal longs to re-enact. Vidal had suggested Mailer was a violent man, and
Mailer wanted to set him straight. Ultimately, Mailer’s fury was forgivable. The truth
is that nobody in the entire world (except maybe the chief book critic of the New
York Times) has ever read an actual book by Norman Mailer. The last known
published work of Mailer’s was called The Naked and the Even Nakeder which first
appeared on Amazon in the early 1840s. Since then, Mailer has only stayed in the
literary spotlight thanks to a series of violent physical acts inspired by David
Duchovny’s character in the hit TV series Californication.
And that’s where I come in. About ten years ago now, when I first learnt how to put
pen to paper and then announced to the world in a booming, drunken voice that I
was going to be a famous writer with a herd of bikinied coed groupies who hang out
all day in my hot tub, I was asked a serious question by a brilliant and beautiful
novelist I used to know. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
A few years later she asked me another question. This time she wanted to know
how many more months of abject failure I was willing to tolerate before I threw in
the towel and embarked on a flourishing career in data entry. I smiled delightfully
and told her not to worry; I had a cunning plan hidden up the sleeve of my holey,
chewed-upon jumper. “If my dream of being a literary giant starts to stall,” I said, “I
will seek out Norman Mailer at some literary do, lull him into a false sense of security,
then bonk him on the nasal banger in full view of the literati. I figure – given how
Mailer is old and crippled and everything – that this small act of abuse will guarantee
me so much media coverage I will be a household name by the time I get out of jail
and the publishing houses will literally be queuing up to sign me to a ten book deal,
beginning with my magnum opus, Why I Just Had to Punch an Old and Defenceless
Norman Mailer in the Beezer. This confessional memoir will, of course, be a major,
massive, whopping bestseller and I will be able to do things like accumulate six wives
and even stab one of them if I want.”
And I will never forget her measured, thoughtful reply: “Who the hell is Mormon
Nailer?”
But with Mailer now six feet under, I need to find new, more alive literary giants to
assault at launch parties. The funny thing is that none come immediately to mind.
This is not because I feel any strong sense of unity with my fellow scribbling
brethren. Frankly, I’d be the first to rejoice if every other writer in the world but me
died horribly in a horrific nuclear explosion. It’s just that there aren’t really any
literary giants left in our culture anymore. Western Civilisation has given up
producing literary giants and replaced them with celebrities who do things like eat
worms topless on TV.
Generally, this is a good thing. I personally would much rather see Lindsay Lohan
eat worms topless than watch Norman Mailer write with his shirt off. But without
anyone decent to hit, my career is increasingly like a three-wheeled jalopy stuck in
first gear, with a blown exhaust and a radio that was stolen by a gang of writers
with really sharp-nibbed pens they were given by their evil, rich, famous, literary
dynasty parents who… Well, you get the idea.
The only hope I have is to attack some of the newer literary stars, who (as luck
would have it) also happen to be celebrities who do things like eat worms topless on
TV. Madonna and Jordan are, of course, now celebrated novelists. And Coleen
McLoughlin, the girlfriend of footballer Wayne Rooney, is reportedly set to sign a five-
novel book deal worth something in the region of the US military budget.
The trouble is – and I really must stress that this is a huge problem – Coleen’s face
is just way too adorable to punch. Mailer had a Jake La Motta nose, flattened across
his cheeks, as if he’d been routinely beaten by frustrated young ink-slayers every
night for the past fifty years. By contrast, Coleen has a cute, pixie nose that flares
upwards at the sides when she giggles. Call me uncommitted, but I’m just not willing
to biff it for the sake of my art.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
ALSO SEE
Lizard Bites: Ten Writers I'd like to punch A S H Smyth
And...
similarly self-adoring contemporaries (like Susan “Sontag” Suntan and Henry
Wadsworth Longbeardedfellow). He also embodied certain playful characteristics
typical of writers of his generation that some of his closest friends liked to call
“outstandingly psychotic”. For example, Mailer was married at least six times. (It
doesn’t get much more outstandingly psychotic than that!) Also, he stabbed his
second wife with a kitchen knife (though, in his defence, his record was considerably
cleaner than Henry VIII who beheaded at least two of his six wives, including his six-
digited second wife, Anne Boleynboleynboleyn-Boleynboleynboleyn-
Boleynboleynboleyn-Rawhide!).
But the crowning achievement of Mailer’s literary odyssey was the infamous moment
he headbutted Gore Vidal, something anyone who has ever heard of, seen, met or
read Gore Vidal longs to re-enact. Vidal had suggested Mailer was a violent man, and
Mailer wanted to set him straight. Ultimately, Mailer’s fury was forgivable. The truth
is that nobody in the entire world (except maybe the chief book critic of the New
York Times) has ever read an actual book by Norman Mailer. The last known
published work of Mailer’s was called The Naked and the Even Nakeder which first
appeared on Amazon in the early 1840s. Since then, Mailer has only stayed in the
literary spotlight thanks to a series of violent physical acts inspired by David
Duchovny’s character in the hit TV series Californication.
And that’s where I come in. About ten years ago now, when I first learnt how to put
pen to paper and then announced to the world in a booming, drunken voice that I
was going to be a famous writer with a herd of bikinied coed groupies who hang out
all day in my hot tub, I was asked a serious question by a brilliant and beautiful
novelist I used to know. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
A few years later she asked me another question. This time she wanted to know
how many more months of abject failure I was willing to tolerate before I threw in
the towel and embarked on a flourishing career in data entry. I smiled delightfully
and told her not to worry; I had a cunning plan hidden up the sleeve of my holey,
chewed-upon jumper. “If my dream of being a literary giant starts to stall,” I said, “I
will seek out Norman Mailer at some literary do, lull him into a false sense of security,
then bonk him on the nasal banger in full view of the literati. I figure – given how
Mailer is old and crippled and everything – that this small act of abuse will guarantee
me so much media coverage I will be a household name by the time I get out of jail
and the publishing houses will literally be queuing up to sign me to a ten book deal,
beginning with my magnum opus, Why I Just Had to Punch an Old and Defenceless
Norman Mailer in the Beezer. This confessional memoir will, of course, be a major,
massive, whopping bestseller and I will be able to do things like accumulate six wives
and even stab one of them if I want.”
And I will never forget her measured, thoughtful reply: “Who the hell is Mormon
Nailer?”
But with Mailer now six feet under, I need to find new, more alive literary giants to
assault at launch parties. The funny thing is that none come immediately to mind.
This is not because I feel any strong sense of unity with my fellow scribbling
brethren. Frankly, I’d be the first to rejoice if every other writer in the world but me
died horribly in a horrific nuclear explosion. It’s just that there aren’t really any
literary giants left in our culture anymore. Western Civilisation has given up
producing literary giants and replaced them with celebrities who do things like eat
worms topless on TV.
Generally, this is a good thing. I personally would much rather see Lindsay Lohan
eat worms topless than watch Norman Mailer write with his shirt off. But without
anyone decent to hit, my career is increasingly like a three-wheeled jalopy stuck in
first gear, with a blown exhaust and a radio that was stolen by a gang of writers
with really sharp-nibbed pens they were given by their evil, rich, famous, literary
dynasty parents who… Well, you get the idea.
The only hope I have is to attack some of the newer literary stars, who (as luck
would have it) also happen to be celebrities who do things like eat worms topless on
TV. Madonna and Jordan are, of course, now celebrated novelists. And Coleen
McLoughlin, the girlfriend of footballer Wayne Rooney, is reportedly set to sign a five-
novel book deal worth something in the region of the US military budget.
The trouble is – and I really must stress that this is a huge problem – Coleen’s face
is just way too adorable to punch. Mailer had a Jake La Motta nose, flattened across
his cheeks, as if he’d been routinely beaten by frustrated young ink-slayers every
night for the past fifty years. By contrast, Coleen has a cute, pixie nose that flares
upwards at the sides when she giggles. Call me uncommitted, but I’m just not willing
to biff it for the sake of my art.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
ALSO SEE
Lizard Bites: Ten Writers I'd like to punch A S H Smyth
And...
|
by Dominic Hilton
Monday, November 12, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
| home articles blog letters retractions vacancies competitions about us contact _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |