Testosterone galore. A group of guys in the Pacific, each more lost and alone. This first novel by Mailer is a tribute to a broken American society. From each character, we see their flaws, their thoughts, and the way they deal with the physical and mental wear and tear of being in the field.

It is a lulling prose. The narrative evolves gradually, neither tedious (which is praiseworthy considering the more than 700 pages of the novel) nor hasty. It knows how to hold back, teaches what interests it, and the rest is up to the reader. However, I really like the way it manages to travel back in time through the characters' pasts. A flashback device that helps us better understand the reasons for certain behaviors.

Perhaps that is what gives the work its greatest value. That exploration of everyday life to create protagonists of various social natures who have nothing in common with each other but are part of the same army and fight reluctantly for their country. A fine critique in which few manage to avoid falling badly due to that alpha male virility. No one wants to go beyond the routine hustle and bustle because they are afraid of getting attached and getting to know the people with whom they share so many miseries.

Mailer's very personal style, which shows us his own perspective on what those liberation tasks in the Pacific islands meant and which will mark the beginning of his subsequent works.

“The Naked and the Dead” is one of the best American novels about the war in the Pacific. The author, Norman Mailer, strongly drew on his experiences as a simple soldier in the Philippines campaign to create an extraordinary verisimilitude in this work. The plot unfolds on a Pacific island that strangely resembles Okinawa.

A major part of this novel is dedicated to a reconnaissance mission behind Japanese lines that ends in a fiasco. However, the members of the mission chosen by the author represent all the strata of American society at that time, which allows the author to give a very accurate portrait of the differences in viewpoints of these groups.

The other major part of the novel puts the leadership and strategies of the military chiefs under the microscope. In the end, despite the mistakes and hesitations of its officers, the American forces achieve a crushing victory because the naval blockade has worked well. When the army finally decides to attack, the adversary is too weakened by hunger to defend itself and collapses rapidly.

I highly recommend this novel to the French who are interested in World War II but want to know the atmosphere of the war in the Pacific.

DNF at 49%, 353 pages.

I'm really bored right now. The progress of reading this book is so slow that I'm on the verge of giving up in total frustration.

To be honest, it's not a bad book per se. The story has its merits and the writing is decent. However, it would take me an incredibly long time to finish it, and that's something I just can't bear.

I have other things to do with my time, and spending countless hours on a single book that's not captivating enough is not something I'm willing to do.

Maybe I'll come back to it at some point in the future when I have more patience and time on my hands. But for now, I'm calling it quits.

Eine erzähltechnische Bankrotterklärung,

die nur einem vollkommen unerfahrenen Autor mit den allerbesten Absichten gelingen kann. Beim Verhältnis des Umfangs dieses Wälzers im Vergleich zum Handlungsgehalt, ist man als Leser so übel dran wie jemand, der einen Doppelpack Knäckebrot unter Zuhilfenahme von vier oder fünf Schnapsgläschen Wasser vertilgen soll.

Immerhin enthält jede Packung acht oder neun unterschiedliche Sorten, so dass wenigstens für ein bisschen Abwechslung gesorgt ist. Auch wenn die Rückblenden auf die Vorgeschichte der Hauptpersonen gelegentlich Abwechslung bieten, ist der Handlungsanteil so absolut minimal, dass man sagen könnte, Norman Mailer bekämpft den Krieg mit Langeweile, quält aber nur die Leser.

Bei Kenntnis der Vorgeschichte erklären sich so gut wie sämtliche Mängel dieses Buches. Der junge Norman Mailer wollte beim nächsten Anlauf den ganz großen Kriegsroman schreiben, basierend auf seiner eigenen Kampferfahrung. Trotzdem ließ er sich als gewöhnlicher Schütze einziehen, obwohl ihm der Staabsdienst offen gestanden hätte.

Aber bis der Rekrut Mailer geschliffen war, gab es kaum noch nennenswerte Schlachten im Pazifik zu schlagen. Mailer wurde beim Auswerten von Patrouillenberichten und Luftbildern verwickelt und nur selten unter Feuer geraten.

In die Nackten und die Toten findet sich davon übrigens kein Wort von selbst erlebten Schusswechseln. Grundlage für die Handlung ist eine Dschungel-Patrouille mit einem Texanischen Kommando, das den untrainierten Neuzugang eher als Belastung empfunden haben soll.

Während dieser Dschungelpatrouille kam Mailer nicht nur körperlich an seine Grenzen, sondern fand auch sein Personal. Zumal seine neuen Kameraden unmittelbar zuvor eine Exkursion hinter sich hatten, die für die letzte Patrouille Modell stand, die das letzte Drittel des Romans ausmacht.

Da Norman Mailer bei der Niederschrift seinem Konzept so weit treu blieb und überwiegend aus eigenen Erfahrungen schöpfte, erklärt neben der unverhältnismäßigen Handlungsarmut auch die durch nichts gerechtfertigte Länge.

Mailer schickt nicht nur 14 Leute auf Patrouille, sondern protokolliert von jedem jedes Wehwechen und überspringt dafür den Tod des Leutnant Hearn. Obwohl man die Erfahrungen der Truppe in etwa nachempfinden kann, ist es schon ein starkes Stück, diese Erfahrungen über 250 Seiten mittels acht Charakteren auszuwalzen, die nicht mal in einen ordentlichen Konflikt geraten.

Über das Hornissennest, in das Anführer Croft hineintappt, haben sich schon andere ausführlich geärgert. Außerdem, die Frage, ob der Roman erscheint, nachdem der negativ eingestellte Cheflektor ausgetrickst war, drehte sich vor allem um das Wort Fuck.

Dass Norman Mailer Romancier werden wollte, ist trotz einiger tausend entsprechend kategorisierter Seiten ein großes Missverständnis. Dass die Nackten und die Toten ein großer Erfolg wurden, lag an einem neuartigen Marketing und einer gewissen Antikriegsstimmung um 1947.

Mit seiner Beobachtungsgabe und seiner Formulierungskunst hat Mailer später einige großartige aktive Augenzeugenberichte geschrieben. Einem 24jährigen Autor kann man so einiges nachsehen, sogar diesen erzähltechnischen Gänsemarsch oder eine Struktur, die unter dem Übergewicht von 700 Seiten zusammenbrechen muss.

Der dicke ägyptische Wiedergeburtsziegel Frühe Nächte von 1982 sollte die vier Leben schildern, doch das erste dauert über 600 von 800 Seiten, und der Rest ist lieblos runtergehaspelt. Sein 1600 Seiten dickes Epos der Geheimen Mächte hat auch nie ein Ende gefunden, enthält aber herrliche Angeberprosa.

Hatte die Nackten und die Toten ja als Vergleichsgröße zu Catch 22 begonnen, das sich als Parodie auf die Nackten gar nicht mehr so schlecht ausnimmt, obwohl die Handlungsarmut und der Wiederholungszwang von Heller schon bis zur Weißglut gereizt haben.

This article offers a great read that truly contrasts the experience of navigating life within the officer's hierarchy and that of surviving in the jungle with the GIs.

It also delves into how they handled the surrendering Japanese, which reveals the reason behind the relatively small number of prisoners taken.

I found it so engaging that I could easily read it again. Moreover, it neatly fits into the time period just after 'From Here to Eternity' by James Jones.

An interesting aspect is the use of the word "Fug" for cursing. Interestingly, just a few months after publication, it became acceptable to use the real F word, which had Mailer cursing!

However, it's important to note that the 1958 movie adaptation of this work is horrible. It fails to capture the essence and depth of the original story, leaving much to be desired.

What if I told you that one of the greatest war novels ever written doesn't actually talk about war? That Norman Mailer created something so brutally ambitious that, at its best, it borders on perfection, yet at the same time feels like the work of a young novelist still sharpening his blade? And what if I told you that this book not only wants to show war but rip it apart, strip it of its skin and show us what lies beneath?

On the surface, "The Naked and the Dead" is a novel about a group of American soldiers who participate in the invasion of a Pacific island during World War II. They must drive the Japanese off the island to facilitate the operation to reconquer the Philippines. The novel focuses on a platoon led by Lieutenant Hearn, who is sent to the other side of the mountain that dominates the island on a reconnaissance mission. This mission, orchestrated by General Cummings, becomes a metaphor for war itself: a senseless enterprise where men become expendable pieces in a much larger power game than themselves.

Hearn's platoon seems straight out of a Hollywood World War II movie: the Jew, the Mexican-American, the Southerner, the cruel sergeant, the Irish Catholic, the Pole, the Italian-American... All the possible clichés, right? But what Mailer does with these characters is not just play with those stereotypes. He uses them to show us how war overrides any cultural or racial difference. What really matters here are not the origins but that all, regardless of who they are, are victims of a system that sees them as cannon fodder. Here, the platoon is not just a group of men fighting in a war; they are types trapped in a mechanism that dehumanizes them, reduces them to nothing more than soldiers, and in the process, erases even their identity.

Because if you expect heroism and glory, Mailer will smash the reality in your face. Here there are no great deeds or epic speeches: there are soldiers trapped in a hostile jungle, suffering, hating each other, fighting more against moral decay than against the Japanese enemy. Because this is a war book that, at its core, is a book about power, about how men tear each other apart in the name of something they don't even understand.

Robert Hearn is an ordinary man trapped in the same power networks as everyone else. He would be the prototype of the white liberal, the son-in-law any mother would sigh for. He doesn't have the idealistic ardor of a charismatic leader, but he does have a burden of morality that makes him feel responsible for his men. In many ways, Hearn is the reflection of a world that doesn't understand why war still exists but that, despite everything, has to deal with it. He, like the others, is not clear about the ultimate meaning of the mission, which makes him a lost man, overburdened by responsibility and, at the same time, unable to escape the war machine. This indecision and internal struggle in Hearn is not just a matter of character; it reflects how Mailer tries to show that even the most sensible leaders can be dragged into the horrors of war. He is a man caught between his own sense of duty and the lack of purpose of the mission itself.

And while Hearn struggles with his morality, Sergeant Croft embodies the opposite: he is the pure war animal, the type who enjoys subjugating others. "Why is Croft like that? Well, there are reasons. It's like that because of the corruption of society. It's like that because the devil has claimed him for himself. It's like that because he was born in Texas. It's like that because he has renounced God. He is that kind of man because the only woman he loved cheated on him, or because he was born that way, or because he has problems integrating socially. Croft's father, Jesse Croft, used to say: 'That's how it is, Sam is a bastard. I guess that's how they were born.'" If there is anyone who really feels comfortable in this hell, it is him. And between the two of them are the enlisted soldiers, trying to hold on to what is left of their humanity in a world that reduces them to cannon fodder.

And then there is General Cummings, of course. Cummings not only sees war as a machine but understands it as a stage where the humanity of his pieces doesn't matter. For him, the soldiers are not individuals but expendable pieces on his chessboard, an approach that dehumanizes even his subordinates, like Hearn. Cummings is the embodiment of a cold and ruthless ideology. But is he a realistic character? Here Mailer takes liberties. Cummings is not so much a flesh-and-blood general as a thesis on legs: absolute power begets monsters. His extreme intellectualism and his rationalized sadism make him an almost theatrical villain, more a concept than a military figure with true credibility. He is brilliant in his role, but perhaps less human than the novel suggests at its best.

Mailer's prose in this novel is like a slow punch: it doesn't knock you out immediately, but you feel the impact gradually sinking in. It doesn't have the lyricism of Faulkner or the precision of Hemingway, but it has something just as powerful: a contained rage, a roughness that turns each page into a trench. "Deep in the forest it was always as dark as the sky before a summer storm, and hardly any air moved. Everything was wet, excessive, and hot, as if the jungle were an enormous collection of sticky rags that heated up more and more under the gloomy and suffocating vaults of a factory building. The heat stuck to everything and the foliage, in reaction, grew to prodigious sizes. In those depths, in that heat and humidity, there was never silence. The birds chirped, small animals and snakes slithered and screeched, and beneath it all there was an almost palpable stillness, in which the murmur of the vegetation lost in its growth could be distinguished."

The structure alternates between the action on the island and flashbacks, short chapters that the author calls "the time machine", which plunge us into the past lives of the soldiers. Mailer leaves nothing in the shadows. If he has any point of view he wants to show, he will do it. And he will repeat it. And he will hammer it home with the subtlety of a hand grenade. If the horror of war had to hit us in the face, Mailer made sure the blow was triple. This is not Hemingway, where what is not said weighs as much as what is said. Here everything is dissected, analyzed, exposed without reserve. Does it work? Yes. Does it tire? At times, also. It's as if Mailer, at 25 years old and with a fierce rage to say it all, didn't trust that the reader would get the idea if he didn't hit them over the head with it several times.

So, what is the great message of "The Naked and the Dead"? Mailer rails against war, against power, against human corruption... but he never quite seems to nail down his main target. It's not a treatise on the vileness of the high command, although Cummings is a ruthless monster. It's not just a novel about the brutality of soldiers, although every page reeks of sweat and desperation. It's as if Mailer had wanted to cover everything without settling on a definitive core. The result? A staggering war mosaic but without a single manifesto, as if war itself didn't allow for a closed conclusion.

But this is not "All Quiet on the Western Front", where war destroys men but still leaves room for camaraderie and fleeting tenderness. Mailer doesn't grant that mercy. Here war is an unredemptive slaughterhouse. The realism is astonishing but also frigid. There is not a glimmer of comfort, nor a look of compassion that gives us a break. Mailer wants us to feel the mud, the blood, the infernal tedium of waiting and the senseless cruelty. He succeeds. But perhaps, by depriving us of any shred of humanity, he also leaves us without something that, at the core, makes war matter to us.

You know what really impacted me the most about the novel? A detail, just a detail. Look, imagine this. You've spent hundreds of pages inside the skin of one of the characters, following him, understanding him, empathizing with him. You feel him as the center of the story, the guy who guides us in this chaos. And suddenly, in a single line, he disappears. A bullet: bang! There is no epic, no farewell, just a dry sentence and the novel goes on. At first you think: Seriously? That easy? But then you realize that it's precisely that which makes it devastating. Because that's how war is. It doesn't wait. It doesn't grant heroic endings. It just advances, indifferent. And there Mailer hits you with an irrefutable truth: no one is indispensable. Neither in fiction nor on the battlefield. Simply... brutal.

Mailer was 25 years old when he wrote this novel. 25. At that age, some are just finishing college; he was writing one of the most important war novels of the 20th century. It's not perfect, it's not subtle, but it's devastatingly honest. And if you ever want to understand what war really means - not the one in history books but the one lived in the trenches - this is the book you should read. Because after these pages, you too will have walked on that Pacific island, naked and dead at the same time.

Libro eccelso. Sporco. Lascia il segno.

This is a remarkable book. It is not only excellent in its content but also has a certain roughness that leaves a deep mark.

Norman Mailer, a renowned author, has never repeated himself at this level. His works are always unique and full of innovation.

Perhaps it is truly impossible to achieve such a high level again. Each of his creations is a masterpiece, showing his extraordinary talent and profound thinking.

This book is no exception. It has its own charm and value, attracting countless readers and critics.

Whether it is the vivid description of the characters or the profound exploration of the theme, it is all impressive.

It is a book that is worth reading and savoring carefully.

Executioner's Song was truly one of the outstanding books I've perused in the past year. It was so remarkable that I didn't feel capable of reviewing it immediately. Naturally, this led to my high expectations for The Naked and the Dead. The front-cover blurb from the SF Chronicle, which speculates that this novel is "perhaps the best book to come out of any war," really heightened my anticipation and piqued my interest.

However, after reading only a little over a hundred pages, in my humble opinion, The Naked and the Dead is not bad, but it doesn't surpass War and Peace or The Iliad. It's not even a true classic, although it is a good read. This book was probably much more crucial before the abundance of war movies we have today. You can observe all the typical war movie clichés already present, even though there isn't a black character (as the troops weren't yet integrated, and Jews and Hispanics are the minority characters here). I must admit that I don't think it has aged particularly well. You can clearly understand why it was a bestseller at the time, and you can also tell that Mailer was in his early twenties when he wrote this, his first novel.

It's a well-narrated story and quite interesting, but it's a hefty 700 pages long. If it were 300 pages or if I had more of a personal connection or didn't have other reading options, I might continue. But at the moment, I need to overcome my post-Proustum depression with something that truly makes my toes curl with excitement, and this isn't it.

Perhaps another time? It is, indeed, a fun read. One of the things I find most enjoyable is how all the characters constantly say "fug," as in "fug you, motherfugger!" Even though it does feel dated, that's not always a negative aspect.

One of my favorite books is truly a captivating piece of literature.

As I turn the pages, I can almost feel the characters thinking and experiencing their emotions.

The author has done an excellent job of bringing them to life in a vivid and engaging way.

Each character has their own unique personality and motives, which makes the story all the more interesting.

The plot is filled with twists and turns that keep me on the edge of my seat, eager to find out what will happen next.

Whether it's a thrilling adventure or a heartwarming romance, this book has something for everyone.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great read that will transport them to another world and make them feel like they are a part of the story.

Life has a profound impact on the art department.

During World War II, Mailer left Harvard University to join the Army. His motivation was simple yet ambitious: "to be able to write the great World War II novel."

And he achieved far more than he could have ever imagined. In 1948, when Mailer was only 25 years old, "THE NAKED AND THE DEAD" was published. It turned out to be a masterpiece and, up until that time, one of the best-selling fiction works in the history of U.S. publishing.

The novel delves deep into the theme of fascism within the U.S. Army and, by extension, in America as a whole. Fascism emerges when the sense of futility collides with reality. This makes "NAKED AND THE DEAD" particularly relevant and timely even today.

It serves as a powerful reminder of the complex and often disturbing forces that can exist within a society, and how art can capture and explore these themes in a way that engages and enlightens readers.

The whole time I'm reading this, I couldn't stop thinking that Mailer was only 26 when he wrote this.

Despite his relatively young age, he was able to describe the inner workings of so many different kinds of characters with such intricacy.

He had those thought patterns, which are a common part of being human, effectively personalized and intellectualized for each individual.

This is truly amazing writing, regardless of the age or life experience of the reader.

His books demand time and effort, but the payoff is always well worth it.

I have a few more of his works on my reading list, and I'm looking forward to delving into them and uncovering more of his literary genius.

It's clear that Mailer was a remarkable writer, and his ability to bring characters to life and explore their inner worlds is a testament to his talent and creativity.

I can't wait to see what else he has in store for readers.

Thoughts: The term "gawdawful" comes to mind when reflecting on this work.

Story recap: There are men on boats. They get off the boats and unfortunately, one man dies. A few Japanese soldiers are also killed in the process. Then, an American soldier meets his end, and so does a Japanese soldier. The men carry a wounded man back. Meanwhile, the soldiers attempt to climb a mountain.

Amidst all this, the men engage in conversation and experience various emotions.

A better title than "Naked and the Dead" might be "The Househusbands of the South Pacific".

Mailer's point seems to be nihilism.

The only redeeming factor is that I have read other Mailer works that were truly excellent. If I had read this one first, I would have never bothered to read anything else by him.