Norman Mailer: The Castle in the Forest
Readers are limited by the same bounds placed on that satanic minion's ability to understand and guide Adolf. We only hear the report of a devil, dictated by the reports of his superior devils, dictated by only Satan knows who. And by the time Adolf reaches adulthood, we've realized, along with the fiend who's guided us, that Hitler's soul is only his own: independent and unknown.
Mailer's focus is not on Hitler himself: he doesn't really seem too interested in the man. His interest is instead in the ultimate unfathomability of the soul.
All of this adds up to a book that is sure to leave a person thinking. It's well written and mystical enough to keep up a steady, if slow, momentum: "Usually, I can call upon keen senses that enable me to take in the spiritual weight of a human being. From the far end of a large room, I can perceive flaws of character in the corner of a nostril or the ridges of an ear." It may be dense and intense, but the novel ultimately offers a fine intellectual payoff.
That thematic payoff doesn't come until the last couple paragraphs of a 467-page book, however. And it's too bad that the characterizations of Adolf and his family remain flat and vague. Though we observe this unlikable family for decades, our observations rarely include such specifics as what they say, or how they move. Stuck in a world in which the individual is a discrete, isolated quantity, we are not even given a chance to infer character from observation. Mailer's eloquent, mythical style may help weave a spell, but no spell lasts long enough to stick in such a dry world for such a cerebral payoff!
Norman Mailer is a master, and this book is an intricately constructed edifice. But it doesn't have much humanity. It's no mistake that the novel's humans rarely speak, and that they never seem to have any verve.
It's a stretch to say that Mailer should have made Hitler more sympathetic. But, well, maybe he should have. Unlike the devilish narrator, we humans can get a read on someone by what we observe. And from all that's been said and all that's been written about the man, it seems sure that Hitler had a little more passion, and was a lot more (creepily) recognizable and human than Mailer presents him here.
The Castle in the Forest is a book that really makes a person think. Too bad it doesn't really make a person feel.
Mailer's focus is not on Hitler himself: he doesn't really seem too interested in the man. His interest is instead in the ultimate unfathomability of the soul.
All of this adds up to a book that is sure to leave a person thinking. It's well written and mystical enough to keep up a steady, if slow, momentum: "Usually, I can call upon keen senses that enable me to take in the spiritual weight of a human being. From the far end of a large room, I can perceive flaws of character in the corner of a nostril or the ridges of an ear." It may be dense and intense, but the novel ultimately offers a fine intellectual payoff.
That thematic payoff doesn't come until the last couple paragraphs of a 467-page book, however. And it's too bad that the characterizations of Adolf and his family remain flat and vague. Though we observe this unlikable family for decades, our observations rarely include such specifics as what they say, or how they move. Stuck in a world in which the individual is a discrete, isolated quantity, we are not even given a chance to infer character from observation. Mailer's eloquent, mythical style may help weave a spell, but no spell lasts long enough to stick in such a dry world for such a cerebral payoff!
Norman Mailer is a master, and this book is an intricately constructed edifice. But it doesn't have much humanity. It's no mistake that the novel's humans rarely speak, and that they never seem to have any verve.
It's a stretch to say that Mailer should have made Hitler more sympathetic. But, well, maybe he should have. Unlike the devilish narrator, we humans can get a read on someone by what we observe. And from all that's been said and all that's been written about the man, it seems sure that Hitler had a little more passion, and was a lot more (creepily) recognizable and human than Mailer presents him here.
The Castle in the Forest is a book that really makes a person think. Too bad it doesn't really make a person feel.
Be the first to comment on this story