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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/"Their Humor Annoyed Him": Cavalier Wit and Sympathy for the Devil in The Castle in the Forest: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/"Their Humor Annoyed Him": Cavalier Wit and Sympathy for the Devil in The Castle in the Forest (view source)
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What are we to make of a carefully wrought fictional scene in which the Hitlers, before young Adi even comes into the world, adventure past ordinary naughty sex into pedal-to-the-metal analingus? In foregrounding sex acts of this sort in a book purportedly about radical evil, Mailer risks being discussed in terms of radical eccentricity.<ref>The Castle in the Forest. New York: Random House, 2007.</ref> Or, one could say that approaching radical evil through sexual obscenity is artistically obscene. However we put it, the novel intentionally jars the reader just as much as ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983), and the central narrative device of ''that'' novel was an act of fellatio between two ghosts in a tomb. Here is the sex act between Alois and Klara that Mailer’s young Hitler witnesses: | What are we to make of a carefully wrought fictional scene in which the Hitlers, before young Adi even comes into the world, adventure past ordinary naughty sex into pedal-to-the-metal analingus? In foregrounding sex acts of this sort in a book purportedly about radical evil, Mailer risks being discussed in terms of radical eccentricity.<ref>The Castle in the Forest. New York: Random House, 2007.</ref> Or, one could say that approaching radical evil through sexual obscenity is artistically obscene. However we put it, the novel intentionally jars the reader just as much as ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983), and the central narrative device of ''that'' novel was an act of fellatio between two ghosts in a tomb. Here is the sex act between Alois and Klara that Mailer’s young Hitler witnesses: | ||
We may remember that the last time we saw Alois, he was burying his nose and lips in Klara’s vulva, his tongue as long and demonic as a devil’s phallus. (Be it said: we are not without our contributions to these arts). Alois was certainly being aided by us. Never before had he given himself so completely to this exercise, and quickly he had become good at it, and so quickly that no explanation is possible unless we are given credit as well. (Which is why we speak of the Evil One when joining in the act—we do have the power to pass these lubricious gifts to men and women even when we are not attempting to convert them into clients).(98) | |||
===Notes=== | ===Notes=== | ||