The Naked and the Dead

By: Norman Mailer

Narrated by: John Buffalo Mailer

Length: 26 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

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 become part of 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 an army platoon of foot soldiers who are fighting for the possession of the Japanese-held island of Anopopei. Composed in 1948, The Naked and the Dead is representative of the best in twentieth-century American writing.

©1951 Norman Mailer (P)2016 Brilliance Audio. All rights reserved.

John Buffalo Mailer narrates his father's book

Any additional comments?

I first started reading Norman Mailer’s books as a high school senior in 1970 with a paperback copy of ARMIES OF THE NIGHT, and have spent the years since reading all of his books—often reading them two or three times each--and considering Mailer as America’s best writer. Now we have the audible version of THE NAKED AND THE DEAD read by his son, John Buffalo Mailer.

John does an outstanding, professional, insightful, and loving job with the performance. I’ve listened to hundreds of audio books, and John Buffalo Mailer’s performance ranks among the best. I’m sure Norman would be extremely proud of him. I hope that John narrates other books by Norman Mailer that are not available as audio books, such as DEER PARK, THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG, WHY ARE WE IN VIETNAM, and my favorite, AN AMERICAN DREAM.It’s a shame these books, and all of Norman Mailer’s books, aren’t available as audio books.

Thankfully THE NAKED AND THE DEAD is now available, narrated superbly by John Buffalo Mailer.

10 people found this helpful

Good and bad

Depends on what you want in a book. If you want a drama, then this is your book. 2% of the book was about battle movements and the rest was relational

What a performance!

A stunning and horrifying story of the realities of war and human nature.
Brilliantly narrated!

Worthy

this really is one of the better WW2 books around. this really is one of the better WW2 books around

Wonder reader

I Really enjoyed the different voices that were made for each character!! Wonderful work here!

Could be an Oscar winning war film

It is anticlimactic, but that was the intention. Great character development and deep understanding of the pysche for the battle fatigued soldier. If done correctly, this could be adapted to film that would be a multi Oscar winner.

Best audio book is hard so far.

The performance was totally immersive and entertaining. John must have made his father very proud wish this.

1 person found this helpful

Great book, okay reader

If you could sum up The Naked and the Dead in three words, what would they be?

compelling story

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Generally a good performance. However, the accent used for Oscar Ridges sounds like a parody of Southern speech, sort of a cross between Uncle Remus and Foghorn Leghorn.

1 person found this helpful

Characters seemed fake to me...

This novel is mostly character development with a modest WWII Pacific theater war story. The prose are very good.
Unfortunately, I did not find the characters quite believable. Perhaps this was partly because the novel is a bit dated, yet I have read many other books of this era that did not have this problem. The story was somewhat one-dimensional.

Gore Vidal considered this novel a fake, and I almost completely agreed with Vidal, for the exact same reasons.

The narration was quite good, without being particularly outstanding.

Suprisingly Boring

Boring uninteresting characters, dull plot, annoying narrator that says Fugg instead of fu@k. I never read the book, but is it spelled fugg in the book because it was written in the 40s and they did not want to be vulgar. Every time we took a ride in the time machine I cringed, oh shit here is another lame back story.

1 person found this helpful

absorbing

Rambling at times but also very compelling. More about human morality and nature than of war. I found it thought provoking and difficult to put down.

2 people found this helpful

not sure why this book is so highly regarded

it has its moments but the narrators delivery of different characters made them all sound the same, so easily got lost in who was being spoken about. Also the characters were all pretty horrible and had not features that made me care about them at all.

1 person found this helpful