Novelist Norman Mailer was once lauded as a high IQ prodigy, described (by himself and others) as ‘the best writer in the USA’, and paid prodigious sums of money by publishers after his initial success of The Naked and the Dead. But ultimately he came to be seen as ‘imbecilic and ludicrous’, writing ‘worthlessly derivative’ books. Evelyn Waugh once called him “a swarthy gangster straight out of a madhouse”.
A new biography is no more complementary, describing him as ‘a spoilt mummy’s boy, puffed up with pride, arrogance and egocentricity, who went out of his way to appear impulsive and daring — who was always concerned to shock and impress with his creed of unrestrained hedonism.”
He was born 31 January 1923 9.05 am Long Branch, New Jersey, and what is interesting apropos recent comments is that he had a marked Jupiter Neptune aspect tied into a T Square with his Aquarius Sun. ‘He did not wish to be answerable for his actions and opinions; he never treated anyone with respect; he made things up about himself shamelessly — and expected everyone to subscribe to the myths. Mailer wanted to exist without responsibility.’ Slight hints of Boris Johnson?
He also had a Water Grand Trine of an 8th house lucky Jupiter in Scorpio trine Uranus in the 12th trine Pluto in the 4th. Water Grand Trines are creative but tend to exist in a fantasy world and often don’t connect well with reality.
Where Mailer’s nastier streak came from was a Mars in Aries square Pluto. He revelled in upsetting people so wrote about mangled bodies, perverse sexual desires, cannibalism, mass murder, incest, coprophilia and sodomy. He regularly backhanded spouses (of whom he had six), kicked one in the belly and stabbed his second wife with a knife for which he was, astonishingly, given a suspended sentence.
A combination of Mars Pluto brutality added to the overwheening self-confidence of Jupiter with delusional Neptune thrown in and a Water Grand Trine – it’s quite a chart.
My sister is currently reading ‘The Executioner’s Song’ and finding it compelling. Mailer said that Gary Gilmore “appealed to me because he embodied many of the themes I’ve been living with all my life long” Gilmore also has a Mars/Pluto square, in fact it’s part of a T-square, focussed on Pluto in Leo with Saturn/Jupiter in Taurus opposing Venus/Mars in Scorpio.
Strange, that he and Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird were such good friends. They seemed such different personalities. Marjorie, could you do her chart?