Rating: 
Summary: DON'T read unless you want to feel depressed and hopeless
Review: I expected greater things from an author who is dubbed on the jacket as being "one of the greatest authors of our time." Unfortunately this book is one of the most negative pieces of garbage I?ve read in a long time. Norman Mailer conveys to us his bitterness toward patriotism and his feelings of hatred toward all things American. Instead of critiquing these problems with an open mind and saying "Ok, this is what we should do to fix the problem," Mailer resigns all Americans (except himself, of course) to being materialistic, money grubbing vultures who want to conquer the entire world and make it capitalist. Mailer praises the acts of terrorists. He claims that "most of us are wicked to a good degree." He embarrasses victims of 9/11 by saying "It?s not the ones who were good fathers and good mothers that I mourn the most. It?s the ones who came from families that were less happy" (as if any of the lives lost deserve less or more sympathy than the others.) He criticizes proud Americans who wave flags. "The fact that we?ve been a great democracy doesn?t mean we will automatically be one if we keep waving the flag. It?s ugly." What Mailer doesn?t comprehend is that so many people like President Bush because he gives our nation hope. This is all but lost on Mailer, who does nothing but pessimistically criticize instead of offer suggestions: "We in the west have this habit of looking for solutions? There may be no solutions at this time. This may be the beginning of an international cancer we cannot cure." According to Mailer, "patriotism becomes the handmaiden to totalitarianism." What Mailer does a good job of is making you feel a sense of dread. He claims that Bush is a "bloodthirsty warmonger" and spouts absurdities like "military presence in the middle east is a stepping stone to taking over the rest of the world." This absolute hogwash does nothing to answer the question he imposed: Why are we at war? Mailer thinks that a few quotes from obscure sources proves his conspiracy theory that Bush/America is on a quest for world domination. Mailer suggests that we sacrifice security for democracy: "Americans have to be willing to say at a certain point that we?re ready to take some terrorist hits without panicking; that freedom is more important to us than security" and that we should "learn to live with the anxiety" of terrorism. Hold up. WHAT?! Freedom may be more important to Mailer than security, but if one of my family members was killed in a terrorist attack, security would absolutely be my number one priority. Not only this, but I have a few qualms about taking political advice from an author who says that "fascism is of a more natural state than democracy." Mailer claims that there is a degeneration of the American society: "The kids are getting to the point where they can?t read, but they sure can screw." Nice, Mailer. Real nice. The lack of confidence Mailer espouses in the American people is astounding as he talks about our "monstrous arrogance." He says "we will never know just what we are fighting for" and "we never know where our prayers are likely to go." The only good (and I use that term loosely) thing about this book is that it is short, so you won?t be mired in hopelessness and negativity for too long. It?s only 100 pages of large, spaced out print, most of it dialogue.
Rating: 
Summary: From the mouths of babes...
Review: I mean not to trivialize this inciteful book in any way by this title, rather I want to express my surprise and profound admiration for an author far more widely known for his novels than his political commentary for producing a book that has assembled the dispirit facts surrounding America's ridiculous attack on Iraq.On pages 51,52 and 53 Mailer illuminates clearly the core reason for this attack: he writes that at root, America wants
fundamentaly to turn the clock back-to return America to a morally absolute, Christian society and the current government believes by making America into a new Roman Empire these ideals will come to fruition. As an old American who spent too long in the beast's belly, I completely agree with Mailer. His eblucidation of America's reasons for its current foreign policy fit perfectly with all I remember from an even more innocent America many years ago-how much more true his insights are now on the footsteps of the new millennium. He writes on page 52, "Once we become a twenty first-century embodiment of the old Roman Empire, moral reform can stride right back into the picture". There have been mumerous reasons put forward for this terrible Iraqi attack: oil, Israel, vengence, domestic politics but I feel that Mailer's insightful analysis is the best. He readily admits that he believes that the players at the top of Bush's government don't fully realize why they are doing what they're doing-they are unthinkingly pushing a religiously conservative barrel but not fully understanding why. A hugely thoughtful book-read it and decide for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Lights Out
Review: I've never been a huge fan of Norman Mailer--let's be frank, no one is a bigger fan of Norman Mailer than Norman Mailer--and this book did little to change that opinion.
The first section of this book is exactly the kind of rhetorical meandering that gives intellectualism a bad name in some circles. Mailer spends so much time propping up his own semi-logical house of cards that he completely sidesteps the meat of the matter. Truth is lost in the dust. After a while, statements like "people who are wicked are always raising the ante without knowing quite what they're doing. Most of us are wicked to a good degree," start to sound like the blathering of Hawkeye Pierce in a sub-standard MASH episode.
Part II, a critical analysis of American foreign policy in the Middle East, Arabia and Persia following 9/11, is right on the mark, though Mailer's refusal to give even the slightest benefit of the doubt to the Bush administration overwhelms some of his better points; his relentless ridicule of religion and patriotism of all kinds is also daunting, unfair and unfounded. I have a hard time granting much credibility to a man who writes "We violate Christianity with every breath we take. Equally do the Muslims violate Islam. We are speaking of a war then between two essentially unbalanced and inauthentic theologies." Mailer never hints at any argument to buttress this statement; it is simply stated as fact. To write off 60 percent of the world's population as spiritually irrelevant is bogus, to say the least.
Perhaps most distressing is Mailer's increasing tendency to invoke an idealized past to support his arguments. Late in the book he complains that young children don't "read consecutively for an hour or two," as he says they used to. Again, there is nothing factual to support the statement. Odder still are the bizarre causes Mailer claims led to the supposed problem: TV commercials (not TV shows, just the commercial interruptions) and--get this--fluorescent lights in classrooms.
"What characterizes fluorescent light is that everybody looks 10 percent plainer than they do under incandescent bulbs...if everybody seems uglier than they are normally, why then, everyone naturally grows a little depressed."
Oh brother.
One of my usual complaints about Mailer is the length of his books: endless. Not so with "Why Are We At War," which I read cover to cover on my lunch hour. Eight bucks seems a little steep for 111 pages that appear to contain only a few more words than a NEW YORKER feature or a front page NY TIMES story with a jump.
Rating:
Summary: Why Bother?
Review: If you hope to have real insight into this topic, move on. Norman is too busy ranting to address his own issue with solid facts. Norm can't be found guilty of over simplification rather he drones on and on in circle-think to convince you he understands the topic.Don't waste your money or time.
Rating:
Summary: Brief and sharp examination by America's greatest writer
Review: In a sharp examination of American mood and motive in the post 9/11 world, Mailer uncovers the alarming drift in the Bush Administration's global response to terrorist dangers. With the failure to either kill or capture bin Ladin, he argues, the White House has expanded the perimeters of its moral imperative without clear or credible reasoning.
Mailer sees empire building as the be-all in an undisclosed agenda behind the Iraqi war. The erosion of our cherished democracy and rights is the biggest risk of our current crisis. Mailer writes surely and without a wasted word or metaphor, inspecting the roots of American need to have a Great Struggle of any kind in order to have some measure of surety and direction in an era that's become improbably complex, and punctures the sentimentalized ideas that we can establish democratic institutions in a region and amongst a culture that resists such fantasies. This is the Mailer we expect: provocative, original, morally rigorous.
Rating:
Summary: Why Are We At War?
Review: It is an important question that deserves more serious and thoughtful answers than have been provided by the administration, pundits and the media. Mailer complains that TV has destroyed our attention span, ability to learn, and to think clearly about issues - this books seems to be an example of that.
Mailer offers no evidence, nothing that might constitute an arguement and rambles on a variety of unrelated topics. His explanation is no more cogent and defensible than the one coming from the White House that he opposes. Perhaps we will never know the answer to that question.
Rating:
Summary: Still Stormin'
Review: Norman Mailer has been a very public intellectual since "The Naked and the Dead", the best novel to come out of WWII, was published when he was twenty-five. He has spent a lifetime on the national stage, so there is some validity to the charge that his ego is immense. He also has a lot to say and what he says is worth listening to. "Why Are We at War?", thinner than most Mailer, shows all the Mailerian verbal pyrotechnics and adds to the debate that still rages a year after the United States invaded Iraq. Mr. Mailer is, beyond anything, an artist. "The Naked and the Dead" may be a flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece it is. There have been fictional failures, like "Barbary Shore", and "The Gospel According to the Son", but Mailer's fiction has captured his times and has secured his position in American literature. Mailer is also a gifted essayist and journalist. He is, whether he likes the label or not, one of the original "New Journalists", a writer like Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, John Sack (and an endless parade of vaguely talented imitators) who makes himself a part of the story. "The Executioner's Song", about the first execution in the United States after the Supreme Court resurrected capital punishment in the 1970's after its brief legal demise, and "The Armies of the Night", about the anti-war march on the Pentagon in 1967, are as good as that genre gets. "Why Are We at War?" is only a welterweight contender next to that pair of heavyweight champions but the writing is the same. There are also similarities to Mailer's brilliant and unique novel "Why Are We in Vietnam?". "Malignant and bristling with dots" is how Mailer once described TV. Mailer has been railing for years about the vapidity and soul-stultifying nature of the tube, how it destroys creativity, limits attention spans and inures viewers to all mannner of violence. But Mailer concedes that TV can't sanitize all violence; some televised violence is transcendent. Like Ruby shooting Oswald. Like a handcuffed Viet Cong being hauled into a Saigon street and shot in the head. And like the second plane hitting the second tower on 9/11. An existential moment-Mailer watching the second strike on TV from his house in Provincetown while speaking on the phone to his daughter in Brooklyn; she was watching the same thing live through a plate-glass window. Mailer maintains that 9/11 provided the Bush people-Cheney, Wolfowitz, the whole recycled lot of them-the jingoistic cover they needed to do what they had wanted since the fall of the Soviet Union, namely expand the American Empire. The main reason the conservatives hated Clinton so much was less about the creative placement of cigars than the notion that he was frustrating their dream, their lust, for world takeover. No words are minced, no punches pulled in "Why Are We at War?". Former infantryman Mailer takes on "flag conservatives" and "promiscuous patriots", warns that President Bush will need a good "...karmic defense attorney" and wonders if we can export democracy the same way we export Big Macs and Coca Cola. Norman Mailer. The One and Only.
Rating:
Summary: Still Stormin'
Review: Norman Mailer has been a very public intellectual since "The Naked and the Dead", the best novel to come out of WWII, was published when he was twenty-five. He has spent a lifetime on the national stage, so there is some validity to the charge that his ego is immense. He also has a lot to say and what he says is worth listening to. "Why Are We at War?", thinner than most Mailer, shows all the Mailerian verbal pyrotechnics and adds to the debate that still rages a year after the United States invaded Iraq. Mr. Mailer is, beyond anything, an artist. "The Naked and the Dead" may be a flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece it is. There have been fictional failures, like "Barbary Shore", and "The Gospel According to the Son", but Mailer's fiction has captured his times and has secured his position in American literature. Mailer is also a gifted essayist and journalist. He is, whether he likes the label or not, one of the original "New Journalists", a writer like Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, John Sack (and an endless parade of vaguely talented imitators) who makes himself a part of the story. "The Executioner's Song", about the first execution in the United States after the Supreme Court resurrected capital punishment in the 1970's after its brief legal demise, and "The Armies of the Night", about the anti-war march on the Pentagon in 1967, are as good as that genre gets. "Why Are We at War?" is only a welterweight contender next to that pair of heavyweight champions but the writing is the same. There are also similarities to Mailer's brilliant and unique novel "Why Are We in Vietnam?". "Malignant and bristling with dots" is how Mailer once described TV. Mailer has been railing for years about the vapidity and soul-stultifying nature of the tube, how it destroys creativity, limits attention spans and inures viewers to all mannner of violence. But Mailer concedes that TV can't sanitize all violence; some televised violence is transcendent. Like Ruby shooting Oswald. Like a handcuffed Viet Cong being hauled into a Saigon street and shot in the head. And like the second plane hitting the second tower on 9/11. An existential moment-Mailer watching the second strike on TV from his house in Provincetown while speaking on the phone to his daughter in Brooklyn; she was watching the same thing live through a plate-glass window. Mailer maintains that 9/11 provided the Bush people-Cheney, Wolfowitz, the whole recycled lot of them-the jingoistic cover they needed to do what they had wanted since the fall of the Soviet Union, namely expand the American Empire. The main reason the conservatives hated Clinton so much was less about the creative placement of cigars than the notion that he was frustrating their dream, their lust, for world takeover. No words are minced, no punches pulled in "Why Are We at War?". Former infantryman Mailer takes on "flag conservatives" and "promiscuous patriots", warns that President Bush will need a good "...karmic defense attorney" and wonders if we can export democracy the same way we export Big Macs and Coca Cola. Norman Mailer. The One and Only.
Rating:
Summary: RIGHT ON!
Review: NORMAN MAILER REVEALS HOW THIS WAR IS THE RESULT OF OUR FEAR DRIVEN COLLECTIVE SUBCONCIOUS AND ITS MANIPULATION BY THE ADMINISTRATION FOR THEIR OWN AGENDA AFTER THE EVENT OF 9/11 .
IT IS A GREAT EYE OPENER REGARDING THE CONSTRUCTIVE PATRIOTISM OF THE ANTI WAR CROWD VERSUS THE REASSURING DRUG ADDICTION TYPE PATRIOTISM OF THE PRO WAR PEOPLE. THE BOOK WARNS US HOW A DEMOCRATIC NATION CAN BE LEAD BLINDLY AND UNWITTINGLY INTO A FASCISM SIMILAR TO HITLER'S NAZISM. IT SHOWS US AS WELL THE MOTIVATIONS AND DANGERS OF IMPERIALISM AND ITS HYPOCRISY IN THE CONTEXT OF OUR FREEDOM LOVING COUNTRY. MAILER TRIES TO TEACH THE READER THAT REAL CONCERN FOR ONE'S COUNTRY IS NOT IN DENIAL AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE BUT IN THE RECOGNITION OF AND ACTING UPON ITS QUALITIES AND ITS DEFECTS.
Rating:
Summary: Why pay for these lies
Review: Norman Mailer suggests that the U.S. went to war with Iraq to boost the ego of white males in this book. How ridiculous!
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