After reading your spot-on, eloquent & insightful analysis of Mailer & his writing, couldn’t help compare it to what passes as revolutionary “art’ among today’s respected museums & art critics. In a word, Mailer & so much of the “in-your-face” shock art, devoid of substance & merit, is merely derivative…unoriginal pseudo-creative energy for the sake of championing oh-so-cool nihilism…as if sex & violence held on a pedestal is something new under the sun. Mailer, & most self-absorbed celebrated elephant-dung-on-the-Madonna type artists, are merely rebelling against G-d, soul & a life that is challenged in pursuit of nobility & purpose. To Mailer, such a quest for a redeemed lifestyle is quaint…to me, his derivative writing, embracing feel-good-in-the moment anarchy, is just boring, heavily unoriginal & anything but progressive or enlightening.