The article link doesn’t seem to work, and I couldn’t find the article on the Nation site. Let me paraphrase what I think Mailer might have said:

“Sartre felt that god had turned his back on the universe, and existence was meaningless without coffee and unfiltered cigarettes in a left bank bistro at half past eleven on a hung over wednesday when everybody else had to work. Face it, Jean Paul, your problem was god fucked up your eyes so every time a pretty girl walked by you saw two asses and didn’t know which one to pinch. Suck it up, you faux-commie gallic crybaby! You had it easy. Yeah, you got invaded by the germans, but they went away. these cave-man yahoos on this side of the water aren’t going anywhere. I feel like punching somebody in the face. Where’s gore vidal?”

odd. the url was correct. anyhow, updated it with a google cache link to the story instead. as for you’re stab it it… it’s certainly much more to the point. as for gore vidal, no fair punching him in the face. seen him lately on bill maher’s show? he’s halfway to saturn, or wherever old writers head off to when they wind down.

I love gore vidal. That was writing in character a bit, because as I recall the two of them had a public brawl about 30 years ago (I don’t even remember why; i think it was one of those “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” deals). And once (on tv at a party convention ca. 1972, I think) William Buckley said to VIdal “If you don’t stop calling me a crypto-fascist, I’m going to bash your face in!” Would that Gore had rowed over to New Jersy with him for a duel and killed him where Burr shot Hamilton.