So let's all go together to build a utopian society on the moon...
This is the handbook of success!

The idea of building a utopian society on the moon is both exciting and challenging. It requires the collective efforts of all of us. We need to come up with innovative solutions to overcome the various difficulties and obstacles that we will encounter along the way.

However, with determination and perseverance, we can achieve this goal. The moon offers a unique opportunity for us to start afresh and create a society that is based on equality, justice, and sustainability.

By following the principles and guidelines in this handbook of success, we can ensure that our utopian society on the moon becomes a reality. Let's work together towards this common goal and make history!

Norm has once again demonstrated his remarkable abilities. While not all of his points regarding the US in a broader sense truly resonated with me, perhaps due to my lack of in-depth knowledge of the context, his actual approach, tone, and the way he weaves larger concepts together with smaller details is simply brilliant.

His work shows a level of sophistication and thoughtfulness that is truly impressive. He manages to bring together different elements and present them in a way that is both engaging and enlightening.

Even though some of the ideas may not have immediately clicked with me, I can still appreciate the skill and effort that went into his analysis. It makes me want to learn more about the subject matter and gain a better understanding of the complex issues he is addressing.

Overall, Norm's work is a great example of how to approach a topic with intelligence and creativity, and I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

Norman Mailer was a remarkable figure who served as a witness to the late 1960s.

His works provided a unique perspective on the social, political, and cultural upheavals of that era.

I recall reading about him in a series of articles that I believe were published in Harpers.

However, the exact date of reading is just a guess.

Mailer's writing was known for its vivid descriptions and incisive analysis.

He had a talent for capturing the essence of the times and presenting it in a way that was both engaging and thought-provoking.

His works not only reflected the events of the late 60s but also influenced the way people thought about and understood that period.

Today, his writings continue to be studied and appreciated for their historical significance and literary value.

Norman Mailer's contributions as a witness to the late 60s have left an indelible mark on American literature and culture.

Everything has an equal and an opposite reaction. This principle holds true not only in the physical world but also in the realm of literature. Some books are initially overlooked by critics, perhaps due to their unconventional style or subject matter. However, through word-of-mouth or other means, they manage to find an audience and gain popularity in the end. On the other hand, there are books that receive rave reviews and accolades from critics upon their release. But as time passes, it becomes evident that these books are entirely worthless, lacking in substance or literary merit.

The New Journalism, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, had its own set of problems. One of the worst aspects of this movement was how it devolved into the belief that the reporter mattered more than the story itself. This led to a situation where the ego of the journalist took precedence over the truth and the importance of the narrative. In the case of the book being reviewed here, this belief has disfigured the entire work, making it a disappointment and one that should be avoided.

New Journalism emerged with Mailer and other writers such as Truman Capote and Thomas Wolfe. In this form of journalism, the conventions of fiction were employed to tell a story.

Mailer's book describes the March on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mailer was present among the marchers, which included Dr. Benjamin Spock, linguist Noam Chomsky, and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

One of the techniques Mailer used was to describe the March as if he were the central protagonist. Another was to describe his actions and thoughts in the third person. As Mailer comments in the book, this "schizophrenic" approach emblematizes the madness of American policy regarding Vietnam.

Mailer describes events such as a speech he made before the March, his thoughts in the men's room before the address, the March itself, his arrest, and his thoughts while in a prison cell.

Hyper-masculinized, egotistic, and provocative, Mailer展现了他的最佳状态. The copy I am currently using is from 2000 and was published by Attic Books in London, Ontario.

This is Mailer at his absolute strongest. He is politically insightful and self-critical. His narcissism is on full blast, yet his faculties for examining himself operate at full capacity.

In 1968, at the height of the radical student movement, armies of young politically active Americans marched on the Pentagon. Their focus was to shut down the heart of the American war machine in response to the atrocities of the war in Vietnam. Mailer catalogues that march from both the inside and the outside. Using himself as a protagonist, he allows his full thoughts, including those that want to use the protest as social currency and exploit that capital for personal gain, to be laid bare on the page.

Then, he steps outside that personal narrative to deliver a more objective observation with more critical insight into the situation of American radicalism and the war in Vietnam with surgical precision. Mailer was inventing a new kind of journalism here. His ability to articulate an atmosphere from multiple perspectives is truly a rare one. It shows his unique talent and his deep understanding of the complex issues at hand.

Overall, this work of Mailer's is a powerful and important piece that offers a fascinating look into a significant moment in American history.

New Journalism was all about bringing the writer to the forefront, sharing the spotlight with the story, and doing so in the unselfconscious guise of literary style. It was about impressions rather than dry facts, non-linear context and snappy punctuation rather than strict chronology.

This makes this prime example of New Journalism (a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner) quite curious. In the first part, "History as a Novel", it's pure chronology, an intricate and often painstaking dissection of a single moment as seen by the writer from his vantage point. It's not history as an overview but the meticulous making of a small piece of history - the March in Washington DC in October 1967 as told by one of its protagonists. It's like someone describing their entire wedding day, blow by blow, seeking out all the moments that shed light on the underlying themes of the marriage it led to. This might sound off-putting, especially considering that at this point Mailer was widely regarded as a drunken ex-literary wunderkind, better known as a putative wife-killer and onto his fourth wife. He was seen as an egomaniacal and supposedly waning force as a writer. It didn't look promising.

However, this in-depth dissection is damn quotable, full of glittering pearls and more than a few humanizing clunkers, with just the right balance of knowledge and distance. He is with "the kids" but not of them. He is with the Left but sternly critical of its pompous assumptions. He is self-centered but also self-critical, highly aware of his own ridiculousness and talent in equal measure. He hovers over his third-person alter ego like a remiss guardian angel, finding multi-level slabs of motive to toss around in long Hemingway-esque sentences. Mailer, along with Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, tugged affectionately at the frayed kaftan of 1960s counterculture, coming across as both acerbic and forgiving, well aware that this was their bread and butter, but also deeply amused and sometimes even offended by its "hey man" platitudes and syllogisms.

Capote discussed the ideal of reporting without subjectivity and the first person, yet here Mailer places himself at the heart of the action but refers to himself in the third person. He revives his sagging image by mocking it, in a Falstaffian and faux-humble way. This irritates some readers but seems almost necessary for a figure as contradictory as our narrator. In "The Fight", it's a device that ensures Muhammad Ali is the star while maintaining a literary slant and avoiding the pitfalls of hagiography.

The second part, "The Novel as History", takes our narrative into the laboratory. Here we get an overview as well as liberal doses of first-hand accounts by others, and we see what was happening outside while Norman was in jail. It attempts to be even-handed, with Mailer seeking sympathy on both sides while deriding the essential corporate negation in the government's response. The abrupt change works - journalism as a doppelgänger. The heart (and hangover) had its say, and now the head comes to give a little perspective to our excitement. It would be a difficult trick to pull off in the same breath, on the same page. This way, we get the vegetables as a follow-up course.

Of course, now that we know what happened in the ensuing 12 months, another element comes into play. There's a prescience to the build-up of concepts and the hopeful air in the signing off that we now know presaged the downfall of LBJ's attempt to strong-arm the Zeitgeist and herald a cultural cataclysm. This makes the book both highly dated and yet essentially timeless in a way that straighter narratives from the time could not hope to be.

Check out the drunken Mailer on "The Firing Line" after the book's release. William F. Buckley Jr. skewers him in the introduction, and he tries to score his own points later. Then check him in 1971 on the Dick Cavett Show, embarrassingly mumbling about his "superior intellect" and getting easily slapped down by Cavett. Apparently, he even head-butted Gore Vidal that night. This all goes to show that he was a curious mix of cerebral, pugnacious, centrist, and provocateur. This book displays all those sides to a tee.

Mailer's excessive ego is too blatantly exposed in this work. It is a self-indulgent and thoroughly unsatisfying book. I had previously been a big fan of this author, despite having the sense that I might have been personally repulsed by him. However, this particular book has crossed a line into blatant self-love and just keeps going in that direction.

It seems as if Mailer has become so consumed with himself that he has lost sight of what makes a good book. The story lacks depth and substance, and instead focuses on his own self-importance. It's a real disappointment for those of us who had high expectations.

Perhaps Mailer needs to take a step back and reevaluate his writing. He should remember that a good book is about more than just the author's ego. It should engage the reader, tell a compelling story, and offer something of value. Until he does that, his work will continue to be a letdown.

A bald statement about the subject of this book would contend that it recounts the events of the March on the Pentagon against the war in Vietnam, in 1967. Norman Mailer was a speaker at this event, which was made famous by the photograph of a protestor placing a flower into the nozzle of a soldier’s rifle. However, it appears to be about so much more than that.

In a strong field, this is one of the odder books that I have read. It is mostly written in the style of a novel, and Mr Mailer places himself easily in the third person without the sense of megalomania that usually attends that device. It nods to the type of “Gonzo journalism” that Hunter S. Thompson practiced. If it is without the frenzied and breathless quality of Thompson’s prose, it is not without the anger.

Indeed one of the greatest draws is the beautiful use of language and metaphor that Mailer employs. He will indulge in pages on some banal incident or other, but without dilution. His mastery of language serves to thicken the prose, and the density of thought is incredible. Everything is given meaning. For instance, take the description “middle-class cancer pushers and drug-gutted flower children”.

The final quarter of the book aims to be more historical but contains paragraphs that leave me cold. I read them only an hour or two ago, but no doubt they will stay with me. A description of a soldier ruthlessly beating a female protestor is horrific and unforgettable.

At this point I might appeal that though this book is aimed at specific events in 1967, it has relevance today. I don’t care to speculate to whom this book can be directed in 2021, but it is the first book that I have ever read by Norman Mailer, and it will definitely not be the last. It offers a unique perspective on a significant moment in history, and Mailer’s writing style and use of language make it a captivating read.

My first encounter with Norman Mailer was truly an interesting experience.

The most fascinating aspect regarding this book was the timing of my decision to pick it up randomly from the local bookstore. Well, it wasn't entirely random. I was anticipating a significant amount of stress and an upsurge in cultural upheaval related to the US presidential election. I had long believed that the 1967 - 1969 era was far worse in terms of chaos and despair than anything we can currently envision. So, I thought reading this would serve as a sort of calibration for my reaction to the climate of Trumpism.

Oh boy, was I right.

Mailer is indeed an interesting figure. He lives up to every rumor and impression I had about his difficult personality. He is brilliant and often a beautiful and articulate writer. However, at times, in a single sentence, he can transform into something like a clod, a boor, or a narcissistic bully. I suppose if he has a redeeming quality, it's that he seems to be aware of his shortcomings and presents them with a wink. Sometimes I found this somewhat tolerable and let it pass, but it was never as charming as he intended.

Nevertheless, there is definitely some value in the history of this event and in the clever or perhaps cute two-part structural retelling that he offers. My opinion of Book 1, where he provides a descriptive, subjective account of his personal history over the four days, improved after reading Book 2, which is an ostensibly objective timeline of events gathered from traditional news and primary source material.

But overall, the book was a bit tedious, and by the end, I had to force myself to get through it, even after the Trump rioters had given the endeavor an urgent relevance. Maybe this is a testament to the general dumbing-down of our culture and the normalization of the ignorance and mediocrity of the Trump "movement." I couldn't help but wonder how many of the people in the crowds that Mailer described had grown into MAGA-hatted dogmatists and what commonalities the idealism of this anti-war takeover of a DC institution had with the conspiracy-fueled rampage at the Capitol 54 years later.

A record of Norman Mailer's participation in the anti-Vietnam-war protests was written by him in the third person. However, this book is filled with what appears to be false modesty. He even refers to himself as "modest," which seems rather odd as who would describe themselves in such a way? Additionally, there is a significant amount of self-aggrandizement. He portrays himself as nearly a superhero going up against the massive war machine. This attitude of great men combating tyranny is the same kind of rhetoric employed by warmongers, which I find ironic. It seems certain that Mailer must have been aware of this, yet he never pauses to analyze it. Moreover, he makes statements like "the soldiers can't pluck our hippy women," where the "our" refers to the hippy men. This makes the protest seem like it is only between the hippy men and the soldier men, which comes across as extremely patriarchal. It is truly难以置信 that this work won the Pulitzer prize.

Although I can find no ready reference to it, I firmly believe that this book was published, perhaps in a serialized form, in a magazine such as Harpers or the Atlantic. I subscribed to both of those magazines back then.

In any case, I vividly recall reading it in such a format while still in high school. At that time, the Pentagon demonstration was still a fresh and vivid memory in my mind.

It was, as I believe, the first full-length book I had ever read by Norman Mailer. I was familiar with this author from the bookshelves of my parents and grandparents. His works had always intrigued me, and this particular book was no exception. Reading it in that magazine format added an extra layer of excitement and anticipation as I eagerly awaited each installment.

Looking back, I realize how that early reading experience influenced my love for literature and my appreciation for the works of Norman Mailer.