The Time of Her Time

"The Time of Her Time" is a 1959 short story written by Norman Mailer, first appearing in his collection of short works, Advertisements for Myself. The story depicts macho Irish Catholic bullfighting instructor Sergius O'Shaugnessy and his sexual conquest of a young, middle-class Jewish college girl, Denise Gondelman. The short story was adapted to film in 2000 by Francis Delia. On multiple occasions, Mailer has toted the "The Time of Her Time" as "the godfather of Lolita."^[1]

Publication

"The Time of Her Time" was first published in 1959 in the collection, Advertisements for Myself. Mailer said that his publisher, Walter Minton of G. P. Putnam's Sons publishing, was brave for publishing the short story, despite its status as "a salacious object in its time."^[2] When Minton published it, "a great many of us, not only writers, but critics as well, novelists collaborated to a degree, in the sense that we were fighting the Philistines who wanted to hold literature back."^[3] The story collection, Advertisements for Myself, was published without any censorship, though "The Time of Her Time" was absent from the English publication.^[4] Mailer has maintained that "The Time of Her Time" has acted as the godfather of Lolita.^[5] "Later, Minton used to love to say one of the reasons he published Lolita was he saw he could get away with it... he realized that for all the brouhaha over the dangers of publishing 'The Time of Her Time,' nothing had happened."^[6]

Plot

The story follows Sergius O'Shaugnessy after he has adjusted to life in Greenwich Village and his sexual exploration and conquests there. O'Shaugnessy, having recently departed from Mexico and his career as an amateur bullfighter, sets up a bullfighting school in his flat. Rumor of his sexual prowess and stamina spreads quickly through the Village until he is "scoring three and four times a week, literally combing the pussy out of my hair."^[7] Sergius, the "messiah of the one-night stand," then meets a collegiate New York girl, Denise Gondelman, Jewish and middle-class. The first night together, they "made love like two club fighters in an open exchange."^[8] Sergius is unable to produce an orgasm in Denise; she confides that she has never orgasmed, and Sergius takes this as a challenge to his masculinity. The pair begin an affair – for Denise has been dating a passive Jewish college mate, Arthur, all the while. On the third night, Denise arrives at O'Shaugnessy's place after, she reveals, having spent the evening with Arthur. O'Shaugnessy finds himself lacking on their first try, but he quickly rallies and, by sodomizing her and calling her "a dirty little Jew," produces her orgasm.^[9] The morning after, Denise, upset by the Sergius' violation of her, tells him, "... your whole life is a lie, and you do nothing but run away from the homosexual that is you," and leaves before Sergius can respond that "she was a hero fit for [him]."^[10]

Critical reception and interpretation

Despite its bawdy content, "The Time of Her Time" has been generally accepted as one of Mailer's most well-written short stories. George Steiner notes that "[a]ll of Mailer's obsessions are concentrated and disciplined in this wry tale."^[11] Andrew Gordon considers "The Time of Her Time" to be the forerunner to An American Dream. The two works have "a very close relationship in subject matter. ... 'Time' can be considered a test run for Dream, although in some respects it is more acceptable than that novel because it is more ironic and self-mocking."^[12] Mailer has been criticized for his usage of "tired stereotypes," of women, Jews, and blacks, present in "The Time of Her Time."^[13] The character of Sergius O'Shaugnessy is Mailer's first active narrator, "a Nordic superman who tackles Denise Gondelman... in a sweaty sexual slugfest, a great sporting bout."^[14] Due to this and other parallels between Sergius' character and the author, many critics have questioned the authorial gap between Sergius' and Mailer's philosophy of sex.

Sergius' identifies his penis as "the avenger," lending some credence to Denise's labeling him a "phallic narcissist." Gordon evaluates Sergius as a typical incomplete hero from Mailer's work, failing to fulfill his full potential due to self-doubt and weakness.^[15] The act of sex is often portrayed as a type of combat or warfare in the short story. Sex "takes on the qualities of a championship boxing match, an encounter between a matador and bull or an epic struggle for survival between two savage beasts in a jungle clearing."^[14] Helon Howell Raines has written extensively on the sexual metaphor present here. The sex between Denise and Sergius is a struggle between the masculine and the feminine qualities present in both of them. Sergius "sees himself as the virile male," while Denise is his "physical and sexual opposite." Thus Sergius must conquer "the male in her to acquire ("ingest") her desirable masculine qualities ... he needs to reduce her to the status of helpless female." Only by taking Denise's masculine attributes for himself is O'Shaugnessy able to bolster his own masculinity and conquer the female, "thereby defeating and subjugating any suggestion of the female in himself. For him to allow any of his own female characteristics to emerge would be to allow the possibility that he could be conquered, dependent, inferior." Nevertheless, Mailer does indicate "an awareness of the androgynous nature of the human psyche" by recognizing the mixture of masculine and feminine traits in both Denise and Sergius. When Denise leaves Sergius post-coitus for the last time in the work, she accuses him of being a closeted homosexual. His reaction reveals "that his fear of female sexuality is coupled with his knowledge of himself as a possible female victim." Mailer's world is one "dominated by the masculine ideals of violence, virility, and vitality." Here "a man must be a sexual master in order to achieve and maintain social and cultural power," while the admission of femininity, "which O'Shaugnessy equates with homosexuality ... is to lose."^[16] James Shapiro of the New York Times links the title of Mailer's 1998 collection of his works, The Time of Our Time, and the short story bearing a similar title. Just as how Sergius stripped Denise of her "innocence" in "The Time of Her Time," Mailer has done the same for his reading public. Taking the parallel even further, as Denise turns her back on her revelatory sexual experience with Sergius, the reading public may turn its back on "Mailer's considerable insights into those parts of ourselves and our culture we may not be eager to face."^[13]

References

1. Norman Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," in The Time of Our Time (New York: Random House, 1998), 318.
2. Ibid.
3. "Norman Mailer Interview: Living a Literary Life," Academy of Achievement: A Museum of Living History, last modified June 20, 2011, http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mai0int-7.
4. James Shapiro, "Advertisements for Himself," The New York Times, May 10, 1998, accessed December 11, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/10/books/advertisements-for-himself.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.
5. Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," in The Time of Our Time, 318.
6. "Norman Mailer Interview: Living a Literary Life."
7. Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," in The Time of Our Time, 324.
8. Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," 329.
9. Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," 340.
10. Mailer, "The Time of Her Time," 342.
11. Andrew Gordon, An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1980), 113.
12. Gordon, An American Dreamer, 114.
13. Shapiro, "Advertisements for Himself."
14. Gordon, An American Dreamer, 115.
15. Gordon, An American Dreamer, 117.
16. Helon Howell Raines, "Norman Mailer's Sergius O'Shaugnessy, Villain and Victim," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 1977): 73–4, accessed December 11, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346110.