Norman Mailer has died at 84. The New York Times explores his larger-than-life presence in art and culture. Shallow Nation pays tribute in video: Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan in 1968, expounding on violence, alienation and the electronic envelope.

A video of the 1995 conversation with Charlie Rose and Norman Mailer at the 92nd Street Y, regarding his book Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery, exploring the mysteries surrounding the death of President John F. Kennedy and those of his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Here is a link to The New York Times slideshow presentation.

Here is the The New York Times index of articles about Mailer.

Norman Mailer with Jimmy Breslin in 1969, during his mayoral race in New York City.

From the New York Times obituary:

Mr. Mailer burst on the scene in 1948 with “The Naked and the Dead,” a partly autobiographical novel about World War II, and for six decades he was rarely far from center stage. He published more than 30 books, including novels, biographies and works of nonfiction, and twice won the Pulitzer Prize: for “The Armies of the Night” (1968), which also won the National Book Award, and “The Executioner’s Song” (1979).

He also wrote, directed and acted in several low-budget movies, helped found The Village Voice and for many years was a regular guest on television talk shows, where he could reliably be counted on to make oracular pronouncements and deliver provocative opinions, sometimes coherently and sometimes not.

Mr. Mailer belonged to the old literary school that regarded novel writing as a heroic enterprise undertaken by heroic characters with egos to match. He was the most transparently ambitious writer of his era, seeing himself in competition not just with his contemporaries but with the likes of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

He was also the least shy and risk-averse of writers. He eagerly sought public attention, and publicity inevitably followed him on the few occasions when he tried to avoid it. His big ears, barrel chest, striking blue eyes and helmet of seemingly electrified hair — jet black at first and ultimately snow white — made him instantly recognizable, a celebrity long before most authors were lured out into the limelight.

Norman Mailer in 1987.