I finished Ancient Evenings. That was... a lot. A lot of sex mainly, it felt like somebody's wet (bad) dream. But ignoring the huge amounts of sex of all kinds, I found it very interesting and atmospheric and almost alien in its way of thinking. Apparently Mailer did a lot of research for this novel, some ten years or so, and even if I'm sure some things were invented or have been refuted and he played rather fast and loose with the timeline for dramatic purposes, the world felt alive and real. The line between sexuality, religion, magic and everyday life was a blur at most and even when characters had different gods and couldn't understand each other even when they tried to explain their own cults, there was no subtle wink wink nudge nudge to show how primitive or superstitious or whatever they were.
I thought reincarnation would be the only supernatural part of the novel, but no, magic and the gods are real too. Rather difficult to pretend magic rituals or gods speaking through humans as make-believe, coincidences or mass hysteria when you can become your own father and offer yourself eternal life.
Anyway, the book in itself is difficult to recommend. It's way too long and the story itself seems to ebb and flow and go on forever until it kind of stops in its tracks and moves towards the ending. Way too much poetic sex which gets pretty gross. Everybody is horny most of the time. In fact it gets a bit gross even without the sex. Beautifully written but very self-indulgent and the frame in frame in frame narrative might get a bit confusing at times. All in all, I don't regret reading it.