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A review by eleanorefrances
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for gorgeous contemplative ideas.
A raucous, reckless romp through 1950s Hollywood. I can’t help but feel it could have done with a serious edit (in his Appendix, Mailer explains he did a lot of this himself after several rejections of the manuscript).
It’s a very confusing, frustrating and altogether appallingly beautiful book. I just can’t hack the sentences that go on for what seems like an eternity. That is a stylistic preference, though, and not too much about the content, which is deeply intelligent. It’s the best holding-up-of-a-mirror to the vacuous moral black hole that is fame and fortune that I can ever remember reading.
A raucous, reckless romp through 1950s Hollywood. I can’t help but feel it could have done with a serious edit (in his Appendix, Mailer explains he did a lot of this himself after several rejections of the manuscript).
It’s a very confusing, frustrating and altogether appallingly beautiful book. I just can’t hack the sentences that go on for what seems like an eternity. That is a stylistic preference, though, and not too much about the content, which is deeply intelligent. It’s the best holding-up-of-a-mirror to the vacuous moral black hole that is fame and fortune that I can ever remember reading.