The Castle in the Forest
Written by Norman Mailer
Narrated by Harris Yulin
3/5
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About this audiobook
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 Muhammad Ali to Jesus Christ. Now, in his first major work of fiction in more than a decade, The Castle in the Forest offers what may be Mailer's consummate literary endeavor: he has set out to explore the evil of Adolf Hitler.
The narrator, a mysterious SS man in possession of some extraordinary secrets, takes the young Adolf from birth through his adolescence. En route, revealing portraits are offered of Hitler's father and mother, and his sisters and brothers.
A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the Forest delivers its myriad 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 is employed with stunning originality. Now, on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday, Norman Mailer may well be saying more than he ever has before.
Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) ha sido uno de los mayores escritores norteamericanos contemporáneos, así como una figura central en el panorama cultural: novelista, periodista, director de cine, activista político, aspirante a alcalde de Nueva York y enfant terrible todoterreno. Su primera novela, Los desnudos y los muertos, sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial, que lo catapultó a la fama, ha sido publicada por Anagrama, donde también han aparecido Los ejércitos de la noche (Premio Pulitzer y National Book Award), La Canción del Verdugo (Premio Pulitzer), Oswald. Un misterio americano, Los tipos duros no bailan, El parque de los ciervos, El Evangelio según el Hijo, El fantasma de Harlot, ¿Por qué estamos en guerra?, América y El castillo en el bosque.
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Reviews for The Castle in the Forest
21 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Vastly easier to read than "Ancient Evenings"; not quite what I expected though since it revolves around Hitler's "close" family ties and transits into his adolescence without much reference to the 1930's -- just my opinion
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Tedious. TEE-DEE-YUSS. Not to mention ludicrous. Quite a combo.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't know enough facts about Hitler to work out what was real or not. However I did enjoy this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this book. All the reviews are true-- it is full of raunchy, graphic perversities. But, Mailer's eloquent verbiage and dry wit make you laugh in spite of yourself. It is also intelligent. The events that subtlety over time craft an evil human are really scary. No one thing did it; it was the perfect culmination of genes, familial relationships, and social situation. The narration (by a devil who both watches and influences) was OK but was the weakest aspect of the book. It was original but distracting.I haven't done my homework yet to see how much of the story is historically accurate, possible, and complete fiction. I can't say I care. The book would be good even if it were about a fictional character instead of Hitler. I can't whole-heartedly recommend this book to many people because it's too shocking. But if you're up for that then read it, you'll love it. 4 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An engrossing book if disturbing, a fictional working of Adolf Hitler's early life that rings surprisingly true. Really delves into the making or revealing? of a pyschopath.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm a big Mailer fan. I love historical fiction and anxiously awaited a book that promised to deliver an eerie tale of Hitler being sired by Satan. Suffice it to say that I desperately wanted to like this book.It didn't happen. In fact, to my amazement, I stopped reading it halfway through. Perhaps my high expectations doomed the work from the start, but I don't think that's what happened. It just went down too many long and rambling roads to keep my interest.Granted, Mailer's ability to weave historical events into fictional frameworks continues to impress. But when all is said in done, "Castle" is a yawner. Were in not for the riveting and creative premise, I would have assigned an even lower rating.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Having heard so much about Norman Mailer, and his legendary novels, when this book first popped up in bookstores everywhere I went that year (London, Switzerland, even Dubai!), I went for it. Adolf's prequel written by a demon? Sounds intriguing. About as thrilling as a dictionary. I've expressed in my other reviews my waning interest in the world wars and particularly in Hitler, but this book cemented it for me. I think a much much more compelling book on the nature of evil came from the book [Perfume] by [[Patrick Suskind]]. Maybe it's because it was predictable, maybe it's because it lost the plot one too many times, and maybe it's because I sincerely dislike everything about Hitler, and am in no way fascinated by his life story (although there was some morbid curiosity in all that incest and freaky lifestyle that his family had), but I just could not like this book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Hitler's childhood told from the point of view of the devil assigned to chaperone his upbringing. This is an extraordinarily interesting construct for a novel, and parts of the book really succeed. Overall, however, this book lacks focus and spends far too much time focused on the nitty gritty details of raising bees and a long sidetrack into Russia. I was hoping for more but was entertained nevertheless.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Interesting premise (devil observes life of young Hitler) but very bizarre and dull digressions. Lots of talk about piss and Nicholas II. Come on, Norman, you could've done better than this.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What a sick bastard. I'm of course talking about Norman Mailer.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I'm about 100 pages from the end, and all I can say is I hope this has one hell of a home stretch. The first Mailer I ever tackled was Harlot's Ghost, which was thoroughly enjoyable. But unfortunately this, with an immensely interesting premise, does not even come close to delivering. It is strangely scatological. I know, weird. But I'm never against off-putting psychosexual content, but this manages to stay boring throughout. I know this does not really manage to make the canon by most Mailer fans, and is the reason I'm not ready to swear off the author. I have just decided that upon finishing this novel I will be taking a break from Norman for at least a little while.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5How much crap and sex can Mailer fit into 400 pages? The book has too much about the demonic narrator and not nearly enough about young Adolf Hitler, who seems very interesting. Overall, very, very boring.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Norman Mailer is one of those authors where it becomes explicitly clear what opinion he has and that only his should count. The Castle In The Forest is written in a demon's perspective. I wonder why. Is the subject Adolf Hitler so unspeakable off that he needed to use metaphors popular in the middle age? Or perhaps I just didn't get the idea behind it. There was also his extensive knowledge of bees he seemed to need to share. Another thing I didn't get. In the end a lot that seemed alien to me.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I wanted to like this book much more than I actually did. It's well researched -- remarkably well researched, but that's not a surprise with Mailer. I think I just don't care enough about Hitler's youth to be engaged by the book. The story is told by a devil, which is fine, that works just fine for me, but in places the narrator says, "I know it must be hard on you, reader, to feel sympathy for this child who will grow up to be Adolf Hitler," but as a matter of fact, I never *did* feel much if any sympathy for the child.Some reviewers have objected to the frolic and detour into Russia in the middle of the book, but in fact, that was my favorite part. Mailer says that he thinks he has one book left in him, and that book might be concerned with Rasputin. If that's the case, I'm looking forward to it.