The Castle in the Forest

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Mailer plumbs the psyche of history s most demonic figure in this chilling fictional chronicle of Hitler s boyhood. Mailer tells the story through the eyes of Dieter, a devil tasked by Satan with fostering Hitler s nascent evil, but in this study of a dysfunctional 19th century middle class Austrian household, the real presiding spirit is Freud. Young Adolph is the offspring of an incestuous marriage between a coarse, domineering civil servant and a lasciviously indulgent mom. The boy duly develops an obsession with faeces, a fascination with power, a grandiose self image and a sexually charged yen for mass slaughter (the sight of gassed or burning beehives thrills him). Dieter frets over Hitler s ego formation while marveling at the future dictator s burning gaze, his ability to sway weak minds and the instinctive Führerprinzip that emerges when he plays war with neighborhood boys; talents furthered by Central Europes ambient romantic nationalism. Mailer s view of evil embraces religions and metaphysics, but its rooted in the squalid soil of toilet training travails and perverted sexual urges. The novel sometimes feels like a psychoanalytic version of The Screwtape Letters, but Mailer arrives at a somber, compelling portrait of a monstrous soul.

Norman Mailer; The Castle in the Forest; englisch; USA