The Castle in the Forest

Norman Mailer is indeed an interesting and rather complex author. His body of work is diverse, ranging from hard-boiled noir to fictional biographies with unique perspectives. It's no secret that some of his lesser received books contain elements of narcissism and hedonism.

Take "The Castle in the Forest" for example. I picked it up years ago for two main reasons. Firstly, it was a Mailer novel, and secondly, the cover and synopsis piqued my interest. Given my positive experience with "The Gospel According to the Son", which I found to be an excellent novel, I had high expectations that Mailer would handle the mix of fact and fiction with care and research.

Rather than providing a detailed summary of the story, as others have done it far better than I could, I'll simply share my opinion. This book was a love/hate read for me. On one hand, the central ideas presented in the novel are original and ingenious. It delves into profound philosophical questions such as the origin of evil within a person, the conflict between free will and determinism in religion, and the psychological effects of poverty, incest, and trauma.

However, the way these ideas are expressed leaves much to be desired. Each great idea is filtered through a psychosexual lens that often elicits disgust rather than thoughtful reflection. For every moment of meaningful contemplation, there is a cringe-worthy scene involving bodily functions or perverse insinuations. Incest and pedophilia are rampant themes, and Mailer seems unable to resist directly connecting certain aspects of Hitler's early life to these perversities.

There are other minor issues as well. For instance, Mailer (or the narrator Dieter) spends an inordinate amount of time on the process of beekeeping. While it is related to the story in that it's the only activity that seems to connect Alois Sr. with his sons, it takes up dozens of pages that could have been better utilized focusing on Adolf himself. The narrator's insistence that we not draw any inferences from Adolf's observations during the beekeeping process further complicates matters.

In conclusion, although I can't say I truly enjoyed this book, it has left a lasting impression on my thoughts. It's a book that demands some degree of pondering, but perhaps not for an extended period.

Dead now for not even two years and entering the reputational eclipse nearly all The Known do -- perhaps a symbolic washing of the corpse -- Norman Mailer deserves his last book to be noticed, even read.

This is not vintage Mailer, but it does contain vintage Mailer themes. There is sexual untidiness, grumbling guilt and bad faith. Accident is seen as opportunistic History, and there is harmartia. There is also an existential theology, a battle between good and bad angels. In this case, it is a secret bureaucracy not American, but that of the Schutzstaffel.

This is the imagined story of the young Adolf Hitler, a coming of age, Part One, destined not to be followed up on. Frankly, as an American Jew, one of that strong post WWII generation of Jewish writers, Mailer avoided the 'Jewish theme' more than others. Perhaps his early Harvard schooling, Army service, and colossal novelistic success with The Naked and The Dead blanched out some of the ethnic identity kept by Saul Bellow or Phillip Roth.

At any rate, given the ever-teetering situation of an Israeli state -- and the implied reverberations within America and elsewhere -- Jews even of the current generation may feel the delicacy of handling Hitler as either a pawn in a cosmic battle or as an existential agent to become a negative force in forging a provisional 'nature' of humanity.

Were we to have the sequel, we might know what Mailer would have brewed. It's possible he left significant-enough notes that his literary executors could eventually produce an 'intended product'.

Mailer's exploration of Hitler in this book is a bold and controversial move. It forces readers to grapple with complex ideas about history, morality, and the nature of evil. While the book may not be a masterpiece, it is an important addition to Mailer's body of work and a thought-provoking contribution to the ongoing discussion about Hitler and the Holocaust.

Perhaps in the end, Mailer's treatment of Hitler serves as a reminder that even the most heinous of individuals are products of their time and circumstances. And that understanding the past is essential if we are to avoid repeating its mistakes.

Impeccable.

From the very outset, the story is told from the perspective of a "demon", a kind of "guardian angel". The gaze is on Adolf Hitler as a child, a project of a future diabolical personality and how this type of person is molded without delving into the Holocaust, only touching on it through symbols: bees, sex, and paternal abuse.

It is extremely interesting to observe how the author presents this unique take on Hitler's early life. By using these symbols, the reader is given a new way to think about the development of such a complex and evil figure.

The idea of a "demon" or "angel of the guard" watching over Hitler as he grows up adds an element of mystery and intrigue to the narrative. It makes one wonder if there was something more at play in Hitler's life that led him down the path of destruction.

Overall, this approach to telling Hitler's story is both thought-provoking and engaging, leaving the reader with much to consider.

CD/unabridged/Literature:

When it comes to this work, I'm in a bit of a quandary. I've given it four stars, yet I almost hate that I liked it. After all, it's about Hitler!

The narrator, Harris Yulin, does an excellent job. He narrates with an American accent while using a German one for the voices. (Harris Yulin also played Head Watcher Quentin Travers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy's line, \"....and with out the slayer, you're just watching Masterpiece Theatre\", adds a bit of an interesting note.) This novel, which is 15 discs long, definitely requires a good narrator. I don't think I could have read it; listening was much easier. The book is a dramatization of conversations.

Supposedly about Hitler's childhood and his path to becoming a sociopath, the book actually focuses mostly on his father, Alois Hitler. Narrated by Dieter, an SS Officer who reveals himself to be a devilish henchman, he is sent to the Hitler home before Adolf is born to \"guide\" and watch the family. Dieter claims to be writing down his memoirs but fears retribution. The book only goes up to Alois' death, so Adolf is very young throughout. And yes, Adolf shows signs of evil even as a child.

There are many theories about who Adolf's grandfather was, and Mailer makes his stance clear. (I even checked Wikipedia to see if his theory had any merit, and it seems it does.) Mailer believes Hitler was a nut because of incest. Apparently, there are three possible grandfathers, two of whom are blood relatives and one a Jew. Alois, Hitler's father, marries his third wife, Adolf's mother, who is either his niece or daughter. (Later in Adolf's life, he has a relationship with his niece as well.)

This book takes many directions, which is typical of Mailer's works. I now know more about beekeeping than I ever thought I would. It also moves to Russia and spends two discs on the early Romanov marriage. It delves into Adolf's older brother Alois Junior's sexual exploits, which seem to have no relevance to shaping Hitler. Dieter also tells us not to read too much into Adolf seeing a religious swastika on a door or watching bees being gassed with sulfur in their hives. The novel touches on Adolf's love for playing war games in the woods with neighborhood kids, but not in as much depth as one might expect. Instead, Mailer focuses more on Adolf's bowel movements as a toddler, his masturbation habits, his ability to become a confident liar, and his lack of guilt.

The funniest (or perhaps oddest) part of this book was when I went to Wikipedia to learn more about it. (I bought the audio for just $3 at a library sale.) It turns out the book won the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2007. The problem was, I couldn't figure out which scene they were referring to because all the scenes were rather crude. Alois and Adolf's mother's animalistic behavior and Alois Junior's homosexual act were both rather shallow. (It makes you wonder, considering Mailer was married six times.)

So, do I recommend it? Well, if you're a Mailer fan, then yes. But if you're not, you probably won't like this book. However, I have to admit, it was entertaining, and the audio was well-read. By the way, this book was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy about Hitler's life, but Mailer died soon after its publication.

Mailer presents an inventive concept in this work. He has a narrative written by a demon, which is intended to guide Hitler through his childhood and shape the monster he becomes. However, this interesting idea is buried beneath incredibly base obsessions. There is an excessive focus on feces, incest, and Hitler's single testicle. Mailer's normal highfalutin prose only makes matters worse as these points are dwelled upon.

There is potential for emotion to be drawn from Hitler's tragic relationship with his father and younger brother. This could have been the core of the book, but it is only briefly indulged. The book becomes more interesting when Mailer provides explanations of the demons' machinations in their competition with the angels.

When I learned that this book was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy, I was relieved that it didn't continue. As a completist, I would have felt obliged to read on. Overall, this is not a good book. Additionally, the extensive amount of content about beekeeping, which is clearly meant to be a metaphor for the Holocaust, is clumsy and somewhat offensive.

This novel presents a well-researched and hypothetical reconstruction of Adolf Hitler's early life, from his childhood to the death of his father.

However, in my view, its greatest flaw lies in Mailer's choice to make the narrator a devil tasked with guiding young Adolf through his formative years. While this approach provides some degree of insight, it could have been equally accomplished through third-person authorial narration.

Alternatively, and perhaps more intriguingly, Mailer could have adhered to the device of having the book narrated by the SS officer into whom the demon is temporarily incarnated. The effectiveness of this approach is vividly demonstrated in the first section, where the officer pursues Heinrich Himmler's interests in eugenic incest and the occult.

Regrettably, instead of maintaining this consistent narrative perspective, Mailer switches from the officer at the beginning, to the demon for the majority of the book, and then back to the officer in the final pages. This lack of narrative coherence suggests that the book may have been left unfinished by an indecisive author.

Is it feasible to successfully fictionalize Adolf Hitler's life? Not if you're Norman Mailer. Mailer simply can't refrain from adding a psychosexual twist to everything. (Admittedly, it's an environment ripe for such exploration: Klara Pölzl, Adolf's mother, was the niece of Adolf's father Alois and perhaps even his daughter; Klara called Alois "Uncle" throughout their marriage, it seems.) Mailer envisions Alois relishing the feel of Adolf's buttocks as he beats him; he imagines a circle-jerk among school friends; Klara adores and lauds little Adolf's little pink anus; the young Adolf masturbates to a newspaper photo of the anarchist assassin of the Austrian Empress, Elisabeth of Bavaria, who coincidentally has a "dark little smear of a mustache" that reminds Adolf of his half-sister Angela's pubic hair seen once when they slept in the same bed.

A more significant issue with the novel is that it's just extremely dull. There's far too much detail about beekeeping, for instance. The idea of having a devil narrate in the first person - because, you see, Hitler's mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth was closely overseen by devils - is incredibly wearisome.

The novel concludes with Hitler around the age of 18, having just passed his school exams after failing French several times. The school presents him with a graduation certificate, which he loses after passing out from heavy drinking. Aware that his mother will very much desire to see the certificate, he returns to the school to request a replacement copy. The schoolmaster, in disgust, shows Adolf the four pieces of the certificate; it turns out that the inebriated Adolf had wiped his bottom with it and torn it up. Adolf cleans up the certificate and glues it back together, telling his mother: "...the more I looked at it, the more did I realize how much you sacrificed for me, and how little I had understood. I tore it up to avoid crying like a baby."

Klara wept with love when she learned why the certificate had returned to her in four pieces.

"It is even more precious to me this way," she said. "I will be proud to frame it."

Two additional novels mapping Hitler's subsequent life were intended to be written, but Mailer passed away in the same year this one was published.

The book presents a truly remarkable and rather unconventional perspective.

It delves into the idea of a demon nurturing Hitler and his family during his childhood.

This is a concept that I have never encountered before in any other book.

The topics it discusses are not only thought-provoking but also extremely challenging.

Mailer's writing prowess is truly outstanding.

He has a remarkable ability to breathe life into each character, endowing them with unique personalities.

His vivid descriptions and detailed characterizations make the story come alive on the pages.

It is a captivating read that forces the reader to confront some uncomfortable and complex ideas.

Overall, this book is a testament to Mailer's skill as a writer and his willingness to explore uncharted territory.