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NORMAN MAILER and the POST-WAR NOVEL a Thesis NORMAN MAILER AND THE POST-WAR NOVEL A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of .^ , r the requirements for the Degree EM Git Master of English In Literature by Tristan Robert Spencer San Francisco, California August 2015 Copyright by Tristan Robert Spencer 2015 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Norman Mailer and the Post-war Novel by Tristan Robert Spencer, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of English in Literature at San Francisco State University. %lie Paulson, Ph.D. Associate Professor NORMAN MAILER AND THE POST-WAR NOVEL Tristan Robert Spencer San Francisco, California 2015 This study contends that Norman Mailer's first two novels comprise a chronicle of competing ideologies, encompassing the traditions of the New York Intellectuals. In chapter 1, characters are interpreted as representing the ideologies discussed in Dwight MacDonald’s “The Root is Man.” In chapter 2, Mailer continues to examine Marxism by presenting two forms of Trotskyism, corresponding to the factions of the Socialist Workers Party. Mailer’s chronicle thus demonstrates his late narrative radicalization, transgressing the New York Intellectuals’ political transformation towards neo-conservatism in of the-c^ntent of this 17Ji It Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Dr. Lawrence Hanley for his reading recommendations during my research. I would not have been introduced to most of my sources without Hanley’s guidance. I would also like to thank Dr. Julie Paulson for her patience and encouragement; I could not have done this without her, and I am forever indebted. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.........................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Competing Ideologies in The Naked and the Dead.................... 17 I. Hearn's Reflection: Dwight MacDonald's Radical........................18 II. Inexperience and Incoherence.......................................................25 III. Cummings' Scientific Pretensions...............................................32 IV. The Rise of Bureaucracy: The Third Alternative...................... 43 Chapter 2: Competing Forms of Trotskyism in Barbary Shore..................51 I. Orthodoxy Versus Heresy...............................................................53 II. Jean Malaquais and the Socialist Workers Party.........................56 III. Trotskyism on Trial.......................................................................60 IV. Lannie: Orthodoxy in Crisis........................................................ 62 V. Hollingsworth: The Bureaucratic Machine..................................69 VI. The Other Alternative: McLeod's Trotskyism............................75 VII. The Polemics of Barbary Shore................................................. 80 Conclusion....................................................................................................... 83 Works Consulted..............................................................................................87 1 Introduction: In the debate at Mount Holyoke College in 1952 between best-selling author Norman Mailer and renowned Marxist political theorist Dwight MacDonald, the moderator posed the question of choice between the West and the East. Their answers to this question, crystallizing two distinct positions Marxist intellectuals occupied in the 1950s, would prove to be a defining moment for American dissident socialists. To decide on the West signified that one accepted Western democracy as an alternative to Soviet Russia and its satellite states. This decision also implied an admittance that the revolution had failed. To decide on the East suggested a continued belief in socialist theory. By presenting such a polarizing question, the moderator no doubt meant for a stance to be taken, and the question revealed something problematic not just for their own political identities but about the transforming identity of socialists in the post-war period. Would MacDonald, a well-known political theorist and dissident individual, select Stalinism over the evils of Western capitalism? On the other hand, Norman Mailer, an author celebrated for his recent novels The Naked and the Dead and Barbary Shore, had just as much at stake with the choice before him as MacDonald. If Mailer chose the East, he would be disinheriting himself from the traditions of the New York Intellectuals and his own political radicalism. If Mailer chose the West, he would be condoning the very flaws and hypocrisies of democracy that he had depicted in his first two novels. In other words, both MacDonald and Mailer were in vulnerable positions by their respective answers. Were the horrific realities of Stalinism 2 so immense that socialism could never recover? Were the gears of capitalism, ceaselessly grinding away, a real alternative to the East? These were the questions that haunted the participants of the debate, and that would haunt a generation of Marxist intellectuals. By the conclusion of the debate, MacDonald would choose the West, and Mailer would state that he could choose neither. Mailer's reluctance to choose the West in the Mount Holyoke debate is reflected in his first two novels. In this thesis I argue that Mailer's first two novels represent the various competing ideologies in relation to the radical traditions of the New York Intellectuals. I contend that Mailer investigates the status of socialism in both The Naked and the Dead and Barbary Shore. One may accuse Mailer of pursuing the will o' the wisp of socialism, pursuing it when other intellectuals had abandoned their search, but Mailer's fiction should be understood as a chronicle of competing ideologies that continued the radical traditions of the New York Intellectuals. Moreover, by examining their ideas in the post-war period he defines himself beyond the demarcated boundaries of their group. The Mount Holyoke debate was as dramatic as it was important for intellectuals of the early 1950s because both Norman Mailer and Dwight MacDonald had a close affiliation with the group known as the New York Intellectuals. The New York Intellectuals consisted chiefly of one-time communists who had a continued dedication to socialist theory. The 1950s marked a time of deradicalization in American politics, and the New York 3 Intellectuals were not immune to this cultural shift. Nearly all of the New York Intellectuals by the end of the 1950s would disavow Marxism. While MacDonald was known for his active involvement within the New York Intellectuals, Mailer was a grandchild to this movement; his literature depicted the tail end of what New York Intellectuals had produced over the previous two decades. What was the difference between Mailer and MacDonald? While Mailer was eager to readdress socialism within his literature, MacDonald had already moved on. When confronted with the decision, MacDonald shocked the audience by stating that he had indeed chosen the West instead of the Soviet Union (Sumner 223). It was primarily the events of the 1940s that had caused the dramatic political change in MacDonald's stance. WWII had the opposite effect on Stalin's Russia than was predicted by most of the New York Intellectuals. Instead of the war dissolving Stalin's regime, the war resulted in a regeneration of the socio-economic force of the Soviet Union. By the late 1940s, Stalin's bureaucratic caste was no longer perceived as a temporary phenomenon but as a permanent structure that continued to confound the anti-Stalinist Left. While many other factors played into the concession for Western policy, it was the notion of the permanence of Stalinism that made MacDonald's disavowal of Marxism resolute. MacDonald later recalled his hesitant choice for the West as the lesser of two evils: 4 I choose the West - the U.S. And its allies - and reject the East - the Soviet Union .... By “choosing” 1 mean that I support the political, economic, and military struggle of the West against the East. I support it critically - I'm against the Smith and McCarran Acts, French policy in Indo-China, etc. - but in general I do choose, I support Western policies .... I prefer an imperfectly living, open society to a perfectly dead, closed society. (116-118) With the credibility of two decades as a New York Intellectual, MacDonald was pragmatic and honest about supporting the West over the East. From the historical perspective of 1952, the level of foresight MacDonald had in his political judgment is astounding, for after the debate, nearly all of the New York Intellectuals would concede similarly. MacDonald must have been conscious of the irony of his decision at Mount Holyoke, for not ten years earlier he scolded his peers for backing Churchill over Hitler (Wreszin 92). In a subsequent revision of “The Root is Man,” MacDonald addressed why he had shifted from pacifism to radicalism in the 1940s: During the [first] war, I did not choose, at first because I was a revolutionary socialist of Trotskyist coloration .... [In the 5 second war the] power vacuum was filled at once by either Soviet or American imperialism. The Third Camp of the masses just doesn’t exist anymore. (147) Historian Neil Jumonville, discussing the significance of MacDonald’s change of positions, observes that “Macdonald's slow turnabout in support of the West is testimony to how even the staunchest dissenters were reoriented
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