It has been an incredibly long time since a book has held my attention and gripped me with such intensity as Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. This book is truly a door stopper, not the kind that one can breeze through effortlessly. However, despite its heft, I managed to finish it within just a few days. That’s how good it is.

In modern terms, this is not a book that is overly violent or sexy. There are, of course, battles and death, but they are presented in a stark and brutally honest way, as moments of terror that induce stark and fearful panic. The use of expletives, like the “F bomb,” is so carefully coded that the author was once ridiculed as someone who didn’t know how to spell it. This book is not for the very young, but it might be just the right dose of reality for teens who only know about war through the likes of Chuck Norris movies and the countless super soldier as hero type books.

Written in 1948, it is Mailer’s first novel and it catapulted him into literary stardom. He had served in the Army, although he didn’t see much, if any, actual fighting. Nevertheless, he clearly got to know the GIs well. He was a student at the Sorbonne and claims to have been greatly inspired by Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Perhaps, but his Time Machine chapters, which provide the prewar backstory on most of the book’s characters, seem to have been styled after the USA Trilogy by Dos Passos. Another person has suggested that Mailer’s book should be compared with James Jones’ The Thin Red Line. This is a valid comparison, and it’s a matter of personal judgment as to which one is the better.

Whatever the inspirations and the other War in the Pacific books, I truly liked The Naked and the Dead. I’m not as positive about the title, which I think was part of the reason why I had not read it before.

The plot makes this one of many WWII Company level books. We are presented with the Army as America’s melting pot, and soldiers going away from home to fight the good war against the bad people. Only that’s hardly enough or entirely correct. By page one, we learn that the Intelligence and Reconnaissance company, which will be the core of the book, are about to make their second island invasion, and these men do not want to “do it.” None of these men are fresh-faced boys with mom and patriotism at the forefront of their minds. The soldiers are sons of the depression and have experienced a rough life, developing animal survival skills even before Boot Camp. They are worried about unfaithful wives, never seeing their newborns, and simply living to see something other than a wet and dangerous enemy-invested jungle.

We meet a few officers, including two over-promoted ex-enlisted men, a hopelessly idealistic but detached college boy lieutenant, and a brilliant, though perhaps not that brilliant, general officer with a secret of his own.

Mostly, the men don’t really care why they are at war or why wars exist. They are more concerned about the company pecking order, getting a full night’s sleep, and staying alive. The General has a fancy notion about why there are wars. This is as close as we come to Tolstoy. We can almost believe Tolstoy’s slightly romantic, mystic explanation, but even though the General’s version is almost the same formula, it rings false. Whatever else war is, or why it is, it is arbitrary and sudden. Except for when it is wet, lonely, and boring.

Because this book is about the men at the front, there are no major female characters. We do meet many of them as they are crucial to the prewar story of these men. Most are as victimized by their poverty and lack of education as their men. All expect marriage to be a way to stability and, if lucky, some protection. These same women expect to work and for life to be hard. These are not weak women, and several are better people than their men. There is no way to cast The Naked and the Dead as a feminist novel. Neither is it dismissive or disrespectful toward women. Some of the men are, but our narrator is not.

The claim that this is the best World War II novel is mostly advertising hype. In 1948, it was likely to have been the first great American War novel, and it should be shortlisted for the top spot. If this is what Norman Mailer could do in his first novel, I am definitely going to have to seek out the works of a more mature Norman Mailer.

I can't recall precisely how many years ago it was that I endeavored to read this. It was probably 30 years or more ago. I remember hearing that it was the finest story about war ever penned. And being as impressionable as I was at that tender age, I made up my mind that I simply had to read it.

My sole recollection is that right from the very beginning, there was a scene of such harrowing death and destruction that it made me feel physically queasy. Being the coward that I was (and perhaps still am), I abandoned the attempt to plow through this hefty tome without hesitation.

I noticed an outstanding review from a Goodreads friend, and it jogged my memory about this unfinished task. By that, I mean the task of my failure to complete the book, not the task of documenting my failure to do so. So now I find myself asking myself whether I possess the courage to give it another shot.

At present, I have no answer to that question. Maybe I will have an answer in another 30 years.

This was the book that truly initiated my highlighting habit.

It had a profound and visceral impact on me. The characters were outstanding, each with their own unique charm and depth. The pacing was excellent, keeping me engaged from start to finish. The exploration of the characters' psychologies was equally cool, delving into the complex and often hidden aspects of the human mind. I highly recommend reading it.

Hearn, in particular, was a huge inspiration. I firmly believe that he is my favorite character among all the books I have ever read. His words and actions left a lasting impression on me.

The quotes from the book are equally thought-provoking. For example, "The average man always sees himself in relation to other men as either inferior or superior. Women play no part in it. They're an index, a yardstick among other gauges, by which to measure superiority." This was the very first thing I ever highlighted in a book of my own accord.

Another quote that stood out to me was, "When we come kicking into the world, we are God, the universe is the limit of our senses. And when we get older, when we discover that the universe is not us, it's the deepest trauma of our existence." These words truly capture the essence of our human experience and the journey of self-discovery.

Overall, this book is a masterpiece that I will cherish for a long time. It has not only entertained me but also made me think deeply about life, love, and the human condition. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking and engaging read.

The Naked and the Dead is one of the remarkable war novels emerging from World War II. Norman Mailer, who initially studied aeronautical engineering at Harvard, developed a passion for writing and had his first story published at the young age of 18. After graduating from college in 1943, he was drafted and served in the Pacific with the United States Army. This experience provided him with the knowledge and insights necessary to vividly depict soldiers in combat.

When Mailer was 25, The Naked and the Dead was published and it immediately achieved great success, spending an astonishing 62 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List. This book not only established Mailer's reputation as a novelist but also set the stage for a long line of best-selling war novels by other war veterans such as James Jones, Leon Uris, and Herman Wouk.

Mailer went on to become a highly famous, albeit controversial, American author. He published over 30 books before his passing at the age of 84 in 2007, and received two Pulitzer Prizes. He even ran for mayor of New York City once, with the campaign slogan "No More Bull Shit."

The story of The Naked and the Dead is set during the Army's invasion of a fictional Pacific Island. It is filled with military terminology and methodology, but the focus is more on the psychological development of the main characters as they interact in the intense and challenging situation. Mailer, regarded as an early advocate of narrative fiction, presents a diverse cast of characters, each with their own flaws and struggles.

As the story unfolds, Mailer intersperses flashback-style personal histories of the main characters. The common denominator among all the characters is that none of them emerge from the war any better than they were before. This supports Mailer's central thesis that war is not only hell but also a form of psychosis.

The characters in the recon platoon include Minetta, the malingerer; Red, the pre-war drifter; Wilson, the philanderer; and Roth, the Jew who faces discrimination. The enlisted men hate their officers, and the officers have their own conflicts. Even the Division General, Cummings, is paranoid about his career being stalled by mistakes.

Lt. Hearn is considered the central character. He starts as General Cummings' aide but is reassigned to the recon platoon when he can no longer tolerate the General's fascist views. The platoon's mission to travel behind enemy lines and restart the stalled invasion becomes the heart of the book.

Sgt. Croft is an essential character in the book. His flaw is that he is a psychopath. He is a highly motivated and brave leader, but he leads by fear and enjoys killing. His presence adds an element of danger and instability to the story.

The Picador 50th Anniversary Edition includes an introduction by Norman Mailer. He describes the book as a good effort by an amateur, albeit a passionate and hard-working one. He admits to some flaws in his writing style but also acknowledges the book's immediacy and the engaging story that kept readers hooked. Overall, The Naked and the Dead is a powerful and thought-provoking war novel that continues to be relevant today.

Tough book to review.

Good at times, it fully captures the soldiers’ mentality and experience. You get to know the men immediately, seeing them in scenes that reveal their individual characters and roles in the Army. The campaign setup grabs the reader, and the rotating focus on the platoon and the General, along with flashback scenes, is a great technique. The prose is sharp, portraying the psychology of the soldiers well.

However, through the first half, the plot moves slowly, but it builds tension. The platoon experiences the mix of waiting and action in a real campaign. But then, about halfway through, the opinion of the novel begins to change. The second half seems anti-climatic. The pace is excruciatingly slow, with pages of nothing but struggling and marching. The mission doesn't fit with the General's plans, and it takes detours.

Overall, if the first 350 - 400 pages could be rated, it would be five stars. But the second 300 - 350 pages would only get two stars. Mailer may be making the point that not all missions go as planned, and there are truths about war revealed. The novel has its merits, but the reader was hoping for a more intense climax after all the build-up. Like the Army, it seems to be all build-up and no payoff, resulting in frustration and disappointment.

Picked up towards the end, but still wasn't my cup of tea...

I wonder, if it would have been better to read this in my mother tongue...

Perhaps if I had started from the beginning, it might have held more appeal. However, even with that, it seems that this particular piece just didn't resonate with me.

The language, the style, or maybe it was the subject matter itself that didn't quite click.

As I look at the image , it doesn't really add much to my understanding or enjoyment of the text.

Maybe it's a personal preference thing, but I can't help but think that reading it in my native language might have given me a different perspective.

It makes me wonder how much of our perception of a written work is influenced by the language in which it is presented.

Nevertheless, I'll continue to explore different books and see if I can find something that truly speaks to me.

One masterpiece contains all vices.

I will write a detailed note for it and replace it with this.

This statement implies that even a seemingly outstanding work may have its flaws and hidden negative aspects.

When we analyze a masterpiece, we should not only focus on its outstanding features but also carefully examine its potential shortcomings.

By writing a detailed note, we can better understand the work and gain a more comprehensive perspective.

This process of replacement allows us to explore different interpretations and evaluations of the masterpiece, enriching our understanding and appreciation of it.

In conclusion, the idea of a masterpiece containing all vices challenges us to look beyond the surface and discover the hidden complexities within.

**"The Naked and the Dead" by Norman Mailer: A Detailed Analysis**

In "The Naked and the Dead," Mailer presents a vivid and complex portrayal of a reconnaissance team on a Pacific island during war. Instead of writing in the first person like an ordinary diarist, he uses the third person and explores the perspectives of each team member. As a reader, one wonders which among them is Norman, as it seems certain he was there. The soldiers are diverse in social, geographical, and religious backgrounds, and their profiles are highly believable. With a clever device called the "TIME MACHINE" at the end of the chapters, their lives before enlisting are revealed. One can't help but ask, behind whom did Norman hide? Behind Wilson, Red, Gallagher, or Hearn? How much of oneself is in each of them? The team dynamics are beautifully depicted, and the sense of inadequacy drives their self-hatred and aggression towards their comrades. Alongside the narrative of events, there are political and philosophical excursions entrusted to General Cummings, the expedition's commander. This is a nine-hundred-page novel without the physical presence of a woman, yet women are the most debated topic. The story can be divided into two parts: the arrival of the entire battalion on the island with the first skirmishes of war, and later the assignment of a diversionary mission to the reconnaissance team, sent to circle the front. In this mission, I seemed to glimpse Melville's whale disguised as an elephant. The description of the Anaka mountain is detailed and evocative, making it seem like a wise and powerful being. In some passages, I relived the pleasure of reading Updike, as the description of the states of mind and associated behaviors was so detailed. The end of the mission, despite being tragic, is a liberation from the fears of each team member. The exhausted soldiers, after eight hundred and fifty pages of suffering, let their carefully hidden weaknesses reveal their true nature and take over. If anyone wants to understand what war is, how little value each human life has, and how pain and joy are the two sides of a coin that we all wear around our necks, they should read this book.
Mailer was a writer with ambitious and passionate goals. He belonged to the kind of novelists who consider "being a man more important than being a good writer," with Hemingway as his model. He started writing "The Naked and the Dead" at twenty-three and completed it fifteen months later, already having over two hundred and fifty thousand words written in college. He was a dilettante who worked hard, loved writing, and felt ready, as a twenty-four-year-old could be, to offer his pen to the cause of literature. He wanted to change the "nerve and marrow" of his nation and the "consciousness" of his time by writing the "Big Book," the great American novel. He was influenced by Tolstoy during the fifteen months it took him to write the novel, reading some pages of "Anna Karenina" every morning. His pages reflect what he learned from Tolstoy about compassion, albeit with the limitations of a twenty-four-year-old. After serving as a cook in the occupation forces in Japan for a few months, he was discharged and upon returning to the United States, he threw himself headfirst into writing a fictional account of his war experience. For the plot, he was inspired by a real event, a particularly difficult reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines. Mailer did not participate in it as he joined the unit only later, but he learned about the events from the accounts of the survivors. "The Naked and the Dead" gave him fame and was the only book with which he truly approached the goal of the "Big Book."

An incredible read. This is probably the fastest I’ve ever read a 700-page book, and most likely the only time I’ve felt that not a single word of it was wasted. True, it’s dated, and again, true, many if not all of the characters exist on the unlikable side of realistic depictions. But for me, it all added up to a grand epic of the Pacific theatre in World War 2. It is made much more profound by how much of it is trivialized by both the day-to-day drudgeries of military life. The idealism is left for the cynics to tear apart or used as propaganda for posters. The turns of the story also contribute to its depth. Many characters are introduced, and just as many are killed off. Some events and people are detailed, while others aren’t. But it all holds together more or less seamlessly. With this book, Mailer has created one of the most profound, humbling, and bleak images of warfare since “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Give it a chance (and a lot of time), and you won’t be disappointed.

This is the novel that catapulted Norman Mailer to literary stardom. It was published in 1948, when he was a mere twenty-five years old.

In that regard, it is an incredibly impressive accomplishment. It is a large, sprawling novel with a great deal happening and an edgy frankness about the harsh realities of war, released when the trauma was still raw.

Set in a fictional campaign in the Pacific Theater, the novel centers on a reconnaissance platoon dispatched on a poorly conceived mission that culminates in disaster. We come to know a dozen or so characters, ranging from the general in charge of the campaign to the lowliest privates in the platoon, with flashbacks detailing their lives prior to the war.

Thus, it is an ambitious, large-scale project that depicts what befell a cross-section of American men as the Depression thrust them into the calamity of war.

In some places, it is a bit self-consciously literary; one can observe the young writer flexing his literary muscles. Most of it, however, is quite effective; the account of the progressive physical and mental deterioration of the platoon on its fateful mission is harrowing.

For military history enthusiasts, the completely fabricated campaign (to take "Anopopei") is somewhat unsatisfying; we would prefer a stronger connection to reality. One wonders how much of it was drawn from Mailer's own experience and how much he simply fabricated.

But all in all, it is an engrossing account of the war in the Pacific and its impact on the men who fought it.

My feelings about this book are very complex.

It took me a long time to read it. Sometimes I would take breaks and switch to other books or read short stories. It was impossible for me to read it continuously.

I have read many books about World War II, mainly focusing on Europe. So, the Pacific front was relatively unfamiliar to me. In this regard, this book is especially valuable. Because it was written by an American author who came from the front line - and although it was not published immediately after the war - the fact that he debunked the image of the United States as the "country that brings peace to the world" that American culture and cinema have been trying to create, puts this book in a special place.

Normally, in the fictional stories and accounts of World War II that you read - even in "Life and Destiny" and "There Are No Women on the Battlefield", which are very special to me - you will definitely come across some heroic accounts. But in this book, you see the darkest side of the front. Through the experiences of a military unit on an island in the Pacific,

while telling the inner turmoil, the survival instincts, the longings and the fears of the soldiers who are the heroes of the stories, it actually shows that there is not much room for a "heroic" desire among them. It describes in an incredible realism how, in the middle of this dilemma, day by day, physically and mentally - of course, if they survive - they are dragged into a kind of destruction.

This is what consumed me; I don't think I have read a book that made me feel so tired, exhausted, collapsed and helpless. Although you read the book in the comfort of your home, it has a disturbing language and reality that makes you feel as if you are in that bunker, submerged in fear, emptiness and filth.

When this narrative and the description of how the army operates, such as sending soldiers to a seemingly insignificant island to die, the mental games played in the hierarchical relationships, or the fact that even a general does not feel safe himself and thinks that intrigues are being plotted against him even after a rain that meteorology did not predict, are combined,

you can well understand why it was not allowed to be published for a while and why it has maintained its relevance over time; it is a very powerful anti-war novel that best describes the Pacific front.

However, as I said at the beginning, this impressive language also becomes a handicap of the book and reading it becomes a very tiring and suffocating process that you have to take frequent breaks. Of course, I know it's ridiculous to expect a book about war to make you feel good, but I didn't expect it to be so psychologically exhausting. So I think you should definitely read it, but I think you should read it over a period of time, giving yourself breaks to catch your breath.

By the way, there is a criticism about the Turkish edition of the book; in a book where you read about darkness, all kinds of evil, death and hardship, suddenly encountering censorship like "s...bir git" and "has..tir" is a point that makes you suddenly go out of the book and back to your living room. I wish it had remained uncensored like in other languages.

The battle on an island in the Pacific during a certain moment of World War II serves as the backdrop for Norman Mailer to dissect a group of soldiers, their fears and their longings. And what is discovered is not beautiful. Mailer shows, through his characters, a dark vision of human nature. His protagonists are mostly ill-mannered, bitter, and drunk, forced to live in a suffocating environment of a tropical jungle while developing envies, feuds, and small confrontations.

The result is at times overloaded and excessive, but it leads to a great novel. Mailer's detailed描写 of the soldiers' lives and emotions makes the readers feel as if they are right there in the middle of the chaos. The novel not only展现sthe harsh reality of war but also delves deep into the complex and often dark aspects of the human psyche. It makes us think about the true nature of humanity and how war can bring out the worst in us.

Despite its flaws, Mailer's work is a powerful and thought-provoking piece of literature that continues to be relevant today. It reminds us of the importance of understanding and empathizing with others, even in the most difficult of circumstances.