User:Maggiemrogers/sandbox: Difference between revisions
m Tweaked cquote. |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 13: | Line 13: | ||
The only boisterous holiday in the Hebrew calendar, Purim is not unlike Carnival in using masks and costumes and giving license to rowdy behavior. That the history of the Jews is replete with other plots against them that do not end so well does not diminish the festivity of Purim; perhaps it only increases it. Through the feasting and merrymaking, the retribution against Haman is reenacted as mockery. Most Americans in urban areas are probably familiar with the special Purim pastries, poppy seed or fruit-filled triangular tarts called ''hamantaschen'', Haman’s pockets, made popular by Eastern European Jewish immigrants. In the synagogue, the holiday is celebrated by a public reading of the Scroll (Megillah) of Esther, during which the congregation deploys noisemakers (called ''greggers'' in Yiddish) to drown out the name of Haman whenever it is said aloud in the reading of the text. As the Hebrew curse has it, Haman’s name is blotted out — | The only boisterous holiday in the Hebrew calendar, Purim is not unlike Carnival in using masks and costumes and giving license to rowdy behavior. That the history of the Jews is replete with other plots against them that do not end so well does not diminish the festivity of Purim; perhaps it only increases it. Through the feasting and merrymaking, the retribution against Haman is reenacted as mockery. Most Americans in urban areas are probably familiar with the special Purim pastries, poppy seed or fruit-filled triangular tarts called ''hamantaschen'', Haman’s pockets, made popular by Eastern European Jewish immigrants. In the synagogue, the holiday is celebrated by a public reading of the Scroll (Megillah) of Esther, during which the congregation deploys noisemakers (called ''greggers'' in Yiddish) to drown out the name of Haman whenever it is said aloud in the reading of the text. As the Hebrew curse has it, Haman’s name is blotted out — | ||
except to denote pastry. Among Ashkenazi Jews, the festivities traditionally included a ''Purim-shpil'', a folk play based on the Purim story or contemporary subjects.{{efn|For a study of the reception of a Purim-shpil performed in the aftermath of World War II, see Aronowicz.{{sfn| | except to denote pastry. Among Ashkenazi Jews, the festivities traditionally included a ''Purim-shpil'', a folk play based on the Purim story or contemporary subjects.{{efn|For a study of the reception of a Purim-shpil performed in the aftermath of World War II, see Aronowicz.{{sfn|Aronowicz|2008}} For a general discussion of the Yiddish folk dramas performed at Purim, see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett{{sfn|Kirshenblatt-Gimblett|1980}} and “''Purim-Shpil'',”{{sfn|Purim-Shpil|2007}} ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''.}} Crossing genre borders, I now propose to read ''Castle'' as a type of Purim entertainment, a ''shpil'' in long prose narrative form that carries the heavy burden of invoking not a catastrophe averted but a catastrophe perpetrated. | ||
First, a disclaimer is in order. ''Castle'' can be read in the context of the retributive charivari of Purim without exaggerating the novel’s Jewish dimensions or Mailer’s engagement with Judaism.{{efn|For various and valuable insights into Mailer’s role as a Jewish writer, see Bernstein,{{sfn|Bernstein|2007}} Cappell,{{sfn|Cappell|2007}} and Siegel.{{sfn|Siegel|2007}}}} In fact, it is instructive to consider ''Castle'' in the light of a very different tradition, what one might call the ''locus classicus'' of retributive justice in Western literature, Canto 28 of Dante’s ''Inferno''. There the pilgrim-poet encounters Bertran de Born who, {{pg|305|306}}having severed filial ties between a father and son, is condemned to carry his own severed head. Holding the head by the hair and swinging it like a lantern, Bertran offers a gloss on his gruesome condition: "''Così s’osserva in me lo contrapasso''" (In me you may observe fit punishment). {{efn|Dante, ''Inferno'', 142.{{sfn|Dante | First, a disclaimer is in order. ''Castle'' can be read in the context of the retributive charivari of Purim without exaggerating the novel’s Jewish dimensions or Mailer’s engagement with Judaism.{{efn|For various and valuable insights into Mailer’s role as a Jewish writer, see Bernstein,{{sfn|Bernstein|2007}} Cappell,{{sfn|Cappell|2007}} and Siegel.{{sfn|Siegel|2007}}}} In fact, it is instructive to consider ''Castle'' in the light of a very different tradition, what one might call the ''locus classicus'' of retributive justice in Western literature, Canto 28 of Dante’s ''Inferno''. There the pilgrim-poet encounters Bertran de Born who, {{pg|305|306}}having severed filial ties between a father and son, is condemned to carry his own severed head. Holding the head by the hair and swinging it like a lantern, Bertran offers a gloss on his gruesome condition: "''Così s’osserva in me lo contrapasso''" (In me you may observe fit punishment). {{efn|Dante, ''Inferno'', 142.{{sfn|Dante Alighieri|2000|p=142}} For explication and sources, see the commentary to 28. 142 in Hollander, ''Princeton Dante Project''.{{sfn|Hollander|Robert|p=142}}}} While scholars disagree on the extent to which the penal code of hell is based the principle of ''contrapasso'', it clearly underlies the punishment of Ugolino and Ruggieri in Canto 33.{{efn|For a comprehensive summary of the issues involved in determining whether all the condemned souls receive condign punishment, see Armour.{{sfn|Armour|2000}}}} Recounting how in life he and his sons were imprisoned by Ruggieri and left to starve, Ugolino implies that hunger drove him to cannibalize his children. So now in hell he is condemned to gnaw forever on the head of Ruggieri; the punishment is superbly efficient, at once echoing the crime and exacting vengeance for it. Dante’s ''contrapasso'', his vision of the precise and punctilious infernal justice of retribution, informs the ''Purim-shpil'' extravagance of ''Castle''. Mailer’s close examination of Hitler’s life—the bibliography appended to the novel is extensive—puts mockery in the service of strict accounting, the measure for measure of condign punishment. | ||
For fifty years he had been waiting to write about Hitler, Mailer said in an interview.{{sfn|Lennon|2007}} During that time, as the Third Reich has been examined and reexamined and incorporated into popular culture, Hitler has become, for the general population, more a figure of speech than a historical reality. The psychic havoc (Mailer’s term in ''Advertisements for Myself'' ) caused by the Second World War has morphed into cliché with the concomitant psychic pall, and the condition extends well beyond the Jewish community. So as the historical Hitler dominated most of Europe and caused the deaths of millions, the figurative Hitler still has the power to thwart discourse—mention his name and it kills the conversation.{{efn|For a concise exposition of still unanswered questions about Hitler’s regime, see Lukacs,{{sfn|Lukacs|2010}} especially 86–108.}} And in the bleak confusion and bold incompetence of American political life at the beginning of the twenty-first century, that name was invoked with alarming frequency (deployed, curiously enough, by both ends of the political spectrum). | For fifty years he had been waiting to write about Hitler, Mailer said in an interview.{{sfn|Mailer|Lennon|2007}} During that time, as the Third Reich has been examined and reexamined and incorporated into popular culture, Hitler has become, for the general population, more a figure of speech than a historical reality. The psychic havoc (Mailer’s term in ''Advertisements for Myself'' ) caused by the Second World War has morphed into cliché with the concomitant psychic pall, and the condition extends well beyond the Jewish community. So as the historical Hitler dominated most of Europe and caused the deaths of millions, the figurative Hitler still has the power to thwart discourse—mention his name and it kills the conversation.{{efn|For a concise exposition of still unanswered questions about Hitler’s regime, see Lukacs,{{sfn|Lukacs|2010}} especially 86–108.}} And in the bleak confusion and bold incompetence of American political life at the beginning of the twenty-first century, that name was invoked with alarming frequency (deployed, curiously enough, by both ends of the political spectrum). | ||
Taking on the trope of Hitler, the aging Mailer returns to the prophetic mode of his younger self, who believed his vocation lay in becoming “''consecutively more disruptive, more dangerous, and more powerful.''”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} He remains a disruptive writer, making his readers uncomfortable. But ever the great experimentalist of the narrative voice, he chooses now to speak with the mellow cadences of folktale, telling how ''das Waldschloss'', the castle in the forest, came to be where there was neither cas-{{pg|306|307}}tle nor forest, but only the adamantine irony of inmates from Berlin imprisoned in a concentration camp where there had once been a potato field. We do not learn about this ''Waldschloss'' until the end of the novel, when we have already passed through the other adamantine irony of a tale told to avenge crimes committed more than sixty years before. The long delay has its advantage. As we know from an old adage invoked in Mailer’s ''Harlot’s Ghost'': “OSS working undercover in Italy, 1943, did encounter the following piece of Sicilian wisdom: ‘Revenge is a dish that people of taste eat cold.’” {{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=813}} The time is ripe for low temperature retribution. | Taking on the trope of Hitler, the aging Mailer returns to the prophetic mode of his younger self, who believed his vocation lay in becoming “''consecutively more disruptive, more dangerous, and more powerful.''”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} He remains a disruptive writer, making his readers uncomfortable. But ever the great experimentalist of the narrative voice, he chooses now to speak with the mellow cadences of folktale, telling how ''das Waldschloss'', the castle in the forest, came to be where there was neither cas-{{pg|306|307}}tle nor forest, but only the adamantine irony of inmates from Berlin imprisoned in a concentration camp where there had once been a potato field. We do not learn about this ''Waldschloss'' until the end of the novel, when we have already passed through the other adamantine irony of a tale told to avenge crimes committed more than sixty years before. The long delay has its advantage. As we know from an old adage invoked in Mailer’s ''Harlot’s Ghost'': “OSS working undercover in Italy, 1943, did encounter the following piece of Sicilian wisdom: ‘Revenge is a dish that people of taste eat cold.’” {{sfn|Mailer|1991|p=813}} The time is ripe for low temperature retribution. | ||
| Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
Even earnest biographers run the risk of appropriating the lives of their subjects. For Dieter appropriation is the goal, as we learn from his teasing discussion of the narrative’s genre: “It is more than a memoir and certainly has to be most curious as a biography since it is as privileged as a novel.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=79}} He may argue against the common belief that demonic possession is total but he can also boast of his mastery of the subject: “I live with the confidence that I am in a position to understand Adolf. For the fact is that I know him. I must repeat. I know him top to bottom.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=9}} On the basis of his successful cultivation of Hitler as a client of the Maestro, Dieter rose through the ranks of the infernal hierarchy, and in telling the story afterwards, the de-{{pg|307|308}}moted (can we call him fallen?) devil is not about to give up his rights to the life of a celebrity. Hitler is still Dieter’s intellectual property, one might say, but the vengeance is only incidentally his. Primarily it is ours. | Even earnest biographers run the risk of appropriating the lives of their subjects. For Dieter appropriation is the goal, as we learn from his teasing discussion of the narrative’s genre: “It is more than a memoir and certainly has to be most curious as a biography since it is as privileged as a novel.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=79}} He may argue against the common belief that demonic possession is total but he can also boast of his mastery of the subject: “I live with the confidence that I am in a position to understand Adolf. For the fact is that I know him. I must repeat. I know him top to bottom.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=9}} On the basis of his successful cultivation of Hitler as a client of the Maestro, Dieter rose through the ranks of the infernal hierarchy, and in telling the story afterwards, the de-{{pg|307|308}}moted (can we call him fallen?) devil is not about to give up his rights to the life of a celebrity. Hitler is still Dieter’s intellectual property, one might say, but the vengeance is only incidentally his. Primarily it is ours. | ||
Dieter’s knowledge of his client is indeed extensive. He generously offers readers copious data accessible only to devils (and novelists) about Hitler’s incestuous genealogy, odious conception, and bullied and bullying childhood. He takes pains to describe the workings of infernal plots and ploys to intervene in human life. Yet nothing about the information he imparts tells us why Hitler turned out as he did—why a dysfunctional family, nasty sibling rivalry, and a failed beekeeping venture, unpleasant as they are, should lead to dictatorship, world war, and genocide. For not providing an explanation for Hitler’s evil, Mailer was criticized by some reviewers (Gross, for example).{{sfn|Gross|2007|p=59+}} They missed the point, I believe. Such criticism presupposes that ''Castle'' should have offered the kind of catharsis-through-information that one finds in murder mysteries. Yet if we knew what caused Hitler to do what he did, would his deeds suddenly become less horrific?{{efn|For an interesting perspective on the impossibility of establishing causal relations in ''Castle'' and elsewhere, see Fleming.{{sfn| | Dieter’s knowledge of his client is indeed extensive. He generously offers readers copious data accessible only to devils (and novelists) about Hitler’s incestuous genealogy, odious conception, and bullied and bullying childhood. He takes pains to describe the workings of infernal plots and ploys to intervene in human life. Yet nothing about the information he imparts tells us why Hitler turned out as he did—why a dysfunctional family, nasty sibling rivalry, and a failed beekeeping venture, unpleasant as they are, should lead to dictatorship, world war, and genocide. For not providing an explanation for Hitler’s evil, Mailer was criticized by some reviewers (Gross, for example).{{sfn|Gross|2007|p=59+}} They missed the point, I believe. Such criticism presupposes that ''Castle'' should have offered the kind of catharsis-through-information that one finds in murder mysteries. Yet if we knew what caused Hitler to do what he did, would his deeds suddenly become less horrific?{{efn|For an interesting perspective on the impossibility of establishing causal relations in ''Castle'' and elsewhere, see Fleming.{{sfn|Fleming|2008}}}} It is worth noting that even in ''The Executioner’s Song'', where Mailer is dealing with a mundane criminal, there is also no catharsis-through-information. We wait for Gary Gilmore to explain his motive, to say why he murdered the two men he robbed. But he never does. | ||
As though anticipating the objections of his critics, Mailer has Dieter tease us with details whose later historical echo is unmistakable. Relating how Alois Hitler’s beekeeping mentor, der Alte, set fire to one of his hives, Dieter casually mentions that the young Adi happened to be present but takes care to describe the boy’s sadistic excitement: “His toes tingled, his heart shook in its chamber, he did not know whether to scream or to roar with laughter.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=263}} Since der Alte burns the hive in obedience to instructions sent to him in a dream by the very same Dieter and the boy likewise has been instructed by dream to be at the old man’s farm, can we conclude that this is a formative moment? The devil demurs with a shrug. He had just come back from creating mayhem in Russia, he tells us, and he was not up to the task of dealing with the mind of this particular six-year old (the six-year old who interests us more than the entire Russian royal family). If we were expecting to derive some intellectual or emotional satisfaction from that proffered datum about the young Hitler’s fascination with fiery death and mass slaughter, we are disappointed. Dieter denies us the pleasure. | As though anticipating the objections of his critics, Mailer has Dieter tease us with details whose later historical echo is unmistakable. Relating how Alois Hitler’s beekeeping mentor, der Alte, set fire to one of his hives, Dieter casually mentions that the young Adi happened to be present but takes care to describe the boy’s sadistic excitement: “His toes tingled, his heart shook in its chamber, he did not know whether to scream or to roar with laughter.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=263}} Since der Alte burns the hive in obedience to instructions sent to him in a dream by the very same Dieter and the boy likewise has been instructed by dream to be at the old man’s farm, can we conclude that this is a formative moment? The devil demurs with a shrug. He had just come back from creating mayhem in Russia, he tells us, and he was not up to the task of dealing with the mind of this particular six-year old (the six-year old who interests us more than the entire Russian royal family). If we were expecting to derive some intellectual or emotional satisfaction from that proffered datum about the young Hitler’s fascination with fiery death and mass slaughter, we are disappointed. Dieter denies us the pleasure. | ||
| Line 97: | Line 97: | ||
* {{cite news |last=Cappell |first=Ezra |date=Nov 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: A Man of Letters Inspired by the People of the Book |url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/norman-mailer-man-letters-inspired-people-book/docview/367855341/se-2 |work=Forward |volume=16 |location= |publisher=ProQuest |page=A1 |access-date=3 Mar 2009 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite news |last=Cappell |first=Ezra |date=Nov 2007 |title=Norman Mailer: A Man of Letters Inspired by the People of the Book |url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/norman-mailer-man-letters-inspired-people-book/docview/367855341/se-2 |work=Forward |volume=16 |location= |publisher=ProQuest |page=A1 |access-date=3 Mar 2009 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite magazine |last=Coetzee |first=J. M. |date=15 Feb 2007 |title=Portrait of the Monster as a Young Artist |magazine=New York Review of Books |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=8–11 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite magazine |last=Coetzee |first=J. M. |date=15 Feb 2007 |title=Portrait of the Monster as a Young Artist |magazine=New York Review of Books |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=8–11 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Dante Alighieri |date=2000 |title=Inferno |translator=Robert and Jean Hollander |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages= |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Dante Alighieri |date=2000 |title=Inferno |translator=Robert and Jean Hollander |location=New York |publisher=Doubleday |pages=142 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite journal |last=Fleming |first=James R. |title='But Where is the Castle?':The Function of Modernist Allegory in Norman Mailer's ''The Castle in the Forest'' |url= |journal=EAPSU Online |volume=5 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=143–55 |access-date= |ref=harv }} | * {{cite journal |last=Fleming |first=James R. |title='But Where is the Castle?':The Function of Modernist Allegory in Norman Mailer's ''The Castle in the Forest'' |url= |journal=EAPSU Online |volume=5 |date=Fall 2008 |pages=143–55 |access-date= |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite magazine |last=Gross |first=John |date=2007 |title="Young Adolf." Rev. of ''The Castle in the Forest.'' |url=https://www.commentary.org/articles/john-gross/the-castle-in-the-forest-by-norman-mailer/ |magazine=Commentary |volume=123 |issue=3 |location=Expanded Academic ASAP |page=59+ |access-date=23 Apr 2010 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite magazine |last=Gross |first=John |date=2007 |title="Young Adolf." Rev. of ''The Castle in the Forest.'' |url=https://www.commentary.org/articles/john-gross/the-castle-in-the-forest-by-norman-mailer/ |magazine=Commentary |volume=123 |issue=3 |location=Expanded Academic ASAP |page=59+ |access-date=23 Apr 2010 |ref=harv }} | ||
| Line 107: | Line 107: | ||
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=2007 |title=The Castle in the Forest |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=2007 |title=The Castle in the Forest |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1991 |title=Harlot’s Ghost |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1991 |title=Harlot’s Ghost |location=New York |publisher=Random House |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite web |title=Interview by Michael Lennon |url=https://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-mailer-norman.asp |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=23 Feb 2007 |website=Bookreporter.com |publisher= |access-date=3 Mar 2009 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite web |title=Interview by Michael Lennon |url=https://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-mailer-norman.asp |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |last2=Lennon |first2=Michael |date=23 Feb 2007 |website=Bookreporter.com |publisher= |access-date=3 Mar 2009 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite journal |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |title=Norman Mailer: Letters to Jack Abbott |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/03/12/norman-mailer-letters-to-jack-abbott/ |journal=New York Review of Books ||volume=56 |issue=4 |date=12 March 2009 |pages=n. pag. |access-date=7 Aug 2010 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite journal |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |title=Norman Mailer: Letters to Jack Abbott |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/03/12/norman-mailer-letters-to-jack-abbott/ |journal=New York Review of Books ||volume=56 |issue=4 |date=12 March 2009 |pages=n. pag. |access-date=7 Aug 2010 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Milton |first=John |date=1957 |title=Paradise Lost. Complete Poems and Major Prose |editor-last1=Hughes |editor-first1=Merritt |location=New York |publisher=Odyssey Press |pages=173–469 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Milton |first=John |date=1957 |title=Paradise Lost. Complete Poems and Major Prose |editor-last1=Hughes |editor-first1=Merritt |location=New York |publisher=Odyssey Press |pages=173–469 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite encyclopedia |date=2007 |title=Purim-Shpil |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Judaica |edition= 2nd |ref= | * {{cite encyclopedia |date=2007 |title=Purim-Shpil |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Judaica |edition=2nd |ref= {{harvid|Purim-Shpil|2007}} }} | ||
* {{cite journal |last=Ricks |first=Christopher |title=The Devil Only Knows |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=206–214 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite journal |last=Ricks |first=Christopher |title=The Devil Only Knows |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=2007 |pages=206–214 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite news |last=Siegel |first=Lee |date=21 Jan 2007 |title=Maestro of the Human Ego. Rev. of ''The Castle in the Forest'', by Norman Mailer |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/books/review/Siegel.t.html |work=New York Times |publisher=New York Times |access-date=22 Apr 2010 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite news |last=Siegel |first=Lee |date=21 Jan 2007 |title=Maestro of the Human Ego. Rev. of ''The Castle in the Forest'', by Norman Mailer |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/books/review/Siegel.t.html |work=New York Times |publisher=New York Times |access-date=22 Apr 2010 |ref=harv }} | ||