Letter to the New York Times Book Review
Mailer's letter answering Brigid Brophy's review of The Prisoner of Sex, defending his use of 'rendered' as a term for the clarifying of fat over a fire.
A letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review (13 June 1971), in which Mailer answers Brigid Brophy, who in her 23 May review of The Prisoner of Sex (71.20) had called his use of “rendered” (in “politics rendered every pride”) a malapropism for “surrendered” or “rent.” Mailer correctly defines the word as “that process where fat heated upon a fire is returned to oil and clarified of its impurities.” Reprinted as “To the New York Times Book Review” in Existential Errands (72.7) and Pieces and Pontifications (82.19), and in Mind of an Outlaw (14.3); in both of the earlier reprintings an incorrect Book Review date of 20 June is given.
Related pages
- The Prisoner of Sex (71.20)
- 1971
- Existential Errands (72.7) | The Essential Mailer (82.19) | Selected Letters of Norman Mailer (14.3)