Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #916516 in Books
• Published on: 1985-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Customer Reviews

Important
I'm only eighteen, and it's 30 years since most of what Mailer talks about in "The Prisoner of Sex" occurred, but I find this to still be an important book. It introduced me to Miller, and denounced those who would censor some of this centuries most important artists, for the sake of a deluded political correctness. One of the above reviews disliked Mailer's romantic mysticism--his criticisms of birth control and masturbation--but though I do not necessarily agree, I would hardly call it lunacy. Mailer has conveyed his message with dignity, and I can certainly respect it.

Mailer as Literary Critic Intrigues
There is much to argue with in "The Prisoner of Sex", and though I'm in sympathy with the aims of the womens' movement, I cheer Mailers' defense of the artists right to use their sexuality and sense of the sensual world as proper fodder for poetic expression.

There are times when Mailer- the- mystic clogs up an otherwise lacerating arguement,where his romanticism veers dangerously towards a lunatics hallucinations, but his defense of Miller, Lawrence and Genet against the clumsier moments of Millets' orginal critique in "Sexual Politics" is literary criticism at its most emphatic.

"Prisoner of Sex" is, I'm afraid, incoherant at times, but there are long passages of rich knock-out prose that demonstrate why Mailer is thought by many to be one of the premiere stylists of the times, and if nothing else, his lyrical defense of D.H.Lawrence is worth the purchase by itself.

Overall pleasing review with an agreeable portrait of Millet
This work, although not typical of Mailer, was of his best. Mailer portrays his views of feminism by tearing apart Kate Millet and her take on feminism. Despite the common perception of this book as an anti-feminist work, Mailer clearly respects the basis of feminism.