Old slugger: Norman Mailer. Photograph: Corbis
Two months after his death, the Norman Mailer Archive has finally opened in Texas. Containing 40,000 letters and "materials associated with every one of his ... projects, whether completed or not", the archive (located at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre) promises to be the definitive resource on the great slugger of American literature.
Presumably, among the 1,000 plus boxes held there, at least one will shed some light on one of his lesser known works: Ancient Evenings. I had the rare pleasure of chancing across a copy while staying in a rented cottage over the holidays. To say I read it would be an exaggeration, but I read bits of it, with a growing sense of bewildered awe. It's an unintentionally hilarious tale of mysticism and royal bloodlines in ancient Egypt, a grandly misguided folly in the best traditions of Mailer. If you read it in a hard-bitten American drawl, it's even funnier. The narrative runs roughshod over historical detail with cheerful abandon, and there's plenty of talk of "spilling of seed in the hand". Like much of Mailer's work, it seems to have fiercely divided the critics: Anthony Burgess included it in his Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best In English Since 1939. Most others considered it unmitigated rubbish. I couldn't recommend it more highly; although for slightly different reasons than Burgess.
