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The Naked and the Dead

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The Naked and the Dead

By: Norman Mailer
Narrated by: John Buffalo Mailer
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Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.

Written in gritty, journalistic detail, the story follows an army platoon of foot soldiers who are fighting for the possession of the Japanese-held island of Anopopei. Composed in 1948, The Naked and the Dead is representative of the best in twentieth-century American writing.

©1951 Norman Mailer (P)2016 Brilliance Audio. All rights reserved. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military Military War
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it has its moments but the narrators delivery of different characters made them all sound the same, so easily got lost in who was being spoken about. Also the characters were all pretty horrible and had not features that made me care about them at all.

not sure why this book is so highly regarded

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At the beginning this is a tedious listen as Mailer sets out the cast. The middle suddenly gets very very interesting as you set out on a recon with a dysfunctional company. Doubtless the story has been copied for many Vietnam films. Mailer wrote it first. Unlike many WW2 American writers. Mailer tells you a story and it is a very good story. Excellently read by his son.

The Pacific War

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I read somewhere that this is one of the most valued of American novels, and I dug out the paperback edition, which I've owned for several years. The length had put me off - and World War II is not something I would normally read about. But once I started, I could hardly put it down. Norman Mailer certainly had a way with words when he wrote this book! I recommend it to everyone.

Seems daunting, but is genuinely captivating

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This is regarded as one of the first great novels written about the Second World War. It draws on Mailer’s own experiences in the Pacific campaign to describe the battle to capture a Japanese island from the point of view of a platoon on the ground as they land ashore and undertake duties and patrols. There is a huge cast of characters and Mailer handles each at length. There are long passages of this novel spent developing the backstories and mentalities of each of these different soldiers and the way they interact with each other, the jungle, the war and their own ambitions, fears and resentments. It does mean that the actual plot often moves along at a labouring pace and you empathise with the default position of those in the book in waiting for something to happen. Some characters, such as Croft, are very well rounded while others play more minor roles and yet Mailer still dedicates long sections to their detailed backstories. I found this a little tiring as I didn’t necessarily care enough about these particular characters to feel the need to learn about their childhood. There are more than a few moments of brilliance however. The initial chapter covering the build up to landing on the island and the frantic moments on coming ashore is breathtaking. Mailer also successfully captures the depth of the soldiers’ struggle against the jungle and the landscape as much as against the Japanese army. Overall it’s a book worth reading. The journalistic style can make it hard going at times, but Mailer does manage to create an empathy with the soldiers, and the often mundane and menial ways they pass the time in war between the fighting.

A bit of a slog but worth the read

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Impressive text and narration revealing themes connected to the futility of war, hierarchies inequalities and power in the military, aspirations of middle and working class Americans, racism and antisemitism in the forces. Excellent!

Futility of war beautifully described

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