On God: An Uncommon Conversation

Mailer at his Best A review of "On God: An Uncommon Conversation" by Norman Mailer and Michael Lennon 240 Pages Published in 2007 ISBN-10: 1400067324 ISBN-13: 978-1400067329 Norman Mailer has been talking about theology at least since he wrote "The Executioner's Song." He says there is a struggle between God and Satan and we see this divine struggle as the clash of good and evil. We are all players in the struggle. Reincarnation gives us many parts to play. We return as new beings in successive lives. Mailer presents his theology well. It has a unity and a logic that you find in all his work. I thoroughly enjoyed "On God." This book helps readers understand much of his earlier work, especially: - The Executioner's Song - Conversations with Norman Mailer (Literary Conversations Series) - Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery - The Gospel According to the Son - The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing - The Castle in the Forest: A Novel - Ancient Evenings I thoroughly enjoyed and I recommend "On God" by Norman Mailer.

During much of his long and illustrious career in American letters, Norman Mailer wrote extensively about his beliefs concerning God, the Devil and the war between good and evil, as well as man's role in this cosmological struggle. The foundation of Mailer's cosmology is based on the idea that God is not all-good and all-powerful, but is an existential God doing the best that He/She can do. His thoughts and beliefs relating to his religious system were often expressed implicitly in his novels and more explicitly in his non-fiction. Now, with the publication of this excellent book, On God, we have Mailer's thoughts on these topics systematized and expanded over the course of more than two hundred fascinating and stimulating pages. The book is in the form of an interview as indicated by the subtitle "An Uncommon Conversation." This interview took place at intervals over the course of three years - from June 2003 to June 2006. The interrogator, Michael Lennon, is very skillful at extracting Mailer's thoughts, getting further explications, always probing deeper, reminiscent, in a way to Melville's description of peeling the onion, layer by layer, to get to the deeper meanings one finds below. The reader is often as pleased with the manner in which ideas develop as in the actual ideas themselves. The book seems spontaneous and fresh even though Mailer had been thinking about the topics covered for the past fifty years. On God will certainly prove to be invaluable to Mailer scholars or for that matter to anyone who loves to read his books since an intelligent comprehension of his works is not possible without an understanding of his metaphysics. This book should also be of interest to anyone who has an open mind with regard to religious questions. One does not need to be an expert or even familiar with Mailer's prior work to get much from this book. Most especially, it should prove to be of great interest to anyone who is not an atheist but who also cannot accept the dogma of organized religion. Somewhere, deep in the vast body of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, there is a statement very similar to this - "religion starts at the point where the mind shuts down." I think Mailer would have been in agreement with the spirit of this remark since its target is organized religion. In contrast, Mailer's cosmology requires an actively working mind, constantly probing, trying to discover the nature of reality. This task, however, can never be completed since Mailer's God is more Creator than Lawgiver and He is involved in a cosmic battle, the outcome of which cannot be known. In Mailer's system everything is in process, nothing has been completed. Final answers will not be found. Nevertheless, we must search for the right questions.

In On God, Michael Lennon, President of the Norman Mailer Society, asks America's most infamous grand old literary lion both respectful and pointed questions that add up to an exegesis of Mailer's long-developing metaphysical speculations that have for five decades informed Mailer's work, especially his fiction since The Naked and the Dead. Those interested in Mailer and in understanding his work will truly benefit from this more or less final, culminating analysis and presentation of the author's thought. In addition, the reader discovers a new way of looking at ethics, personal and national, for the 21st century. "The reason we are having these dialogues," Mailer says, "is that Fundamentalist notions of absolute authority are too much of a manic faith machine capable of inspiring world disasters."

In this rich book, the theological and thematic preoccupations that have implicitly informed Norman Mailer's vast body of work are rendered explicit. The combination of Mailer's brilliant insight and Michael Lennon's erudition results in a sophisticated but accessible explanation of Mailer's theology, notably the ongoing battle between God and the Devil over the souls of men and women, with humankind representing the third vector of power in this struggle. This is a fascinating read.

Norman Mailer's new conversational book continues the dialogue he had with his son in "The Big Empty." Norman has written many big books that many of us have not read with care, especially Harlot's Ghost and Ancient Evenings. Now the voice he uses in his near next-to-last utterances is full of wonder about the afterlife, and how a man who communed with the great writers of the past will commune with the great writers of the future. Michael Lennon, who spurred Mailer to speak, is to be commended for prodding the Jewish author to speak to the Catholic scholar. Christopher Busa