The Naked and the Dead (10).

Norman Mailer. New York: The New American Library: A Signet Book. 1948.

Why read it? The thoughts of the enlisted man before and during the fighting. The antagonism of the enlisted man for the officer. The thoughts of the General who had complete power over the men under his control. The General, who finally suspected that he had had nothing to do with the victory.

Quotes/Ideas:

“If a man gets wounded, it’s his own goddam fault, Croft thought.”

“They looked at Wilson, watched the slow pulse of his bleeding…face had become blanched, almost white…looked unfamiliar…could not believe it was Wilson…just an unconscious wounded man.” p. 407.

“The night wind was cool, rustling the leaves in the trees…suggested rain, and the men mused idly of summer nights when they had sat on their porches at sundown, watching the rain clouds gather, feeling at ease because they were under cover….set off a long stream of wistful recollections, of summer and the sounds of dance music on Saturday nights…the smell of foliage…the excitement of driving a car on a country road, the headlights painting a golden cylinder through the leaves…they burrowed more deeply into their blankets.” p. 416.

“…he reeled into unconsciousness, his mind seeming to revolve over and over beneath his closed eyelids.” p. 418.

Cummings [the General] was bothered by the suspicion, very faint, not quite stated, that he had no more to do with the success of the attack than a man who presses a button and waits for the elevator.” p. 435.

“The best things, the things worth doing in the last analysis, had to be done alone.” p. 438.

“…at the moment he was living on many levels at once.” p. 440.

“Not since he had been a young man had he hungered so for knowledge.” p. 444.

“Cummings [the General] had once said, ‘You know, Robert, there really are only two kinds of liberals and radicals…the ones who are afraid of the world and want it changed to benefit themselves…and…the young people who don’t understand their own desires…want to remake the world, but they never admit they want to remake it in their own image’ ” p. 451.

“Rely on the blunder factor, sit back and wait for the Fascists to louse it up.” p. 456.

To be continued.