Norman Mailer: The Radical as Hipster
by Robert Ehrlich
Category: Literary Criticism

This text considers the 'philosophy' of Norman Mailer in its broadest context. In the mid-fifties Mailer began to develop a 'philosophy' which would be able to account for much of his aesthetic experimentation as well as his thematic concerns and public style. While it lacks rigor, it is a loose discussion of matters that at different points in his life embrace psychological, political, economic, social, aesthetic, theological, mystical, and cosmological concerns, all of which are sufficiently related to allow for systematization. It is a 'philosophy' which changes in amoebic fashion, the original outline continually present but always involving new emphases. He has always stressed the need for the fullest development of the self, a process which can only take place after a long and rigorous inner journey that is continually nourished by perilous transactions in the world at large.