That is what I said upon learning that Norman Mailer, who cannot be contained by labels but who wrote for a living, had left the building on Saturday.
Why did I worry about Vidal, who is now our last remaining lion?
Vidal and Mailer have been friends/rivals/friends for years. I felt that Mailer's spirit might call to his counterpart, his fellow lion: "Allons! to that which is endless, as it was beginningless." (Whitman, Song of the Open Road, 13:169.)
Who could fail to answer?
#
They don't make 'em like Mailer (or Vidal, who, despite my fretting, is still with us) anymore. In some respects, that might be a good thing. But what we're losing, as Mailer's vast 20th-century life and those like it come to a close, is irreplaceable.
#
"Song of the Open Road" again, 14:190-195:
"Forever alive, forever forward,
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go;
But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great."
