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3.5 

The Naked and the Dead

By Norman Mailer
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

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 enjoyed a long and well-deserved tenure in 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 a platoon of Marines who are stationed on the Japanese-held island of Anopopei. Composed in 1948 with the wisdom of a man twice Mailer's age and the raw courage of the young man he was, The Naked and the Dead is representative of the best in twentieth-century American writing.

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123 Reviews

3.5
“This book achieves what all effective war novels should achieve: making you hate war. This is not a heroic tale of brave men struggling mightily against the horrors of war, these are wretched beings, most unlikeable, struggling to remained uncrushed and alive against the machine and process of war. They are pitiable, and achingly human. Mailer’s writes with little emotion but takes you into the hell these men experience as if you were among them. You will feel dirty, exhausted, hateful, and fearful just as the characters in this book did. It’s not a fun read, but an effective war novel shouldn’t be fun, and this is about as good as those kinds of war novels get.”

About Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead at the age of twenty-five, after serving two years in the Philippines as a rifleman during the Second World War. He has written thirty-one books, including Armies of the Night (1968), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The Executioner's Song (1979), which also won the Pulitzer; and more recently, Harlot's Ghost and the collection The Time of Our Time. In addition, he has composed many essays and poems and has directed and appeared in several motion pictures. He lives in New York.

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