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 A NEW POLITICS OF FORM IN
HARLOT’S GHOST 
D A V I D A N S H E N
“The sour truth is that I am imprisoned with aperception which will settle for nothing lessthan making a revolution in the consciousnessof our time”
~
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.“Please do not understand me too quickly.”
~
Norman Mailer’s quoting of Andre Gide inthe epigraph to
The Deer Park
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.
I. Introduction
Norman Mailer was one of the most ambitious writers of our time. He hadenormous faith in the power of writing to influence and change society andto alter the quality of human life. Despite the controversies that swirledaround his public figure, he should be more recognized for the scope of hisefforts to use his writing to transformAmerica.With bravado,courage,anda bit of recklessness, he has repeatedly proclaimed his
personal 
ambition toplace himself,as a writer,in the company of literary giants and thereby rem-edy what he believes are America’s literary deficiencies, while also promis-ing that he is about to write a novel that will create the “revolution inconsciousness”
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which he believes is necessary to rejuve-nate a stagnantAmerica,
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through writing the“greatAmerican novel”whichwill“tell the truth of our times.”Undoubtedly,however,this effort has beenfraughtwithdifficulties;asCarlRollysonexplainsinhisbiographyof Mailer:“In the forty years since
The Naked and the Dead
Mailer has been searchingfor a way to write the great panoramic American novel.... America had
THE MAILER REVIEW, VOL.
2
,
NO.
1
,
FALL
2008
. Copyright ©
2008
. The Norman MailerSociety. Published by The Norman Mailer Society.
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