The Naked and the Dead (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) - Softcover

Mailer, Norman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007204957 ISBN 13: 9780007204953

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

Reissue of a modern classic – the book that catapulted Norman Mailer to fame on its first publication in 1948.

Based on Mailer’s own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, ‘The Naked and the Dead’ is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in the glories of the Allied victory, it altered forever the popular perception of warfare.

Focusing on the experiences of a fourteen-man platoon stationed on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific during World War II, and written in a journalistic style, it tells the moving story of the soldiers' struggle to retain a sense of dignity amidst the horror of warfare, and to find a source of meaning in their lives amisdst the sounds and fury of battle.

About this title

Review:

‘Mailer recorded every foul thought and word of his characters, wrote about ignorant, savage, primitive men. For maturity of viewpoint, for technical competence, and for stark dramatic power, The Naked and the Dead is an incredibly finished performance.’ New York Times

‘The best war novel to come out of the United States.’ The Times

‘Brutal, agonising, astonishingly thoughtful.’ Newsweek

From the Back Cover:

'The Naked and the Dead' traces the story of a platoon of young American soldiers as they pick their way, through treacherous terrain, across the Japanese-held Pacific island of Anopopei. Caught up in the confusion of close-armed combat, preyed upon by snipers, the men are pushed to the limit of human endurance. Held together only by the raw will to survive and barely sustained dreams of life beyond the maelstrom, each man finds his innermost hopes and deepest fears laid bare by the unrelenting stress of battle.

In his early twenties Mailer was himself a Second World War combatant in the Far-Eastern theatre. Published three years after the war ended, 'The Naked and the Dead', a shattering masterpiece of nightmarish realism, catapulted Mailer to instant fame.

“The best war novel to come out of the United States.”
THE TIMES

“Mailer writes like an angel – a master of small surprises that are precursors of seismic shocks.”
LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

“Mailer recorded every foul thought and word of his characters, wrote about ignorant, savage, primitive men... For maturity of viewpoint, for technical competence, and for stark dramatic power, 'The Naked and the Dead' is an incredibly finished performance.”
NEW YORK TIMES

“Besides being the most unpredictable novelist in the USA, he is also its most consistently interesting.”
VOGUE

“Mailer is a genuine original, working against the grain of the rest of his contemporaries.”
NEW STATESMAN

“Mailer remains America’s most talented writer.”
NEWSWEEK

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0007204957
• ISBN 13: 9780007204953
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 720