Castle Keep

by William Eastlake

It is December of 1944, and a detachment of American soldiers has been assigned to guard an ancient castle in Belgium inhabited by an elderly aristocrat, his young wife, and countless valuable artifacts. The soldiers virtually wait out the war--indulging in various hobbies, exploring the castle's excesses (including a replica of Venice, complete with canals and gondolas), in other words, trying to do something other than war--until a German counterattack puts them in the fray. Semi-autobiographical, ?"Castle Keep"?was the first major novel to use the real language of the soldier, uncensored and true-to-life. Inventive and brilliantly comic, this novel is the quintessential portrait of man at war.

Genres: Historical Fiction, War, Novels, World War II, Fiction, Book Club, Literature

382 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this novel, I think it is possibly one of the finest books on war that I have read, I rank it with 'The Gallery' by John Horne Burns, 'Unreal City' by Robert Liddell, 'Naples 44' by Norman Lewis, 'The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up' by Charles Nelson, 'The Foresaken Army' by Heinrich Gerlach and 'The Erl-King' by Michel Tournier. I could go on and list many more but I hope they are sufficient (as well as being a guide to some must read novels). William Eastlake is also brilliant on soldiers, his are as good and true as those in 'On Leave' by Daniel Anselme. But I must admit to being hopelessly biased as I will explain.

When I was 11 years old I saw an advertisement for the film of this book (more about the film later) and it was one of those busy compilation adverts and it showed a castle being defended by American soldiers in WWII firing through the machicolations on the keep while Germans using fire engines with extension ladders stormed the battlements while Burt Lancaster rallied the men on a White horse. There was a count and countess, an American soldier as a baker, others in a brothel, the castle exploding in a grand guignol of over the top pyrotechnical colourful Armageddon while everyone involved spouted a barrel full of portentous and important sounding eperchus. I wanted more than anything else to see that film but back then you didn't take your 11 year old son to see an R rated film no matter how much he begged.

The advertisement was completely camp (the novel is not) and my desire to see it was a precursors, not recognised as such till later, of my future, which was never going to be 'normal', something that back then was something we were all supposed to want to be more than anything else. So for me this novel (which I bought a copy of and read in the 1980s) is too inextricably linked and intertwined with my own bildungsroman to be approached dispassionately so dismiss with a pinch of salt, treat with derision, or ignore with disgust the following review but I could write nothing else.

This is a novel about WWII and events during the Battle of the Bulge (William Eastlake fought in WWII and spent the battle of the Bulge in a Belgian chateau. I strongly recommend the following interview with Eastlake: https://www.dalkeyarchive.com/2013/08...). It was, apparently, the first war novel were soldiers were allowed to say 'fuck' (and they do frequently but, honestly who amongst us who does not?). It would be easy to see this novel as an anti-war novel set in WWII but really referring to Vietnam. But Vietnam only began to register after the novel had been published (the film version of 'Castle Keep' which came out in 1969 is, like many 1960s WWII films, easy to read as an anti-Vietnam war polemic) and William Eastlake wrote his own Vietnam novel 'The Bamboo Bed' after spending time as journalist in Vietnam from 1965 onwards.

This doesn't mean that this is not a mythopoetic, metaphorical novel about, to steal from Douglas Adams, 'Life, the Universe and Everything'. It is grandiose and compelling reading. It is bizarre in the way only the insanity of war can be bizarre. I cannot help quoting from the novel a representative passage, in which Lieutenant Amberjack and Private Alistair Benjamin try to dispose of a captured Volkswagen in the castle moat:

"I released the brake and the Volkswagen teetered on the edge of the pier and then fell off. When it dived so beautifully, I should have been suspicious. Its streamlined front hit the water in perfect form and entered almost without splashing, its wheels tucked in.
"It never came up."
"That's that" Alistair said, pointing at the dark water with his book. "That's the end of the Volkswagen. Now we can get back to the war. The Germans build lousy automobiles."
"Yes" I said. "The Volkswagen can't swim."
"Do you see what I see?" Alistair said.
"No," I said. "It's not it."
"That's right," Alistair said. "That's not it."
"A car can't swim."
"That's right," Alistair said. "It's not it."
"What are we going to do?"
"Keep our heads," Alistair said. "It's bound to sink in time. It's just showing off."
After fifteen minutes I said, "It's still showing off. What are we going to do?"
"Have you got your pistol?"
"I've got my forty-five."
"Shoot it," Alistair said.
"I can't."
"This is no time for sentiment," Alistair said. "Give me the gun."
"It's not sentiment," I said. "Not entirely. I just think it's awfully silly shooting at a swimming Volkswagen in the middle of the night. Who'd believe us?"
"I believe you," Alistair said. "Shoot it."
"I give the orders here."
"Then order it to sink. You remember King Canute?" Alistair said. "He ordered the tide to stop coming in."
"You think we're wasting our time trying to kill a Volkswagen?"
"You could order a firing squad out in the morning," Alistair said, "and order it to be shot."
"You're right," I said. "If we put a bullet below the waterline, it's bound to sink."
"Give it a try."
"I still give the orders here."
"Then don't give it a try. Disobey orders."
"I don't disobey orders," I said. "Stop all this crap. Here is the gun. Put one below the waterline."
Alistair raised the gun slowly, saying, "It's a far far better thing I do than I have done before." The Volkswagen was turning a small slow circle in the moon in about the middle of the pond. The first shot was wide at three o'clock. The second one spanged into the rear fender. When the whole clip was gone, Alistair lowered the gun slowly and said, "Jesus Christ, Reverend, she's still alive."
"Give me the gun," I said. "I've got another clip of ammunition."
Alistair didn't pass the gun. "It won't do any good, Lieutenant," he said. "She's got a charmed life. We might be dealing with something sacred here."
"Give me the gun. I order you to give me the gun."
"You can't order these things, Lieutenant," Alistair said in a dazed voice. "These things are beyond the control of the army."" ( I must admit that this passage was also quoted by reviewer Spiros and I have cut-and-pasted it from his review)

As an excerpt it is indicative of the hallucinogenic prose. I adore it and find it brilliantly readable. The novel's story is captivating and both symbolic and real and as powerful a description of war and how soldiers deal with it as I have read. Calling it a meditation on the insanity of war is banal. It is a work of genius. How can you describe a novel with German tanks being diverted into a swamp which is a reconstruction of the canals Venice complete with gondolas as anything but magnificent? It has some of the finest descriptions of men under fire that I know. I was invested in all the characters, including the Castle and the villagers and, though I refuse to give anything away, I was devastated by its end.

This is a great novel and I am going to read more by Eastlake.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

if jim jarmusch ever decides to do a war film, this is what he should base it on. wonderfully odd, comic and moving account of war as pure absurdity. i think it's tighter than Catch-22, the most obvious comparison. set in belgium, a group of american soldiers are given the assignment of holding a castle against the on-coming german front. their leader is a one-eyed American Indian who is boffing the niece/daughter/wife of the castle's duke. the rest of the soldiers make-up a classic American cultural cross-section: another Indian, a black, a cowboy, a baker, and an art historian. the story is told in chapters from the POVs of the various characters, like Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. lot's of hilarious dialogue.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best war novels I have read. Comparisons to Catch 22 unavoidable but i think this could be better and not just because its about the Army instead of Heller's version of the Army Air Corps. I had never heard of author or book until i came across it in an essay about Eastlake and Edward Abbey in Tom Miller's book about American Southwest "Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink". I will be reading more of William Eastlake.

[Steve R]

After seeing the 1969 Sydney Pollack movie based on this 1965 novel, I went right to the library so that I could read it. Unlike any other ‘war story’ I’ve ever read, this novel seems to deal with soldiers who are actually real people. No guns and glory. Little heroic combat here. Rather, they use the chateau in Belgium which they are called on the guard to basically wait out the war in relative individualistic isolation. My favourite scene in the movie (and, I trust, in the novel) was when one soldier wanders into the village bakery, claps his hand together on meeting a woman there and announces ‘I’m a baker.’ To which she replies ‘I’m a baker’s wife’. They then get down to …. baking! Now, isn’t that they way ‘war stories’ should be written – as incidental, all not that important, interruptions in the daily lives of the protagonists?

Of course, the war intrudes as the Germans advance on the chateau.

I should get around to both re-watching and re-reading this work.

Highly recommended.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

My father's colleague in the Washington High Social Studies department used to feature the film that Sydney Pollack directed from this novel in his "history through cinema" class (it was the '70's). During a week in which I assume our spring breaks were offset, I sat in on Mr. Hilmoe's class and was exposed to the film, which I still regard as one of the three strangest movies I've ever seen, and prompted me to buy this book out of our bargain bins.
The novel is almost as strange as I remember the film being: a detachment of wounded American soldiers is detailed to a village in the Ardennes to wait out the War. They invest the castle adjoining the village, who's owner, an impotent Count, is desperate for his wife (who is also his niece and presumably his heir) to be impregnated, so the line may be passed on. Most of the men spend their time in the village, which has both a whorehouse and a bakery, and spend most of their energy in absurdist, longwinded discussion. To the officers of the detachment, the castle comes to have various meanings: Captain Beckmann, an art historian, sees it as a repository of treasures to be protected at all costs; the visionary, one-eyed Major Falconer sees it as the point at which the American army will hold back the inevitable German counter-offensive.
A representative passage, in which Lieutenant Amberjack and Private Alistair Benjamin try to dispose of a captured Volkswagen in the castle moat:

I released the brake and the Volkswagen teetered on the edge of the pier and then fell off. When it dived so beautifully, I should have been suspicious. Its streamlined front hit the water in perfect form and entered almost without splashing, its wheels tucked in.
"It never came up."
"That's that" Alistair said, pointing at the dark water with his book. "That's the end of the Volkswagen. Now we can get back to the war. The Germans build lousy automobiles."
"Yes" I said. "The Volkswagen can't swim."
"Do you see what I see?" Alistair said.
"No," I said. "It's not it."
"That's right," Alistair said. "That's not it."
"A car can't swim."
"That's right," Alistair said. "It's not it."
"What are we going to do?"
"Keep our heads," Alistair said. "It's bound to sink in time. It's just showing off."
After fifteen minutes I said, "It's still showing off. What are we going to do?"
"Have you got your pistol?"
"I've got my forty-five."
"Shoot it," Alistair said.
"I can't."
"This is no time for sentiment," Alistair said. "Give me the gun."
"It's not sentiment," I said. "Not entirely. I just think it's awfully silly shooting at a swimming Volkswagen in the middle of the night. Who'd believe us?"
"I believe you," Alistair said. "Shoot it."
"I give the orders here."
"Then order it to sink. You remember King Canute?" Alistair said. "He ordered the tide to stop coming in."
"You think we're wasting our time trying to kill a Volkswagen?"
"You could order a firing squad out in the morning," Alistair said, "and order it to be shot."
"You're right," I said. "If we put a bullet below the waterline, it's bound to sink."
"Give it a try."
"I still give the orders here."
"Then don't give it a try. Disobey orders."
"I don't disobey orders," I said. "Stop all this crap. Here is the gun. Put one below the waterline."
Alistair raised the gun slowly, saying, "It's a far far better thing I do than I have done before." The Volkswagen was turning a small slow circle in the moon in about the middle of the pond. The first shot was wide at three o'clock. The second one spanged into the rear fender. When the whole clip was gone, Alistair lowered the gun slowly and said, "Jesus Christ, Reverend, she's still alive."
"Give me the gun," I said. "I've got another clip of ammunition."
Alistair didn't pass the gun. "It won't do any good, Lieutenant," he said. "She's got a charmed life. We might be dealing with something sacred here."
"Give me the gun. I order you to give me the gun."
"You can't order these things, Lieutenant," Alistair said in a dazed voice. "These things are beyond the control of the army."

[Van Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Eastlake's profane World War II novel about a squad of American soldiers who hole up in a 10th-century castle to thwart a Nazi German breakthrough into the Ardennes is a good read. Eastlake served in the infantry during the Battle of the Bulge and he knows something about combat strategy and tactics. This was one of the first books that I read where each chapter is told from the perspectives of different characters. The Americans, under the command of one-eyed Major Falconer, have a great time in the castle and at a whorehouse in the village near the castle. Eastlake knows something about comedy and he focuses on the themes of art versus war. Falconer is prepared to defend the castle to the death. Meantime, the Duke of the castle doesn't share those sentiments, and it puts him in the painful position of bargaining with the Germans to rid him of the Americans. Apart from the action in the castle recreation of Venice with canals, the Sydney Pollack directed film shares a lot in common. Eastlake describes the action fluidly and his comedy is funny. The characters are all interesting, too, particularly the impotent Duke who wants his wife to get pregnant so he can maintain the castle. He needs a heir, and his fortunes ride on Falconer's ability to impregnate his wife.

[LudekLacko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Na první pohled vám tahle knížka může připadat jako sbírka víceméně absurdních epizod z války, ale pokud čtete pozorně, zjistíte že je plná krásných a hlubokých myšlenek. Všechny postavy tu jsou vykresleny živě a opravdově, věříte že to jsou skuteční lidé, každý jiný a svým způsobem trochu potrhlý. Když se sejdou tak rozdílné charaktery, jako milovník umění, kovboj, hudební skladatel, indián, pekař, neúspěšný polní kurát, major s jedním okem, impotentní vévoda co je vlastně hrabě a jeho mladičká manželka, vytvoří to výbušnou kombinaci, kde není nouze o spoustu absurdních situací..
A hrad, jako symbol věcí , za které stojí za to bojovat. "Měli jsme hrad v sobě a odváželi jsme jej s sebou".
Jedna z mých vůbec nejoblíbenějších knih, doporučuji.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed a read very similar to Catch-22 both in terms of settings and the writing style. However, it lacks the grand absurdity of Catch-22 and instead focuses on the personal weirdness of truly peculiar characters, maintaining a sense of constant surreality. Most definitely not for everyone as pretty much every line of dialogue or a character's thoughts feel unrealistic, off and strange. This leads to a unique atmosphere which will either make you stop reading after the first three chapters, or keep you intrigued until the very end. The thin layer of futility-filled humor oftentimes gets broken and we're reminded that this is a war novel after all.
Definitely a love or hate kind of book.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to this book. I found myself pushing though and finding all kinds of morsels to chew on. I never warmed to any of the characters, and wasn't much impressed with the story telling itself, but the story taps into such a rich vein of inquiry and winds up being sort of philosophical, comical and tragic all at once, that despite the overwhelming cynicism and sarcasm that I didn't want to quit. At the end I was glad I stuck with it. I can't remember reading anything like it.

[Robert2481 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book over 50 years ago, when I was in the army. At the time my frame of reference was “Catch 22. What was vivid through these years, seems relatively unimportant now. This one of the great unsung anti-war novels, & so much more than my memory allowed. It’s like I wasn’t old enough to understand & appreciate it back then.

[Lewis Manalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the really honest war novels that I've ever read. Experimental in form, sincere in it's depiction of soldiers as @$$holes. Really funny, too. Watch the Burt Lancaster movie adaptation, too (though it's pretty different from the book).

[Jason Pastor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great war novel. Be patient with the alternating viewpoints (each chapter is from the POV of a different chaharacter.)Everything ties together at the end. See the movie too

[Bix Skahill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. To me, it's an American classic.

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My new favorite World War Two novel. Absurd, real, funny, and horrifying. The movie toned it all way down.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tone is very much Catch-22 and MASH-like, set in December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. A rag-tag group of American soldiers are bivouacked in a castle on the border of France and Belgium, determined—at least some of them—to save the castle and its contents of fine art and sculpture. The duke of the castle is old and impotent, but wants to continue his lineage, so allows his wife to have an affair with Major Falconer in the hopes that she will become pregnant. Many of the early episodes are full of black humor, as the soldiers interact with the local whores, crash a masquerade party with German soldiers, and grab a German tank and fool a group of other German tanks into following them into a swamp. The group of soldiers includes an art historian, a classical musician, an Indian, a cowboy, a baker, and an African American writer. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, some who are very articulate, some who are very profane. As the Germans approach, the men stall the German advance, setting booby traps for tanks, felling trees to stop the trucks, and killing many. But there are too few Americans and too many Germans. Neither the castle nor the men survive.

[Yacoob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Já vím, spousta metafor a tak, ale já prostě tenhle styl "Jak jsme vyhráli válku" v kombinaci s odporným patosem závěrečných stránek nedávám. Zase jednou jsem litoval své úpornosti v dočítání knih až do konce.

[Cj Zawacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A castle, a count, a one-eyed major, an lieutenant art historian, a countess, and a rag tag group of GI's share one of the incredible anti-war story.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely clever. One of the few books I could read multiple times.

[Klára · Rating 5 out of 5]

Američtí vojáci hájí hrad v zemi, kterou pomalu ani neznají. A za druhé světové války si každý bojuje svoji vlastní válku. Kniha má kapitoly podle jednotlivých postav. Kromě vojáků zde najdeme i hraběte a hraběnku hradu, což ještě více dokresluje důvěryhodnost knihy. Každá z postav má prostor vyjádřit své vnímání situace a světa. Mými nejoblíbenějšími postavami byli major Falconer a kapitán Beckman, který má na starost ochranu uměleckých děl. A také černý Benjamin Alistair, který je velmi sečtelý a chytrý, což je dost nečekané, ale nakonec působí velmi sympaticky. Jsem ráda, že se ke mně kniha dostala zapůjčením od přítelova táty. Občas jsem zaplesala, když tam byly francouzské věty nebo slova a já jim rozuměla! :3

[Michal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knihu jsem našel skoro novou v antikvariátu a na prvních 40 řádcích mě doslova nadchla. Pak mě nadšení opadalo. Přesto chválím skvěle vykreslené charakteristiky postav a samotný závěr knihy. Strhující byl závěrečný proslov hraběnky Therese o mužích válce. Kniha by si možná zasloužila i 4 hvězdičky, ale prostě přes rozpocelnost, ironii války, ze kterou si dělá ji 4 hvězdičky dát nemůžu. Na Hlavu 22 prostě nemá, takže 3,5 hvězdičky a trošku zklámání.

[Neil Powell · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most frustratingly terrible books I have ever read. The concept is great, and I was attracted by the comparisons to Catch 22. However, the author was clearly on some kind of trip when he penned this. The story drifts from one random dream like sequence to another, with barely any plot linking the threads together. Avoid

[Russell Smith]

Very entertaining, I laughed out loud several times!

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

An unwilling but heroic replacement brigade of the U.S. 3rd Army finds itself preparing a Belgian castle -- and its art and inhabitants -- for defense on the eve of the Battle of the Bulge.

[Pavel Beneš · Rating 5 out of 5]

To mě bavilo. Paradoxně tahle knížka za bolševika vyšla jako paperback v nakladatelství Naše vojsko.