User:Sherrilledwards/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Mailer asks hard questions. In ''Gospel,'' he asks if there is a God who is more than nostalgia enshrined in ancient words. In ''Castle,'' he asks if we shall avoid the lure of Fascism and another Hitler. Is there a God who speaks to modernity and the evils of the Holocaust? With D.T. as narrator in ''Castle,'' we encounter a Nazi officer in the SS. Then we discover he is also “an officer of the Evil One.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Mailer recognizes the risk that he runs, “Given the present authority of the scientific world, most well-educated people are ready to bridle at the notion of such an entity as the Devil.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Robert Begiebing comments, “The suspension of disbelief required is audacious.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}} But Mailer reminds us that our modern world has little understanding of Hitler, “the most mysterious human being of the century.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=72}}

As in ''Gospel'' ten years earlier, ''The Castle'' in the Forest operates in two distinct realms, “the metaphysical and the mundane.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}} Metaphysical language is hard to decode. In fact, in the 1920s Logical Positivists denied ''any'' meaning to such metaphysical language, a view later modified by{{pg|343|344}} Karl Popper. God and Satan “appear” in a strange No Man’s Land, at the frontiers of human experience. But thinkers from Augustine to Einstein have recognized that strangeness, using tropes of analogy and metaphor.

Revision as of 18:26, 28 March 2025 view source4 days ago Sherrilledwards (talk \| contribs) 133 edits m fix missing space ← Older edit		Revision as of 12:55, 29 March 2025 view source3 days ago Sherrilledwards (talk \| contribs) 133 edits para straddle 343-344 Newer edit →
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	Mailer asks hard questions. In ''Gospel,'' he asks if there is a God who is more than nostalgia enshrined in ancient words. In ''Castle,'' he asks if we shall avoid the lure of Fascism and another Hitler. Is there a God who speaks to modernity and the evils of the Holocaust? With D.T. as narrator in ''Castle,'' we encounter a Nazi officer in the SS. Then we discover he is also “an officer of the Evil One.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=71}} Mailer recognizes the risk that he runs, “Given the present authority of the scientific world, most well-educated people are ready to bridle at the notion of such an entity as the Devil.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=71}} Robert Begiebing comments, “The suspension of disbelief required is audacious.”{{sfn\|Begiebing\|2007\|p=216}} But Mailer reminds us that our modern world has little understanding of Hitler, “the most mysterious human being of the century.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=72}}		Mailer asks hard questions. In ''Gospel,'' he asks if there is a God who is more than nostalgia enshrined in ancient words. In ''Castle,'' he asks if we shall avoid the lure of Fascism and another Hitler. Is there a God who speaks to modernity and the evils of the Holocaust? With D.T. as narrator in ''Castle,'' we encounter a Nazi officer in the SS. Then we discover he is also “an officer of the Evil One.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=71}} Mailer recognizes the risk that he runs, “Given the present authority of the scientific world, most well-educated people are ready to bridle at the notion of such an entity as the Devil.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=71}} Robert Begiebing comments, “The suspension of disbelief required is audacious.”{{sfn\|Begiebing\|2007\|p=216}} But Mailer reminds us that our modern world has little understanding of Hitler, “the most mysterious human being of the century.”{{sfn\|Mailer\|2007\|p=72}}

			As in ''Gospel'' ten years earlier, ''The Castle'' in the Forest operates in two distinct realms, “the metaphysical and the mundane.”{{sfn\|Begiebing\|2007\|p=216}} Metaphysical language is hard to decode. In fact, in the 1920s Logical Positivists denied ''any'' meaning to such metaphysical language, a view later modified by{{pg\|343\|344}} Karl Popper. God and Satan “appear” in a strange No Man’s Land, at the frontiers of human experience. But thinkers from Augustine to Einstein have recognized that strangeness, using tropes of analogy and metaphor.