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The Castle in the Forest
No career in modern American letters is at once so brilliant, varied, and controversial as that of Norman Mailer. In a span of more than six decades, Mailer has searched into subjects ranging from World War II to Ancient Egypt, from the march on the Pentagon to Marilyn Monroe, from Henry Miller and Mohammad Ali to Jesus Christ. Now, in The Castle in the Forest, his first major work of fiction in more than a decade, Mailer offers what may be his consummate literary endeavor: He has set out to explore the evil of Adolf Hitler.
The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be an exceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well as Hitler’s father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and the intimate details of his childhood and adolescence.
A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the Forest delivers its playful twists and surprises with astonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between good and evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis that propels this novel and makes it a work of stunning originality. Now, on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday, Norman Mailer may well be saying more than he ever has before.
From the Hardcover edition.
The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be an exceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well as Hitler’s father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and the intimate details of his childhood and adolescence.
A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the Forest delivers its playful twists and surprises with astonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between good and evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis that propels this novel and makes it a work of stunning originality. Now, on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday, Norman Mailer may well be saying more than he ever has before.
From the Hardcover edition.
477 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
185 people are currently reading
2354 people want to read
About the author
Norman Mailer
340 books1,417 followersNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts- and politics-oriented weekly newspaper initially distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 473 reviews
September 11, 2024
The Castle in the Forest is the memoir of a demon - Dieter, who was assigned by Satanic forces to influence young Adolph Hitler. It is also a biography of young Adolph Hitler and his family, told from the point of view of the demon. Adolph, born with a single testicle and unbearable body odour, is the chosen one because he was a product of two-fold incest. His grandmother gave birth to his father Alois after coupling with a cousin. Then Alois slept with his stepsister and she gave birth to Klara. Alois later married Klara, pretending to be her uncle. They had to take permission from the Vatican. Their marriage produced Adolph Hitler.
Mailer provides a brutally honest account of the sexual mores of the Austrian agricultural community. There is even a scene where the devil is present in the room the night Adolph was conceived. Mailer creates this animalistic world that oozes sex and carnality - Adolph's relationship with mother and half-sister, mating habits of queen bees, a horse bathed by Adolph's sister while he looks on with jealousy. Adolph contracts measles and kisses his younger brother Edmund. Edmund gets the measles and dies. The book does not really work as a horror novel because it is told from the demon’s point of view. But it is cold, disturbing and sinister. But more than erotic or thrilling, it is all very dreary. Almost as if Mailer was suggesting that evil, its machinations and its clients are more mediocre than we could imagine. Mailer died the year it was published. He was supposed to write two sequels about Hitler’s adulthood and rise to power.
Mailer lines up an array of real life and maybe some fictional characters, all of whom are creepy and cruel. The novel focuses rather excessively on Alois, Adolph’s father. He was a government employee and a womanizing brute of a man who would not think twice before whipping his children. There is Der Alte, the lonely apicurist who is a client of the demon and takes a lecherous interest in young Adolph and his brother Alois, during the Hitler family’s stay in Hafeld village. There is something melancholic or should I use the word adorable about families who are doomed?
It is an ambitious novel. Mailer/the demon takes a detour from his work on young Adolph to the coronation of Nicholas II. We are given diary entries of Nicholas II and Alexandra. Both have a sense of foreboding. Nicholas does not look forward to his time as a Tsar. They believe the ministers and Russian aristocrats are all working for their own good and not for the good of Russia. Then we are taken to the stampede of Khodynka. It is plotted by the devil and his allies. There is also a shorter detour to the murder of empress Elizabeth of Austria by the Italian anarchist, Luigi Luchini. The effect of the murder is described through a letter by Mark Twain who was on a lecture tour of Europe at the time. I can only imagine what other great characters would have been lined up in the sequels.
Mailer can boast of creating a few demonic set pieces. Alois’ intense interest in bee keeping (there are long lectures about the queen bee and the strong male bees that are chosen to copulate with her. Also sections where Alois controls the colony of bees to his satisfaction) seems to be a thinly veiled metaphor for the attitudes of the agrarian family and the direction Germany would take in the new century. But it must be said, the long bee keeping adventures of Alois’ are rather boring. Mailer’s style of excess works against the novel here.
I thought an account of Hitler's life with a demon influencing him as a conceit was a brilliant idea. This really is a deeply disturbing, at times boring, but ambitious novel that might work as a warning to people or countries who are at the crossroads. While not entirely satisfying, I am glad I read it.
Quotes:
“His greatest problem these days had been boredom. Now he had discovered its loyal assistant – poor memory.”
“We were always able to improve on the beliefs which our clients held. Once established in their prejudices, we could move to alter their certainties. Often we would intensify the hatred such clients felt for all that was opposite to them in other humans.”
Mailer provides a brutally honest account of the sexual mores of the Austrian agricultural community. There is even a scene where the devil is present in the room the night Adolph was conceived. Mailer creates this animalistic world that oozes sex and carnality - Adolph's relationship with mother and half-sister, mating habits of queen bees, a horse bathed by Adolph's sister while he looks on with jealousy. Adolph contracts measles and kisses his younger brother Edmund. Edmund gets the measles and dies. The book does not really work as a horror novel because it is told from the demon’s point of view. But it is cold, disturbing and sinister. But more than erotic or thrilling, it is all very dreary. Almost as if Mailer was suggesting that evil, its machinations and its clients are more mediocre than we could imagine. Mailer died the year it was published. He was supposed to write two sequels about Hitler’s adulthood and rise to power.
Mailer lines up an array of real life and maybe some fictional characters, all of whom are creepy and cruel. The novel focuses rather excessively on Alois, Adolph’s father. He was a government employee and a womanizing brute of a man who would not think twice before whipping his children. There is Der Alte, the lonely apicurist who is a client of the demon and takes a lecherous interest in young Adolph and his brother Alois, during the Hitler family’s stay in Hafeld village. There is something melancholic or should I use the word adorable about families who are doomed?
It is an ambitious novel. Mailer/the demon takes a detour from his work on young Adolph to the coronation of Nicholas II. We are given diary entries of Nicholas II and Alexandra. Both have a sense of foreboding. Nicholas does not look forward to his time as a Tsar. They believe the ministers and Russian aristocrats are all working for their own good and not for the good of Russia. Then we are taken to the stampede of Khodynka. It is plotted by the devil and his allies. There is also a shorter detour to the murder of empress Elizabeth of Austria by the Italian anarchist, Luigi Luchini. The effect of the murder is described through a letter by Mark Twain who was on a lecture tour of Europe at the time. I can only imagine what other great characters would have been lined up in the sequels.
Mailer can boast of creating a few demonic set pieces. Alois’ intense interest in bee keeping (there are long lectures about the queen bee and the strong male bees that are chosen to copulate with her. Also sections where Alois controls the colony of bees to his satisfaction) seems to be a thinly veiled metaphor for the attitudes of the agrarian family and the direction Germany would take in the new century. But it must be said, the long bee keeping adventures of Alois’ are rather boring. Mailer’s style of excess works against the novel here.
I thought an account of Hitler's life with a demon influencing him as a conceit was a brilliant idea. This really is a deeply disturbing, at times boring, but ambitious novel that might work as a warning to people or countries who are at the crossroads. While not entirely satisfying, I am glad I read it.
Quotes:
“His greatest problem these days had been boredom. Now he had discovered its loyal assistant – poor memory.”
“We were always able to improve on the beliefs which our clients held. Once established in their prejudices, we could move to alter their certainties. Often we would intensify the hatred such clients felt for all that was opposite to them in other humans.”
March 23, 2012
Is it possible to successfully novelize Adolf Hitler's life? Not if you're Norman Mailer. Mailer can't resist psychosexualizing everything. (Granted, it's a target-rich environment: Klara Pölzl, Adolf's mother, was the niece of Adolf's father Alois and (or) may have been his daughter; Klara called Alois "Uncle" throughout their marriage, apparently.) Mailer imagines Alois enjoying the feel of Adolf's buttocks as he beats him; he imagines a circle-jerk among school chums; Klara adores and celebrates little Adolf's little pink anus; the juvenile Adolf masturbates to a newspaper photo of the anarchist assassin of the Austrian Empress, Elisabeth of Bavaria, who happens to have a "dark little daub of a mustache" which reminds Adolf of his half-sister Angela's pubic hair glimpsed once when they slept in the same bed.
A bigger problem with the novel is that it's just deeply boring. There's way too much about beekeeping, for one thing. The conceit of having a devil narrate in the first person - for, you see, Hitler's mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual development was guided closely by devils - is exceedingly tiresome.
The novel ends with Hitler about age 18, having just passed his school exams after failing French a number of times. The school gives him a graduation certificate, which he loses, having passed out after a heavy bout of drinking. Knowing his mother will very much want to see the certificate, he goes to the school to ask for a replacement copy. The schoolmaster, disgustedly, shows Adolf the four pieces of the certificate; it turns out that the drunken Adolf had wiped his ass 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 keep from crying like a baby."
Klara wept with love when she heard why the certificate had come back to her in four pieces.
"It is even more valuable to me this way," she said. "I will be proud to put it into a frame."
Two more novels charting Hitler's further life were to be written, but Mailer died the same year this was published.
A bigger problem with the novel is that it's just deeply boring. There's way too much about beekeeping, for one thing. The conceit of having a devil narrate in the first person - for, you see, Hitler's mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual development was guided closely by devils - is exceedingly tiresome.
The novel ends with Hitler about age 18, having just passed his school exams after failing French a number of times. The school gives him a graduation certificate, which he loses, having passed out after a heavy bout of drinking. Knowing his mother will very much want to see the certificate, he goes to the school to ask for a replacement copy. The schoolmaster, disgustedly, shows Adolf the four pieces of the certificate; it turns out that the drunken Adolf had wiped his ass 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 keep from crying like a baby."
Klara wept with love when she heard why the certificate had come back to her in four pieces.
"It is even more valuable to me this way," she said. "I will be proud to put it into a frame."
Two more novels charting Hitler's further life were to be written, but Mailer died the same year this was published.
November 10, 2007
While the concept of this book was interesting - the narrator was a demon who influenced the devopment of Adolph Hitler in his early years - I found it filled with so much disgusting detail that it was difficult to stay with it until the end. And since much of it did not directly involve Hitler, it seemed unnecessary. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
June 18, 2025
Godwin's Law proposes that, for us always-online types, anyway, all discursive byways eventually lead to Hitler-straße. But what are we to make of a novel which purports to goose-step us to that wide boulevard even more immediately, somehow, and yet, simultaneously much more indirectly, proposing instead a trip back in time to when, in Laurie Anderson's words, Adolph (or “Adi” as we needs must call him for nearly all of these 477pp) wasn't so much as “a Hershey bar in [his] daddy's back pocket“?
For though, at the outset, we are informed that our narrator, an SS officer who straight away permits us to call him Dieter, has been charged with proving (to the satisfaction of his employer, Herr Himmler, at least) that Hitler's grandfather sired a line of Inzestuarier or “incestuaries”, it soon becomes clear that he was actually “there”, or sort of, to more or less bear witness to the deed(s), or to come as close to such perfect, “I knew him before he was famous!” knowledge as a non-omniscient, first-“person” narrator is privileged to get, for our Dieter is in fact
As for Himmler's thesis, well, the incest is important because, it is capable of producing "the Vision" (not what George H.W. Bush called "the vision thing", but something still a fair bit grander and more strange...a certain rare species of erratic genius...As Dieter quotes,
Well, to begin to answer that question takes up all of our allotted 477pp., and if that only takes us to the end of Adi's non-illustrious high school career, it does seem both exhaustive in the tour-de-force sense and yet somehow not enough (in the best possible sense of that phrase), though, because even by age 19, at the novel's close, Adi has not yet hardened into Hitler—or not quite…
What we have here then, is decidedly not yet another WWII tome, but more of a Thomas Mann intergenerational saga—a Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, if you will, but not so much as one that charts an ineluctable waning in the prosperity and happiness of a bourgeois family maked most of all by a stern, northern rectitudenung, but by a festering perversity which is, if not quite universal, still the result of the all-too-human banality in us all. Much monstrosity, but no real monsters, here, in other words, or not yet…
We've been on this kind of terrain of late of course, with Joshua Cohen's superb The Netanyahus, and have asked of it similar questions, e.g. how can such a manifestly idiotic family eventually yield such world-historical levels of evil? Interestingly, a book I've been reading simultaneoulsly with this one suggests one answer:
This was my first, hardly my last Mailer, then. Before now, all I knew of him were the caricatures (the Hemingwayesque garrulity, the punch-up with Vidal, the public image of all his writing being Advertisements For Myself...) I am so glad to be disabused of these, and to have met him on his own terrain, finally.
——————————————————-
Some tidbits:
For though, at the outset, we are informed that our narrator, an SS officer who straight away permits us to call him Dieter, has been charged with proving (to the satisfaction of his employer, Herr Himmler, at least) that Hitler's grandfather sired a line of Inzestuarier or “incestuaries”, it soon becomes clear that he was actually “there”, or sort of, to more or less bear witness to the deed(s), or to come as close to such perfect, “I knew him before he was famous!” knowledge as a non-omniscient, first-“person” narrator is privileged to get, for our Dieter is in fact
As for Himmler's thesis, well, the incest is important because, it is capable of producing "the Vision" (not what George H.W. Bush called "the vision thing", but something still a fair bit grander and more strange...a certain rare species of erratic genius...As Dieter quotes,
“When we speak, therefore, of the human desire to create that man who will embody the Vision—the Superman—we have to consider the odds. Not even one in a million families can present us with a husband and a wife who are close enough in the inclination of their genes to bring forth a miraculous child. Not even one, perhaps, in a hundred million. No!”—again the upraised hand—“let us say, closer to a million million. In the case of Adolf Hitler, the numbers may approach the awesome distances we encounter in astronomy.Incest, as the rhyme goes, is best, then? Else the absolute worst, as generation upon generation of Spanish (and other) royalty proves?
“So, gentlemen, logic would propose that any Superman who embodies the Vision, is bound to come forth from a mating of exceptionally similar genetic ingredients. Only then will these separate embodiments of the Vision be ready to reinforce each other.
[...]
“Yet, to be reasonable, we must also agree that life is not always ready to certify such an event. Debased males and females are the ones who usually come into the world from these family intimacies. We have to recognize that products of incest usually suffer childhood ills and early deaths. Anomalies abound, even exhibitions of physical monstrosity.
“Instability is, therefore, a common product of incest. Idiocy waits in the wings. And when a vital possibility exists for the development of a great spirit, this rare human must still overcome a host of frustrations profound enough to unhinge the brain or induce early death.” So spoke Heinrich Himmler.
Well, to begin to answer that question takes up all of our allotted 477pp., and if that only takes us to the end of Adi's non-illustrious high school career, it does seem both exhaustive in the tour-de-force sense and yet somehow not enough (in the best possible sense of that phrase), though, because even by age 19, at the novel's close, Adi has not yet hardened into Hitler—or not quite…
What we have here then, is decidedly not yet another WWII tome, but more of a Thomas Mann intergenerational saga—a Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, if you will, but not so much as one that charts an ineluctable waning in the prosperity and happiness of a bourgeois family maked most of all by a stern, northern rectitudenung, but by a festering perversity which is, if not quite universal, still the result of the all-too-human banality in us all. Much monstrosity, but no real monsters, here, in other words, or not yet…
We've been on this kind of terrain of late of course, with Joshua Cohen's superb The Netanyahus, and have asked of it similar questions, e.g. how can such a manifestly idiotic family eventually yield such world-historical levels of evil? Interestingly, a book I've been reading simultaneoulsly with this one suggests one answer:
‘Fascism seems to come from the outside,’ Félix Guattari warned, ‘but it finds its energy right at the heart of everyone’s desire.’ Foucault likewise cautioned that the issue was the ‘fascism in us all … in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us’.And it is on the terrain over everyday life that we meet, and Mailer most ingeniously imagines, such too-human inhumanity, with the Hitler clan. Sure he focuses on Freudian terrain at times, but not nearly as much as such a generalization might lead you to believe: this is, in fact, a truly great novel, precisely because it resists generalization and dares to imagine the quintessentially particular, all while carrying us along with a narrative voice, rhythm, and pace that I can only, with much admiration and envy, describe as bearing the mark of sprezzatura, or the true artist's effortless grace.
Before fascism becomes a movement, it must circulate in everyday life, in the nascent form of everyday paranoia and victimhood, fantasies of restitution and revenge, desire for domination, the authoritarian need to be right, the capacity to humiliate, approval-seeking ingroup conformity and converse tendencies towards malice and social sadism.(Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization by Richard seymour (2024)).
This was my first, hardly my last Mailer, then. Before now, all I knew of him were the caricatures (the Hemingwayesque garrulity, the punch-up with Vidal, the public image of all his writing being Advertisements For Myself...) I am so glad to be disabused of these, and to have met him on his own terrain, finally.
——————————————————-
Some tidbits:
January 2, 2012
About ten years ago, I immersed myself in personal reading about Hilter and the Holocaust, including a biography by Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, trying to understand how Hitler could have done what he did, how he became evil incarnate. I was no student of psychology, but I suspected family of origin issues deeply contributed to his psychopathy. I read other articles, citing beatings from his aging father and Hitler's contempt for his subservient young mother as reasons why he devolved into a tyrannical killer.
Though a fictional premise, the reasons put forth in The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer resonated with me: the devil was present at his conception, and that he was the incestuous offspring of his father and his father's niece, which intensified his worst traits, much like animals who are inbred.
And why not? Whose upbringing could have been so horrible to make them into an Adolph Hitler? The notion of the devil in a marriage bed sounds preposterous--precisely one of the reasons I enjoyed The Castle in the Forest. The viewpoint character is a demon who goes by Dieter, who manages to make himself a fly on the wall at the right times: when Hitler's mother is changing his diaper and admires his shiny little sphincter muscle, when "Adi" (Hitler's childhood nickname) takes part in his first war game, when Alois, his father, beats the family dog, and when Adi recounts how he killed his darling baby brother by kissing him and compromising his immune system.
Because of Mailer's ability with historical saga, we meet dozens of characters prior to and following Hitler's birth--all Hitler's father's lovers and wives, his cousins, Hitler's siblings and step-siblings--even Nicholas and Alexandra, prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet, we have no trouble connected with any of the characters or keeping their stories straight.
Some reviewers have criticized Mailer for not focusing enough on Hitler's life in The Castle in the Forest --that it spent too much time on his father Alois's life. The book is what it is. Weaving history and fiction, Catholic school doctrine and sheer provocation (i.e., Hitler's diapers stank to high heaven because he was conceived by the devil--he remained a very smelly person which gave his guardian demons a lifelong challenge masking it), it paints the portrait of the Hitler family, very like other Austrian families during the same time period. Probably better off since Alois was a career civil servant with a decent pension upon retirement. Though the Hilters weren't wealthy nor could they ever be upperclass, money never was a problem.
The book suggests it was Hitler's peer influences once he reached young adulthood combined with his demonic character that made him a monster later in life, more so than early childhood experiences.
The was Mailer's last book, published in the year he died. It is entertaining, educational, shocking, and imaginative, and it merits my highest rating.
Though a fictional premise, the reasons put forth in The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer resonated with me: the devil was present at his conception, and that he was the incestuous offspring of his father and his father's niece, which intensified his worst traits, much like animals who are inbred.
And why not? Whose upbringing could have been so horrible to make them into an Adolph Hitler? The notion of the devil in a marriage bed sounds preposterous--precisely one of the reasons I enjoyed The Castle in the Forest. The viewpoint character is a demon who goes by Dieter, who manages to make himself a fly on the wall at the right times: when Hitler's mother is changing his diaper and admires his shiny little sphincter muscle, when "Adi" (Hitler's childhood nickname) takes part in his first war game, when Alois, his father, beats the family dog, and when Adi recounts how he killed his darling baby brother by kissing him and compromising his immune system.
Because of Mailer's ability with historical saga, we meet dozens of characters prior to and following Hitler's birth--all Hitler's father's lovers and wives, his cousins, Hitler's siblings and step-siblings--even Nicholas and Alexandra, prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet, we have no trouble connected with any of the characters or keeping their stories straight.
Some reviewers have criticized Mailer for not focusing enough on Hitler's life in The Castle in the Forest --that it spent too much time on his father Alois's life. The book is what it is. Weaving history and fiction, Catholic school doctrine and sheer provocation (i.e., Hitler's diapers stank to high heaven because he was conceived by the devil--he remained a very smelly person which gave his guardian demons a lifelong challenge masking it), it paints the portrait of the Hitler family, very like other Austrian families during the same time period. Probably better off since Alois was a career civil servant with a decent pension upon retirement. Though the Hilters weren't wealthy nor could they ever be upperclass, money never was a problem.
The book suggests it was Hitler's peer influences once he reached young adulthood combined with his demonic character that made him a monster later in life, more so than early childhood experiences.
The was Mailer's last book, published in the year he died. It is entertaining, educational, shocking, and imaginative, and it merits my highest rating.
February 8, 2008
i just read this book for our book club. I think others disliked it, but I thought it was fantastic and very unusual--which contributes to its fantastic-ness (is that a word)? The narrator is a minor devil who works for Satan, or maybe not, he doesn't really know, it could be another mid-level devil with no real power... and that begins to give you an idea of this elaborate world Mailer constructs.
The book is really more about Hitler's family than about him, and some in the book club began to refer to it as the "incest book" because there is, quite frankly, an inordinate amount of incest in the first 100 pages. It's fun, though. We don't really find out why Hilter became who he did, but the idea that there are devils and angels in this elaborate dance to nurture certain tendencies is fascinating. All the characters (well, the male ones anyway) are intricately drawn, and the writing is full of unexpected humor. If you don't get too hung up on the "this can't be real" tack, it's a really enjoyable read.
The book is really more about Hitler's family than about him, and some in the book club began to refer to it as the "incest book" because there is, quite frankly, an inordinate amount of incest in the first 100 pages. It's fun, though. We don't really find out why Hilter became who he did, but the idea that there are devils and angels in this elaborate dance to nurture certain tendencies is fascinating. All the characters (well, the male ones anyway) are intricately drawn, and the writing is full of unexpected humor. If you don't get too hung up on the "this can't be real" tack, it's a really enjoyable read.
March 17, 2021
A strange, intriguing story marred with Mailer's overwrought obsessions/preconceptions with Freudian scatology and creepy incest and the like.
Mailer is much better off when he cuts out the self-consciously radical metaphysical hullabaloo and tells the freakin' story.
This goes equally well for this novel as for many in the Mailer canon.
Mailer tried to exemplify his philosophical system (which I find interesting) using the story of Hitler's childhood and young adulthood. Interesting concept and it is well-executed, save for the parts when you can veritably feel Mailer leaning over your shoulder and breathing heavy.
Interesting as a concept, but marred.
It's also a little sad that after all Mailer had said and done, his last hurrah was spent trying to write a book about Hitler being gay as if that finally made everything come together.
***
I remembered it fondly the other day and thought I'd go back into it. Was less interested than when I'd finished it the first time.
Mailer is much better off when he cuts out the self-consciously radical metaphysical hullabaloo and tells the freakin' story.
This goes equally well for this novel as for many in the Mailer canon.
Mailer tried to exemplify his philosophical system (which I find interesting) using the story of Hitler's childhood and young adulthood. Interesting concept and it is well-executed, save for the parts when you can veritably feel Mailer leaning over your shoulder and breathing heavy.
Interesting as a concept, but marred.
It's also a little sad that after all Mailer had said and done, his last hurrah was spent trying to write a book about Hitler being gay as if that finally made everything come together.
***
I remembered it fondly the other day and thought I'd go back into it. Was less interested than when I'd finished it the first time.
August 13, 2017
Μακροσκελές, με πολλές λεπτομέρειες, το έργο του Norman Mailer, παλεύει να ψυχολογήσει τον Χίτλερ μέσα απο τη σχέση του με τους γονείς και τα αδέρφια του. Ενδιαφέρουσα προσέγγιση, που εισάγει έν έντονο μυστικισμό που εκκινει απο τον John Milton. Βρήκα ότι κάνει κοιλιές, νομίζω μπορούσα να ναι συντομότερο.
January 3, 2019
I was expecting more about Adolf Hitler and his origins and where all the evil came from, but so much of it was on his parents, grandparents, and others. We learn a bit about Adolf — but frankly; the book was not worth reading.
May 28, 2020
“Incest provides the best possibility of creating a Superman, as the genes of both parents are in the greatest harmony,” says the most ardent Nazi of all, Heinrich Himmler. And in Adolf Hitler we have the perfect product of incest, a first degree incestuary: Adolph’s father was also the father of Adolph’s mother, as the novel makes claim.
This book was supposed to be the first of a trilogy, but Norman Mailer died soon after its publication. So we are left with a story, that sticks closely to the documented history of Adolph as a child growing up to the age of about 15. The novel covers mostly the stories of the future Fuhrer’s father, Alois, and mother, Klara, and their lives. The twist that Mailer introduces is the narrator, who is a devil named Dieter, and who is sent by Satan (the Maestro, in this book) to shepherd Adolph through his formative years, for young Adi has the potential for much destruction in the world.
Dieter is the hardest to digest, for he is quite a pompous narrator who tries to be funny but comes across as dry. He wades into lots of detail of quotidian family life of the Hitlers that do not have much dramatic content, into vast tracts on bee-keeping—which Alois upon retirement from his Customs job takes up with vigour—and then leaves the Hitlers from pages 214-261 to take a detour into Czarist Russia to stir things up during the coronation of Nicholas II. These historical events, including the Oscar Wilde sodomy case in Britain and the assassination of Elizabeth (Sisi) of Hungary, that surrounded Hitler are important, no doubt, as formative inputs into the creating of a megalomaniac, but I think they are a bit excessive. All I could take from these digressions were that (a) the lives of bees are analogous to the Nazis: nationalistic, obedient to a single ruler, disciplined, hard-working, and sacrificing everything to the colony,(b) sodomy was a vital component in the lives of Adolph and his older brother Alois Jr. who fall under the pedophilic spell of a master bee-keeper living in the forest, Der Alte. I skipped the Nicholas II episode for Dieter was getting on my nerves at that point.
Adolph comes across as a smelly kid (according to Dieter, smell was God’s mark on evil people, which the Devil countered with the inventions of soap, bath oils and deodorant), quite average in his studies, a bed-wetter, and sexually repressed. He suffers from the guilt of believing that he killed his younger brother Edmond by kissing him and giving him measles. Adolph was devoted to his mother, Klara, a religious woman weighted down by the childhood deaths of four of her six children by Alois. She believes it was God’s punishment to her for the carnal acts she performed with Alois – no wonder young Adolph, who heard the sounds from his parents bedroom, was so sexually conflicted.
Alois is the most interesting character. Of robust girth and vile temper, he bedded multiple women, sometimes three in a day. He took them all: kitchen maids, farm girls, barmaids, and even his three older step-sisters, one of whom was Klara’s mother. His parentage was doubtful (some said he had a Jewish connection, but that was soon discarded by the Nazi propaganda machine), he married three times and produced a total of eight children, and loved to drink and hob nob with the gentry. And he beat his kids relentlessly, so much that Alois Jr. ran away and was never seen again.
I wondered why Mailer chose to write this book that has been chronicled elsewhere. The fictitious element of the devil’s agent shepherding young Adolph through his formative years, exposing him to incidents that would make him the man he became, is interesting, but is it enough? I was left, strangely, wanting more novelistic value. Perhaps Dieter had his plans for Mailer too, taking him out before the author could finish the trilogy, reveal the whole story, and blow the Satanic connection to the Fuhrer and the Third Reich.
This book was supposed to be the first of a trilogy, but Norman Mailer died soon after its publication. So we are left with a story, that sticks closely to the documented history of Adolph as a child growing up to the age of about 15. The novel covers mostly the stories of the future Fuhrer’s father, Alois, and mother, Klara, and their lives. The twist that Mailer introduces is the narrator, who is a devil named Dieter, and who is sent by Satan (the Maestro, in this book) to shepherd Adolph through his formative years, for young Adi has the potential for much destruction in the world.
Dieter is the hardest to digest, for he is quite a pompous narrator who tries to be funny but comes across as dry. He wades into lots of detail of quotidian family life of the Hitlers that do not have much dramatic content, into vast tracts on bee-keeping—which Alois upon retirement from his Customs job takes up with vigour—and then leaves the Hitlers from pages 214-261 to take a detour into Czarist Russia to stir things up during the coronation of Nicholas II. These historical events, including the Oscar Wilde sodomy case in Britain and the assassination of Elizabeth (Sisi) of Hungary, that surrounded Hitler are important, no doubt, as formative inputs into the creating of a megalomaniac, but I think they are a bit excessive. All I could take from these digressions were that (a) the lives of bees are analogous to the Nazis: nationalistic, obedient to a single ruler, disciplined, hard-working, and sacrificing everything to the colony,(b) sodomy was a vital component in the lives of Adolph and his older brother Alois Jr. who fall under the pedophilic spell of a master bee-keeper living in the forest, Der Alte. I skipped the Nicholas II episode for Dieter was getting on my nerves at that point.
Adolph comes across as a smelly kid (according to Dieter, smell was God’s mark on evil people, which the Devil countered with the inventions of soap, bath oils and deodorant), quite average in his studies, a bed-wetter, and sexually repressed. He suffers from the guilt of believing that he killed his younger brother Edmond by kissing him and giving him measles. Adolph was devoted to his mother, Klara, a religious woman weighted down by the childhood deaths of four of her six children by Alois. She believes it was God’s punishment to her for the carnal acts she performed with Alois – no wonder young Adolph, who heard the sounds from his parents bedroom, was so sexually conflicted.
Alois is the most interesting character. Of robust girth and vile temper, he bedded multiple women, sometimes three in a day. He took them all: kitchen maids, farm girls, barmaids, and even his three older step-sisters, one of whom was Klara’s mother. His parentage was doubtful (some said he had a Jewish connection, but that was soon discarded by the Nazi propaganda machine), he married three times and produced a total of eight children, and loved to drink and hob nob with the gentry. And he beat his kids relentlessly, so much that Alois Jr. ran away and was never seen again.
I wondered why Mailer chose to write this book that has been chronicled elsewhere. The fictitious element of the devil’s agent shepherding young Adolph through his formative years, exposing him to incidents that would make him the man he became, is interesting, but is it enough? I was left, strangely, wanting more novelistic value. Perhaps Dieter had his plans for Mailer too, taking him out before the author could finish the trilogy, reveal the whole story, and blow the Satanic connection to the Fuhrer and the Third Reich.
September 15, 2009
Norman Mailer continues to frustrate me. Sometimes he's brilliant and sometimes he's a cad. The latter is the case with regard to this novel. Filled with way too much crass, sexual perversion even for a liberal mind, this story appears to be Mailer's attempt to demonstrate to the reader how Adolf Hitler's family and childhood environment played a role in shaping him into the perverse and twisted individual that he ended up being as an adult. From start to finish sex, in all it's manifestations, prevails as the primary topic and underlying tension in all of the primary characters presented. And to emphasize how in depth Mailer goes, potential readers should know that despite nearly 500 pages of writing, Mailer only takes you up to about Adolph Hitler's 21st birthday before the end of the book.
In short, unless you are a student or an extreme fan of Mailer's writing, don't bother with this book. It's very easy to understand why hardback versions are selling at Barnes and Noble on the "under $6.99" table.
In short, unless you are a student or an extreme fan of Mailer's writing, don't bother with this book. It's very easy to understand why hardback versions are selling at Barnes and Noble on the "under $6.99" table.
February 8, 2018
A blend of fact and fiction, a history of a family that came to be known as Hitler, and a small boy called Adolf. A history related by the devil that was assigned to watch over him - a tale where the shit literally hits the man.
For a guy who has won two Pulitzer prizes, Norm isn't afraid to get his tongue dirty; at times he makes Irvine Welsh seem like Jane Austen - I learned more about Adolf's little 'rosebud' than I was ever keen on knowing. This is a great book. The whole episode of Der Alte and the bees was just disturbingly fantastic - who would've believed apiculture could be so fascinating? In truth, this could have been written about a fictional family and it would still have been fantastic - Oh, and Angels as cudgels; yeah, that just feels right.
For a guy who has won two Pulitzer prizes, Norm isn't afraid to get his tongue dirty; at times he makes Irvine Welsh seem like Jane Austen - I learned more about Adolf's little 'rosebud' than I was ever keen on knowing. This is a great book. The whole episode of Der Alte and the bees was just disturbingly fantastic - who would've believed apiculture could be so fascinating? In truth, this could have been written about a fictional family and it would still have been fantastic - Oh, and Angels as cudgels; yeah, that just feels right.
June 16, 2015
CD/unabridged/Literature: Where do I start? Well, I'm giving it four stars and I hate that I liked it. I mean, it's about Hitler!
The narrator was Harris Yulin and he does a great job narrating with an American accent while doing the voices in a German one. (Harris Yulin played Head Watcher Quentin Travers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy: "....and with out the slayer, you're just watching Masterpiece Theatre".) This novel is 15 discs long and had to have a good narrator. I don't think I could have read it; listening was easier. The book is a dramatization of conversations.
This book is supposed to be about Hitler's childhood and his journey through being a sociopath. The book is mostly about his father Alois Hitler. The book is narrated by Dieter, an SS Officer. Dieter reveals himself as a devil. Not the big guy, just a henchman. He is sent, on and off through the years, to the Hitler home, before Adolf is born, to "guide" and watch the family. He tells the reader that he is writing down his memoirs of his time there, but is afraid there may be retribution. The book only goes up to Alois' death so Adolf is really young throughout the book. Adolf is evil as a child.
While there are many theories on who Adolf's grandfather was, Mailer makes it clear how he feels. (I did look on Wikipedia to see if his theory had any merit...and it does.) Mailer's theory is that Hitler was a nut because he was a product of incest. There are apparently three men that could have been his grandfather. Two of the men would be blood relatives and one a Jew. Alois, Hitler's father and a whoredog himself, marries his third wife, Adolf's mother, who is either is niece or his daughter. (Later in Adolf's life, he has a relationship with is niece).
This book goes in too many directions, but Mailer books usually do. I now know more about beekeeping than ever. The book also moves to Russia and spends two discs on the early Romanov marriage. The book goes into Adolf's older brother Alois Junior's sexual exploits which has no relevance to shaping Hitler. Dieter also tells us not to put too much into Adolf seeing a religious swastika on a door or watching bees getting gassed with sulfur in their hives. The novel goes into Adolf liking to play war games in the woods with the neighborhood kids, but does not go in the depth you would think. Mailer concentrated more on Adolf's bowel movements as a toddler, masturbation habits, becoming a confident liar, and feeling no guilt.
The funniest (as in odd) part of this book is when I went to Wikipedia to see what this book was all about. (I bought the audio for $3 bucks at a library sale). The book had gotten Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2007. The problem was I could not figure out which scene they were talking about. All the scenes were crude. Alois and Adolf's mother wallow like animals and Alois Junior homosexual act are shallow. (Makes you wonder because Mailer was married six times.)
Do I recommend it? Well, if your a Mailer fan, yes. If you're not a Mailer fan, you're probably not going to like this book. But I have to say, it was entertaining and the audio was well read. BTW, this book was suppose to be a trilogy of Hitler's life, but Mailer died soon after this first part was published.
The narrator was Harris Yulin and he does a great job narrating with an American accent while doing the voices in a German one. (Harris Yulin played Head Watcher Quentin Travers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy: "....and with out the slayer, you're just watching Masterpiece Theatre".) This novel is 15 discs long and had to have a good narrator. I don't think I could have read it; listening was easier. The book is a dramatization of conversations.
This book is supposed to be about Hitler's childhood and his journey through being a sociopath. The book is mostly about his father Alois Hitler. The book is narrated by Dieter, an SS Officer. Dieter reveals himself as a devil. Not the big guy, just a henchman. He is sent, on and off through the years, to the Hitler home, before Adolf is born, to "guide" and watch the family. He tells the reader that he is writing down his memoirs of his time there, but is afraid there may be retribution. The book only goes up to Alois' death so Adolf is really young throughout the book. Adolf is evil as a child.
While there are many theories on who Adolf's grandfather was, Mailer makes it clear how he feels. (I did look on Wikipedia to see if his theory had any merit...and it does.) Mailer's theory is that Hitler was a nut because he was a product of incest. There are apparently three men that could have been his grandfather. Two of the men would be blood relatives and one a Jew. Alois, Hitler's father and a whoredog himself, marries his third wife, Adolf's mother, who is either is niece or his daughter. (Later in Adolf's life, he has a relationship with is niece).
This book goes in too many directions, but Mailer books usually do. I now know more about beekeeping than ever. The book also moves to Russia and spends two discs on the early Romanov marriage. The book goes into Adolf's older brother Alois Junior's sexual exploits which has no relevance to shaping Hitler. Dieter also tells us not to put too much into Adolf seeing a religious swastika on a door or watching bees getting gassed with sulfur in their hives. The novel goes into Adolf liking to play war games in the woods with the neighborhood kids, but does not go in the depth you would think. Mailer concentrated more on Adolf's bowel movements as a toddler, masturbation habits, becoming a confident liar, and feeling no guilt.
The funniest (as in odd) part of this book is when I went to Wikipedia to see what this book was all about. (I bought the audio for $3 bucks at a library sale). The book had gotten Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for 2007. The problem was I could not figure out which scene they were talking about. All the scenes were crude. Alois and Adolf's mother wallow like animals and Alois Junior homosexual act are shallow. (Makes you wonder because Mailer was married six times.)
Do I recommend it? Well, if your a Mailer fan, yes. If you're not a Mailer fan, you're probably not going to like this book. But I have to say, it was entertaining and the audio was well read. BTW, this book was suppose to be a trilogy of Hitler's life, but Mailer died soon after this first part was published.
April 29, 2025
Ever read a book and think the author wrote it just for you? That's how I feel about The Castle in the Forest. It's as if Norman Mailer thought, "I wonder what kind of weird, twisted novel I could write to make Rena Sherwood happy. I know! I'll write about Hitler's childhood. But told from the point of view of Hitler's guardian devil. Yeah -- that'll do."
In writing a weird book about one of the weirdest men in history, Mailer walks a very fine line between brilliance and absurdity. I see that he has received an award for "worst sex scene in a novel for 2007" and I think that's unwarranted. However, no publicity is bad publicity. I think Mailer's weirdness has logic to it. He's not just trying to shock.
For example, the command structure of the devils mirrors that of the Nazis. Hitler would only tell an underling what he needed to know and no more. This would lead to his underlings stabbing each other in the back -- which, crazily enough, made each one even MORE loyal to Hitler. The Maestro, the boss of Our Narrator, acts in the same way.
Our Narrator reminds me a little of Albert Speer. Speer -- once a favorite of Hitler's -- was known as a repentant Nazi. He did his time in jail after Nuremberg and wrote a bestselling book, Inside the Third Reich which got turned into a killer 1982 mini-series starring Sir Derek Jacobi as Hitler and Rutger Hauer as Speer.
There is a long section set in Russia, which Our Narrator tells us can be skipped over if we want to. Although I appreciated the warning, I'm glad I didn't skip ahead. I liked the Russian section for how it developed the character of Our Narrator -- and foreshadows World War II. It was Russia more than any of the other Allies that wound up defeating the Nazis. But the country had to become Communist before they could incite Hitler's hatred.
Mailer also has a long bibliography at the end listing what books influenced The Castle in the Forest.
In writing a weird book about one of the weirdest men in history, Mailer walks a very fine line between brilliance and absurdity. I see that he has received an award for "worst sex scene in a novel for 2007" and I think that's unwarranted. However, no publicity is bad publicity. I think Mailer's weirdness has logic to it. He's not just trying to shock.
For example, the command structure of the devils mirrors that of the Nazis. Hitler would only tell an underling what he needed to know and no more. This would lead to his underlings stabbing each other in the back -- which, crazily enough, made each one even MORE loyal to Hitler. The Maestro, the boss of Our Narrator, acts in the same way.
Our Narrator reminds me a little of Albert Speer. Speer -- once a favorite of Hitler's -- was known as a repentant Nazi. He did his time in jail after Nuremberg and wrote a bestselling book, Inside the Third Reich which got turned into a killer 1982 mini-series starring Sir Derek Jacobi as Hitler and Rutger Hauer as Speer.
There is a long section set in Russia, which Our Narrator tells us can be skipped over if we want to. Although I appreciated the warning, I'm glad I didn't skip ahead. I liked the Russian section for how it developed the character of Our Narrator -- and foreshadows World War II. It was Russia more than any of the other Allies that wound up defeating the Nazis. But the country had to become Communist before they could incite Hitler's hatred.
Mailer also has a long bibliography at the end listing what books influenced The Castle in the Forest.
Read
October 4, 2007Hitler may have been a tiny bit inbred, according to Mailer's research.
Also, the Devil pulled the strings like...like Bela Lugosi in Glen or Glenda.
But, couldn't get beyond page 100.
And, keep in mind, it's part one of a trilogy.
Forest of Trees is due in 2009, with Blondi and Eva to follow in 2010.
Also, the Devil pulled the strings like...like Bela Lugosi in Glen or Glenda.
But, couldn't get beyond page 100.
And, keep in mind, it's part one of a trilogy.
Forest of Trees is due in 2009, with Blondi and Eva to follow in 2010.
March 21, 2024
A classic case of a book that owes any success to the name of the author. If someone "Buzzajoni" had written it, you wouldn't have ever heard it.
"The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be an exceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well as Hitler's father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and the intimate details of his childhood and adolescence."
"The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be an exceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well as Hitler's father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and the intimate details of his childhood and adolescence."
July 2, 2007
A terrific concept -- Hitler's childhood, told from the vantage point of the Devil. Long, long, long, with a lot of odd side trips (what is Tsar Nicholas' coronation doing here???), and kind of overwrought. Wanted it to be a lot better than it was.
October 10, 2025
Super ambitious novel: it is the memoirs of the demon charged with influencing young Hitler. Again, crazy ambitious, but I'm not sure he quite hit the mark. It's a great concept, but hard to pull off.
As suggested by the fact that it was written by a demon, it is a work of fiction, which gives the author certain liberties. That being said, it is heavily based on historical fact. There is an impressive bibliography at the end, and it's clear the author did his research and then some. But I appreciate that he went with fiction because he covers the years that history books simply don't: childhood, adolescence, and his family of origin.
Knowing what I know about Hitler, I found his retrospective analysis pretty great. You can see the seeds of mood disorders in the family (namely Bipolar disorder), and the precursors to obsessive personality are there. His bizarre sexuality in the book is even fitting as a precursor to someone who is "married to Germany" and keeps his mistress separate from his work (until the war is over and then he did marry her - right before they killed themselves.)
The bees were a pretty great metaphor for the Nazis and the camps, but I'm not sure if that was the author's addition or if Adolf's father really had bees.
The author made everything sexual and I'm not sure if that is just him or if he was trying to reflect the agrarian attitudes toward sex in Austria at the torn of the century. Regardless, it was a bit much, and the details grossed me out.
I did really like this book, even if it was a bit weird and wordy at times. Again, I must say "Bravo" to the wildly ambitious effort.
As suggested by the fact that it was written by a demon, it is a work of fiction, which gives the author certain liberties. That being said, it is heavily based on historical fact. There is an impressive bibliography at the end, and it's clear the author did his research and then some. But I appreciate that he went with fiction because he covers the years that history books simply don't: childhood, adolescence, and his family of origin.
Knowing what I know about Hitler, I found his retrospective analysis pretty great. You can see the seeds of mood disorders in the family (namely Bipolar disorder), and the precursors to obsessive personality are there. His bizarre sexuality in the book is even fitting as a precursor to someone who is "married to Germany" and keeps his mistress separate from his work (until the war is over and then he did marry her - right before they killed themselves.)
The bees were a pretty great metaphor for the Nazis and the camps, but I'm not sure if that was the author's addition or if Adolf's father really had bees.
The author made everything sexual and I'm not sure if that is just him or if he was trying to reflect the agrarian attitudes toward sex in Austria at the torn of the century. Regardless, it was a bit much, and the details grossed me out.
I did really like this book, even if it was a bit weird and wordy at times. Again, I must say "Bravo" to the wildly ambitious effort.
May 15, 2021
Una dintre puținele cărți pe care efectiv n-am putut s-o duc până la capăt.
Am mai citit „The Executioner s Song” și am avut o relație love-hate cu cartea aia, după cum am scris și în review. Mailer scrie foarte fain, dar se împiedică de cele mai mici detalii care, sincer, nu contează și nu interesează pe nimeni. Aceeași problemă și aici.
Conceptul cărții - nașterea și copilăria lui Hitler (am înțeles că povestea se sfârșește când devine major, și Mailer ar mai fi vrut să scrie încă 2 cărți, dar moartea n-a fost de acord cu el) sub oblăduirea unui demon - e foarte faină. Dar partea faină se oprește aici. Mailer alege să petreacă EXTREM de mult timp scrutând tot felul de aspecte minore, cu prea puțin impact și aderență la cititor.
Am început cartea asta acum 2 ani, am citit vreo 150 de pagini, apoi am abandonat-o. De atunci o tot folosesc ca leac pentru insomnii, pentru că imediat ce o iau în mână și bag vreo 2-3 pagini, mă ia somnul. 2 ani mai târziu, sunt la pagina 185 și am deci să renunț pentru că mi-e clar că nu va fi altceva decât o pierdere de vreme.
Am mai citit „The Executioner s Song” și am avut o relație love-hate cu cartea aia, după cum am scris și în review. Mailer scrie foarte fain, dar se împiedică de cele mai mici detalii care, sincer, nu contează și nu interesează pe nimeni. Aceeași problemă și aici.
Conceptul cărții - nașterea și copilăria lui Hitler (am înțeles că povestea se sfârșește când devine major, și Mailer ar mai fi vrut să scrie încă 2 cărți, dar moartea n-a fost de acord cu el) sub oblăduirea unui demon - e foarte faină. Dar partea faină se oprește aici. Mailer alege să petreacă EXTREM de mult timp scrutând tot felul de aspecte minore, cu prea puțin impact și aderență la cititor.
Am început cartea asta acum 2 ani, am citit vreo 150 de pagini, apoi am abandonat-o. De atunci o tot folosesc ca leac pentru insomnii, pentru că imediat ce o iau în mână și bag vreo 2-3 pagini, mă ia somnul. 2 ani mai târziu, sunt la pagina 185 și am deci să renunț pentru că mi-e clar că nu va fi altceva decât o pierdere de vreme.
April 14, 2022
The opening chapters are like a bad first date, obtuse and confusing, and those were the positive qualities. Since the book has been on my shelf for several years, my interest in history, and curiosity, I was compelled to discover if there was a future relationship buried beneath that wall.
A literary heavyweight like Mailer, who had already written 30 books, created a tale of spirits and ghosts. It felt as if he had to do something different, in this case, channelling Faulkner, to the point where, after a few chapters he announces that he is going into normal narration mode, that thankfully meant readable, so I was able to persevere.
I was initially going to suggest that it would be best to have an interest in Adolf Hitler or at least the Third Reich to have fun with this book, but it turns out to be a psychological examination of Hitler’s family, mostly his parents, which really could be any family in the world, but it is, well, you know, his upbringing.
The novel twist is that it is all narrated by the Devil, well actually, one of the Devil’s devils, so a subordinate. This devil’s insights on why we do things under his influence, the battles with his counterparts, the angels, makes for an entertaining read. I now wonder who, or what, has influenced every dream I have, and will it motivate me for good or ?
For a fictional tale, Mailer put in the work, basing this story on facts, there is a several page Bibliography, not something you often find in a novel.
A literary heavyweight like Mailer, who had already written 30 books, created a tale of spirits and ghosts. It felt as if he had to do something different, in this case, channelling Faulkner, to the point where, after a few chapters he announces that he is going into normal narration mode, that thankfully meant readable, so I was able to persevere.
I was initially going to suggest that it would be best to have an interest in Adolf Hitler or at least the Third Reich to have fun with this book, but it turns out to be a psychological examination of Hitler’s family, mostly his parents, which really could be any family in the world, but it is, well, you know, his upbringing.
The novel twist is that it is all narrated by the Devil, well actually, one of the Devil’s devils, so a subordinate. This devil’s insights on why we do things under his influence, the battles with his counterparts, the angels, makes for an entertaining read. I now wonder who, or what, has influenced every dream I have, and will it motivate me for good or ?
For a fictional tale, Mailer put in the work, basing this story on facts, there is a several page Bibliography, not something you often find in a novel.
March 25, 2019
Evil is created not born.
Norman Mailer offers a journey through the dark side, and a creepy, dysfunctional, incestuous, self-perpetuating place it is. He uses the early life of Adolph Hitler, both real and imagined, as the model. The guide is a minion of the underworld, a devilish spirit who was assigned by the "Evil One" or "Maestro," the role of a young Adolph's spiritual genius or a kind of "guardian angel." Adolph's father, Alois, is the fruit of a 19th Century patriarchal authoritarian culture that admires brag and swagger. His well-intentioned mother, Klara, like the rest of the family is completely subjugated. Adolph is six-years-old when his father retires from a successful career as an Austrian Customs Official. He buys a farm and takes an interest in beekeeping. Young Adolph finds this intriguing: The hum of the hive; the efficiency of the process; the way the drone bees are eliminated when they are no longer useful: All perfectly natural, if not naturally perfect. Adolph learns that efficiency and subjugation are how to get the most honey.
Not unlike C. S. Lewis, Mailer deftly probes the twists and swells of evil. But, rich in irony, the book does not elaborate on the nature of good. The minion refers to God as the "Dummkopf," because of the many flaws in creation: "He does see Himself as the Divine Artist. Of course, He is also a blunderer - so many of his creations are botched. A good many are disasters which He then proceeds to plow back into the food chain. That is His only means of keeping multitudinous, mediocre and often meaningless spawnings from choking the existence of the rest. Yet, I will admit, He is dogged. He is still looking to improve His previous creations."
However, God as some micromanager runs contrary to the idea of free will. It is His antithesis, who resents the notion of free will among us beasties, that seek to manipulate human affairs like any totalitarian puppet master confusing subjugation with leadership.
Mailer gives us a fascinating meditation on the nature of evil by one of the giants of American letters.
Norman Mailer offers a journey through the dark side, and a creepy, dysfunctional, incestuous, self-perpetuating place it is. He uses the early life of Adolph Hitler, both real and imagined, as the model. The guide is a minion of the underworld, a devilish spirit who was assigned by the "Evil One" or "Maestro," the role of a young Adolph's spiritual genius or a kind of "guardian angel." Adolph's father, Alois, is the fruit of a 19th Century patriarchal authoritarian culture that admires brag and swagger. His well-intentioned mother, Klara, like the rest of the family is completely subjugated. Adolph is six-years-old when his father retires from a successful career as an Austrian Customs Official. He buys a farm and takes an interest in beekeeping. Young Adolph finds this intriguing: The hum of the hive; the efficiency of the process; the way the drone bees are eliminated when they are no longer useful: All perfectly natural, if not naturally perfect. Adolph learns that efficiency and subjugation are how to get the most honey.
Not unlike C. S. Lewis, Mailer deftly probes the twists and swells of evil. But, rich in irony, the book does not elaborate on the nature of good. The minion refers to God as the "Dummkopf," because of the many flaws in creation: "He does see Himself as the Divine Artist. Of course, He is also a blunderer - so many of his creations are botched. A good many are disasters which He then proceeds to plow back into the food chain. That is His only means of keeping multitudinous, mediocre and often meaningless spawnings from choking the existence of the rest. Yet, I will admit, He is dogged. He is still looking to improve His previous creations."
However, God as some micromanager runs contrary to the idea of free will. It is His antithesis, who resents the notion of free will among us beasties, that seek to manipulate human affairs like any totalitarian puppet master confusing subjugation with leadership.
Mailer gives us a fascinating meditation on the nature of evil by one of the giants of American letters.
July 15, 2023
I usually don't like it when people say that they "get it" and others do not, but it seems most people have gotten it very, very wrong about Norman Mailer's final novel. Get over The Castle in the Forest's ceaseless scatological content, get over the fact, even, that it's about the early years of Adolf Hitler, and what you have is a nuanced account of a middle class family's petty squabbles, jealousies, rivalries, unfulfilled dreams, concealed tragedies, and various other slow-burn disintegrations into a broken, weary, miserable home. In a way, that the novel centers on the young Hitler (though his father is as much of a protagonist) is its blessing and curse -- blessing because we can focus the novel's psychological and psychosexual account of Hitler's development with foreknowledge of what he became, and curse because we can easily dismiss that account as a foregone conclusion and Mailer's devil-guided journey as an easy distraction. Thus I partly wish that The Castle weren't about Hitler so that Mailer could have written his Buddenbrooks without having opened himself to the obvious criticisms, but I partly recognize that his Buddenbrooks comes through anyway, and those who miss the point are losing out for themselves.
2023 re-read: I changed my mind -- this novel is not just great but a near-masterpiece. In a weird sense, and even against the entire "hook" of the novel (how did Hitler become Hitler?), one should read Mailer's saga as a Freudian exploration of the ways in which a severely dysfunctional and psychosexually disturbed family can serve as a petri dish for an absolute monster.
2023 re-read: I changed my mind -- this novel is not just great but a near-masterpiece. In a weird sense, and even against the entire "hook" of the novel (how did Hitler become Hitler?), one should read Mailer's saga as a Freudian exploration of the ways in which a severely dysfunctional and psychosexually disturbed family can serve as a petri dish for an absolute monster.
September 12, 2007
Strange book. Combine "The Screwtape Letters", "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and "The Secret Life of Bees" and you can get a flavor for this book, although my comparison does a disservice to all 3 books mentioned above.
The tale chronicles the formation of the young Adolph Hitler and events leading up to his birth that contributed to his nature. Truthfully this book would bore a neo-Nazi to tears. Great if you are into beekeeping, incest or Austrian Customs inspection techniques of the 1800's. Not that one would ever find it easy to identify with unarguably the most despicable man in recent history, but because the story chronicles Hitler as a youth, he remains distant and somehow disconnected from what he will become. For that reason, reading the imtimate details about his bathroom habits, hygenic rituals and imperfect anatomy was more gross than engrossing and I found myself just wanting to get the book over with. In fact I found a bookmark from a prior library patron about 1/3 of the way through and suspect that is as far as they got before dropping it back in the book deposit slot. A lot of research and time went into creating this book. From Mailer I expected more.
The tale chronicles the formation of the young Adolph Hitler and events leading up to his birth that contributed to his nature. Truthfully this book would bore a neo-Nazi to tears. Great if you are into beekeeping, incest or Austrian Customs inspection techniques of the 1800's. Not that one would ever find it easy to identify with unarguably the most despicable man in recent history, but because the story chronicles Hitler as a youth, he remains distant and somehow disconnected from what he will become. For that reason, reading the imtimate details about his bathroom habits, hygenic rituals and imperfect anatomy was more gross than engrossing and I found myself just wanting to get the book over with. In fact I found a bookmark from a prior library patron about 1/3 of the way through and suspect that is as far as they got before dropping it back in the book deposit slot. A lot of research and time went into creating this book. From Mailer I expected more.
July 16, 2023
Brilliant and frustrating, fascinating and dull, this was classic Norman Mailer and a fitting end to his bibliography. The concept was great - a daemon recounting his experiences of leading Adolf Hitler to evil, studying both his genealogy and Hitler’s life up until about the age of 20.
However, it’s also ridiculously eccentric. Hundreds of pages are spent talking about beekeeping,(apparently a favourite pastime of Hitler’s dad). There are also instances where Mailer decides to imitate Mark Twain or go on a 60 page sojourn about Tsar Nicolas II. He tells the annoyed reader that if they wish to hear more about Adolf, they can just turn to page 261.
All normal crazy Mailer stuff, but this stands on its own as a journey through understanding the root of evil. I read that this was planned as a trilogy, and it’s kind of sad that the author didn’t get to finish his work. He did nod and wink at the reader though, offering that while the daemon narrator wants to finish his story, Satan might not allow him to do so.
However, it’s also ridiculously eccentric. Hundreds of pages are spent talking about beekeeping,(apparently a favourite pastime of Hitler’s dad). There are also instances where Mailer decides to imitate Mark Twain or go on a 60 page sojourn about Tsar Nicolas II. He tells the annoyed reader that if they wish to hear more about Adolf, they can just turn to page 261.
All normal crazy Mailer stuff, but this stands on its own as a journey through understanding the root of evil. I read that this was planned as a trilogy, and it’s kind of sad that the author didn’t get to finish his work. He did nod and wink at the reader though, offering that while the daemon narrator wants to finish his story, Satan might not allow him to do so.
March 3, 2009
This is my first book by Norman Mailer and it surly won't be my last. I did enjoy Mailer's writing style more than I liked the story line. The story is told from the perspective of one of Satan's devils and I found myself enjoying the details of what it is like to work for Satan, and what the crudgels (angels) are like, then about what in Hitler's past made him so evil. There is quiet a bit of time spend on the toilet training of little Adolf; better get it right parents, bee keeping, and a whole chapter on the Coronation of Nicholas II. The author was nice enough to give you a choice on whether to read on about Nicholas II or "just turn to page 261" to get on with the making of Hitler. I did question how much of what I was reading was truly factual and after hitting the web for some checking came to the conclusion that Mailer did his homework. I do like to get a history lesson in at times.
September 28, 2014
Πολύ καλή ιδέα που όμως δεν ευτύχησε στην πραγμάτωσή της.Το βιβλίο είναι ενδιαφέρον μια και παρουσιάζει την οικογενειακή ιστορία του Χίτλερ και τα παιδικά του χρόνια στην Άνω Αυστρία, ποια ήταν η σχέση του με τον πατέρα του, την μητέρα του, τα αδέλφια του. Πως διαμορφώθηκε αυτός ο τερατώδης ψυχισμός, πως έμαθε να σαγηνεύει τα πλήθη; Ο συγγραφέας δίνει μια εξήγηση τουλάχιστον ανατρεπτική. Αν εστίαζε εκεί και όχι σε χιλιάδες λεπτομέρειες που δεν εξηπηρετούν το μύθο και βαραίνουν το βιβλίο η βαθμολογία θα ήταν καλήτερη.
August 20, 2021
Do not read this book. It is pornographic, over-psychoanalyzing, lengthy, but mostly boring. It doesn't end! apparantly a first in a trilogy Mailer (thank God) never got to write. The detailed account of the sexual intercourse from which Hitler was conceived is ludicrous and gross, and this is not even the worst part of the book. Even those who find the history of Hitler's family interesting, or those who are interested in the occult roots of Nazism, will find this book a total bore. I deeply regret reading it. A total waste of time and money.
February 10, 2024
I enjoyed this book. This is the only Mailer work I have read. I didn't think I would like it since I wasn't interested in Mailer, Hitler, or WWII; but I found it to be about a strange boy growing up in an unusual way. I found myself often daydreaming about my own youth altho it was nothing like Hitler's. So I recommend giving this book a try.
May 18, 2011
Complicated story, and I wish it would have lasted longer, let's say at least through Hitler's twentysomething years.. It stopped right where his actual life should have started! But it was a very good book, i could not let it out of my hand.
January 16, 2023
The book is written from the perspective of a demon nurturing Hitler and his family during his childhood. I have never read a book of this nature and discusses very challenging topics. Mailer's writing ability is brilliant especially around how he instills a unique personality into each character.
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