The Naked and the Dead

Many, many years ago, in high school, I read this novel. As time passed, all I could really remember of it were a few isolated points. A poor farmer in overalls spits on the dirt and says, "Reckon it's a law of life." A sergeant named Croft deliberately shoots a union man just to see what it feels like. (That was a shocker 60 years ago.) "I don't know why I'm not more popular with the girls; I'm such an easy lay." "Kunai" grass. The agony in wrestling cannon along a jungle trail that seems to have no end. I'd never read such an apt description of physical exhaustion and still haven't. Some men carrying a comrade with a belly wound, and he's moaning with thirst, and his carriers are tired of schlepping him to the rear and one of his buddies begins saying, "Aww, give him a little water," so he can die and shut up. Oh -- and "fug."I recently started reading it again, with a little more experience behind me, and I don't think I'm quite as impressed as I remember being. There's nothing particularly "reportorial" about the novel. It gets into more than enough detail of the men's lives for us to understand, in part, how they got to be what they are. Much of it's pretty colorful too. But we don't really need a bum's life spelled out to that extent.Mailer uses a device called "The Time Machine" to take us back to the childhood and the subsequent development of each man in the squad, plus Lieutenant Hearn. Here, the writing is impressionistic but not badly done. In the rest of the text, he observes the usual grammatical rules.I had a hard time believing some of the relationships. Lieutenant Hearn argues with -- practically insults -- General Cummings. Well, I've been in the military since I first read this, and that relationship is not concordant with my impressions of how the status ladder is structure.My overall impression at this point -- I'm about half-way through -- is that it's well written, the characters are distinct, and it's a little wordy. Not to mention that if an alien from the planet Ymir in the Crab Nebula of Orion were to read only this, in an attempt to get an impression of life on Earth, he or it would conclude that we're a pretty depressing bunch of organisms. Even when the men are drunk on jungle juice and laughing, Mailer the omniscient lets us know about the anger, frustration, and sadness roiling around inside. Everybody has had a lousy life and is unhappy. Well, maybe with the exception of Goldstein. Goldstein may not be exactly happy. Who COULD be under these conditions? But at least he's relatively normal.In his forward, the aged Mailer criticizes this early work. Coffee must be "scalding." But that's okay. The adjectival cliches are there but they don't leap out at you. I found it interesting that Mailer admits he set out to write a blockbuster novel. I'm not at all surprised to find out that he set out to DO it. I'm surprised he admits it. As Woody Allen says, when asked who Norman Mailer was, "He was a writer. Very popular. He left his ego to Harvard Medical School."

1) Plot (4 stars) – An Army platoon lands on the jungle island of Anopopei during the Second World War, and confronts confusion, physical misery, and internal squabbles as they stumble toward an invisible and unknowable enemy. For those looking for a linear plot with a hero steadily gaining wisdom that he will ultimately use to defeat the enemy in a dramatic climax, you will be disappointed. For Mailer instead focuses on the nuances of war to drive his narrative, the micro-tensions. And those little personal battles were enough to keep me reading, although I have to admit that at times I was begging for someone to do something big, or accomplish something notable.2) Characters (4 stars) – Mailer takes great care in detailing his characters, devoting whole chapters to each of their backstories. But, with the exception of three – the General, Hearn, and Croft – I didn’t find any particularly interesting. They all seemed so ignorant, so repressed, such 1940s caricatures of tough guys. And on top of that, they never grew, never did anything to feel proud about. But maybe this was how people really acted back then, maybe this was how shallow and puerile the men were, and if so, then bravo for how far we’ve advanced. The only thing that kept me from giving this component a lower score was the aforementioned three characters, who were fascinating for the 33% of the story they were on stage. Which just goes to show that Mailer had the ability to draw unusual and compelling characters, but didn’t for some reason. Perhaps to make the experience more authentic? War: a never-ending nightmare of being trapped in a middle school locker room with all the idiots you hate.3) Theme (3 stars) – There is a bit in here about the class chasm between poor enlisted folks and the rich educated officers. There’s also something about how cruel people can be both to their own as well as the enemy. And there’s certainly something about man vs. nature, about how in the end man’s war is puny against the storms and jungles and mountains. But … I’m not sure what new I was supposed to learn from any of these themes. Except, perhaps, that it’s all pointless, which is a valid but not especially useful message.4) Voice (5 stars) – For me, this (and the setting) were the gems of the book. Mailer can write. He’s so good at pacing, so perfect at detailing, that at times I had to blink a few times and look around my room to break the spell of anxiety and nausea the men (and I) were experiencing.5) Setting (5 stars) – If you want to feel—not intellectually understand but feel—the misery, the solitude, the tension, the mud, the heat, the exhaustion of war, then crack open this book.6) Overall (4 stars) – This was a tough one. There is so much in this book that’s great—the writing, the setting—but in the end I just wish there was a deeper message, a little more culmination of macro plot, a little more depth of intelligence or morality in the characters, that I can’t give it a 5. But I can certainly give it a 4 and recommend it, which I will.

Great book. I got so depressed reading it that I quit half way thru and I love crime and war stories. If you can tough it out, let me know how it ends.

But not an easy read. I’d heard this is the best war story ever written but I don’t agree. It’s very long, it digresses frequently and it is anticlimactic. I was hoping for another Matterhorn book but trudged through this instead.

The Naked and the Dead remains the most realistic war novel I have read. It is neither a romance of heroic deeds nor the grinding, dehumanised tragedy that WWI novels tend to be. Showing war as a contrasted field of acts of courage, calculation, treachery and occasionally weakness and cowardice, but mostly as drudgery and sheer blind chance, it feels honest and true to experience.Norman Mailer, indeed, wrote his account of WWII in the Pacific fresh from returning from the front. His book focuses on one island and tracks the destiny of a platoon, whose 15 or so members, each with their own private life back home, their fears and ambitions, become intimate acquaintances of the reader. The Naked and the Dead encompasses a complete campaign, beginning with the sea landing, building up to a major battle, and including the fighting itself. It then swerves into a wildcat mission to circumvent the Japanese line, turning into a classic nail-biting tale of jungle guerrilla, of ambushes and night-fights and forced marches, where the differences between GIs and NCOs erupt to create as much havoc as the fight with the Japanese. In parallel, the novel follows the general's intrigues among the officer corps, providing a bird's eye view of the campaign, its strategy, and its tactics, as well as their impact on the foot-soldiers.Mailer's tome combines psychology and character analysis with the excitement of action and the realistic depiction of everyday scenes (the construction of the camp, the long struggle to move an anti-aircraft gun by foot, the night watches). It makes the reader feel present, as close as can be to standing on the actual scene. Of course, this was WWII, and every war is probably unique. Still, this is the closest thing, and it is for sure better than having to fight in one.

Based on Mailer's personal experiences. This a brutal and unflinching account of war and how it strips humanity from those who fight. There are no characters which are likeable or classically heroic. Yet there are real and vivid, struggling to survive in the world they are in.

The film wad good but this is better.Foggeten much of it nowI will have to read it agsin. Bye

Great book though for people to say this is the best book ever written on war is a stretch.Focuses mostly on one American army patrol as part of a campaign against Japanese forces on an island in the Pacific.I liked how the main characters' back stories were told.