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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 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)
+What shall we make of this? One possible response will be to link Mailer’s use of the Holocaust with that of Sylvia Plath.<ref>
+Gubar, Susan. “Prosopopoeia and Holocaust Poetry in English: Sylvia Plath and Her Contem- poraries.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 14.1 ~Spring 2001!: 191–215.</ref> One could say each author uses the pain of others to provide historical ballast to pain that is really individual. It would be the height of egotism to use the deaths of six million in order to hide the idiosyncrasy of one’s pain or the eccentricity of one’s ideas.
 ===Notes===