Details Appertaining To Books Ancient Evenings
| Title | : | Ancient Evenings |
| Author | : | Norman Mailer |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 709 pages |
| Published | : | 1997 by Abacus (first published March 1st 1983) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature. Northern Africa. Egypt. Fantasy |
Norman Mailer
Paperback | Pages: 709 pages Rating: 3.42 | 1659 Users | 164 Reviews
Interpretation Supposing Books Ancient Evenings
Ancient Evenings is a thoroughly unpleasant novel – in it Norman Mailer almost sadistically admires all sorts of violence and atrocity. If he were an Egyptian deity he surely wouldn’t have been Thoth or Horus, he would have been Seth or Anubis. So the novel may be considered as Norman Mailer’s historical Fleurs du Mal or some tenebrously romantic Totentanz…The is a highly poetic song Islands of the Dead by Be Bop Deluxe:
Come with me to the fire festival, let us burn each other blind. Let us dance, let us dance away, dance till the end of time. Come with me to the islands of the dead, to the soul house, to the fire-house, to smoke and ash of laughter in your head, sweet laughter, hereafter, ever after, in the islands of the dead.
And in Ancient Evenings Norman Mailer literally takes us inside the Book of the Dead.
We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods.
History is no less a sanguinary myth than all those bloodthirsty and scatological deities that dwelt in the heads of our ancient forefathers.
List Books In Pursuance Of Ancient Evenings
| Original Title: | Ancient Evenings |
| ISBN: | 0349109702 (ISBN13: 9780349109701) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Egypt |
Rating Appertaining To Books Ancient Evenings
Ratings: 3.42 From 1659 Users | 164 ReviewsAssessment Appertaining To Books Ancient Evenings
I bought and read this this paperback in the last century - when all books were actual physical books with paper pages.I remember this as being a joy to read - a book that you can get lost in. After so many decades only two scenes remain:The first is a clever sex scene where the intensity, rhythm and eroticism of the sexual act was effectively conveyed by Mailer through Egyptian dialogue.The other scene is the aftermath of a battle with the Egyptians triumphant and soldiers are handing theThis is an odd one.This is, I think, what Stephen King was trying to say about writing even big books across the length of a season and no longer. Few authors can pull off greatness when it comes to projects they hold on to for too long. They get complicated, overly dense, they hold onto passages that should be snipped out, they forget the eureka moment that spurred the author to write them, they suffer from Will Selfs everything-itis.Heller was successful with Something Happened and likely
Drifting...is driftingSo insists the man with the pus-filled eye,even if he is about to be given a severe thrashing by a boatman who violently disagrees. But it is a good way to approach this massive,astonishing work of historical fiction that spans dynasties. It is also indicative of NMs tendency to mingle the repulsive and the sublime, and in so doing he weaves a rich and vivid tapestry of reality that we can taste and smell and almost touch.No matter that some of the details are sorely
Though the first ninety or so pages of this book outmatch a bit for stylistic and gutsy integrity the remaining six-hundred, the critical treatment of /Ancient Evenings/ still seems largely unfair. One of the things I admire most about Mailer as a writer is the fact that he really does write very well, and in a style that could almost be called metaphysical, matching the poets like Marvell and Donne who are sometimes grouped together under that same textual adjective. Like the metaphysical
Wacky, escapist fun, thats neither trash nor highbrow literary fiction but a few notches above pulp.
Apparently, this book took 10 years to write and I felt every day of those 10 years before I bailed. Ancient Egypt and the court of Ramses II is fascinating, BUT the sentences were overwritten, there was a meandering plot, an excessive fascination with body fluids and smells, and a weird focus on incest and all manners of other sexual interactions. I don't know what Mailer was thinking, but, with all that, I wasn't impressed...I was bored! I DNF at page 112, but it still deserves a single star.
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