I finished The Castle in the Forest by Norman
Mailer. At long last. You may remember I mentioned this before, when I was
maybe a third of the way through. I spoke of it unfavorably, but I may have
jumped the gun a tad with that assessment, because as it turns out, I absolutely
hated The Castle in the Forest, it’s the worst novel I’ve read all
year, and I’ve read some pretty lousy novels this year.
I don’t really want to say too much more about this.
Thinking about it bores me, much as reading it bored me. All I really want to
do with this post is clear the decks for October. But I suppose I should remind
you that The Castle in the Forest is about the childhood of Adolf
Hitler, told from the point of view of a Hell Demon or whatever who nudges him
from infancy to become the towering monster of history we all remember so well.
That’s the idea, anyway, but a surprising number of pages turn out to be
focused on Hitler’s dad’s attempts to become a successful beekeeper. There are
metaphors and shit all over the place – the beehives are occasionally described
in terms that could invoke the Jewish ghettos, among other things – but a
rather amusing number of times, when one of these metaphors threatens to become
too clear, the Hell Demon will bust in and say “You shouldn’t read too much
into this.” Why we shouldn’t is not always clear, nor is it ever convincing.
Mailer seems to prefer pointlessly muddying the waters to making the reader
understand why he’s blaming Hitler on the Devil. Understanding Hitler is, at
least psychologically, one of the great dark impossibilities, the unsolvable
mystery of mankind from which all other 20th century existential
crises spring. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to expect Mailer to be the
guy who finally cracks that nut. However, one might reasonably expect to at
least notice Mailer taking a swing at insight, even if it’s just an insight
into that hopelessness. And maybe saying “It was demons” was Mailer’s way of sending
up the very idea of trying to figure anything out, except I’m not sure it takes
almost 500 plodding pages of shit and dick jokes (actually they’re not all
jokes) woven through what sometimes feels like a 200 page novel about goddamn
bees is the way to do that. Also, that’s not what Mailer was trying to do.
* * * *
One of the reasons I stopped reading George Pelecanos years
ago was his habit of using his characters – anyway the ones we’re supposed to
like – as mouthpieces for his own musical tastes, a habit he indulged in with
the frequency of a chain smoker. I remember a bit in A Firing Offense when the
hero goes to see a friend of his who’s into movies, ostensibly for reasons
pertaining to the crime plot. Their conversation begins with the hero saying something
like “So do you still like movies?” and the other guy saying “Yes. GoodFellas
is great. Brian DePalma has lost his way. Did you see Raising Cain. I do not
like the film critics for the Washington
Post, our local newspaper her in Washington, D.C. Do you still like music?”
and then our hero goes “Yes. Here’s the thing about Tracy Chapman…” etc.
With that in mind, please read this passage from Jo Nesbo’s The
Snowman, which I just read:
The
telephone welcomed Harry on his return to the office.
It was
Rakel wanting to give him back the DVD she borrowed from him.
“The Rules of Attraction?” Harry
repeated, taken aback. “Have you got it?
“You said
it was on your list of most underrated modern film.”
“Yes, but
you never like those films.”
“That’s not
true.”
“You didn’t
like Starship Troopers.”
“That’s
because it’s a crap macho film.”
“It’s
satire,” Harry said.
“Of what?”
“American
society’s inherent fascism. The Hardy Boys meet Hitler Youth.”
“Come on,
Harry. War on giant insects on a remote planet?”
“Fear of
foreigners.”
“Anyway, I
liked that seventies film of yours, the one about bugging…”
“The Conversation,” Harry said. “Coppola’s
best.”
“That’s the
one. I agree that is underrated."
“It’s not
underrated,” Harry sighed. “Just forgotten. It was nominated for an Oscar for
Best Film.”
First off, The Rules of Attraction??? Second,
when Harry says that she never likes “those films,” by “those films” does mean underrated
modern films? And third, fucking Rules of Attraction???
And what the fuck do The Hardy Boys have to do with
anything? Did he mean Leave it to Beaver? Which would be
stupid enough, but at least Wally and the Beav aren’t specifically boy
detectives, which muddles whatever surface-at-best profundity this Harry asshole,
who sighs at his girlfriend when he thinks she’s misusing the word “underrated,”
is so proud of himself for having scratched (of course, there’s nothing in Starship
Troopers beneath that surface, so I can’t blame Harry for that one).
The Snowman is an awful book with a ridiculous plot and I’m
tired of talking about it. All I’ll add is that I read it because I am/was
looking forward to the new Tomas Alfredson film version. A good film can absolutely
be made from a bad book, but there’s a lot of garbage in Nesbo’s story that
would need to be cleaved bloodily from its spine. After finishing the book, I
checked IMDb to read the cast list, and when I saw who was playing who, more
than once I thought to myself “Oh. They didn’t just cut that character our
entirely? Hmm…”
* * * *
All right, well, that’s that for September. Next up:
October. Which will be concentrated very much on horror, both in film and
literature. It will be not at all unlike my old annual The Kind of Face You Slash series,
except this time the posts will not
be daily. You’ll get how many I give you!
Also it probably won’t be exclusively focused on horror.
There will more than likely be some non-horror films and such here and there.
After all, man cannot live on bread
alone! Wait, on blood alone!
Goddamnit. Fuck!
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