Making Books: 'Private Ryan' Reviews a Genre
Martin Arnold's New York Times column (30 July 1998) on the 'concentrated carnage' of Saving Private Ryan and its parallels to The Naked and the Dead; Mailer on WWII as his enduring 'point of reference.'
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
“Making Books: ‘Private Ryan’ Reviews a Genre,” Martin Arnold’s New York Times column (30 July 1998, Sec. E, p. 3), draws a parallel between the “concentrated carnage” of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and The Naked and the Dead, which Arnold calls “arguably the greatest combat novel ever written by an American.” Mailer: “The Second World War was a watershed. Everything is of it, before it or after it… . It’s still my point of reference.”
A full transcription, held in the working archive pending rights clearance, is at full text.