The Castle in the Forest

By: Norman Mailer

Narrated by: Harris Yulin

A MAJOR NEW NOVEL FROM ONE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST MEN OF LETTERS

No career in modern American letters is at once so brilliant, varied, and controversial as that of Norman Mailer. In a span of more than six decades, Mailer has searched into subjects ranging from World War II to Ancient Egypt, from the march on the Pentagon to Marilyn Monroe, from Henry Miller and Muhammad Ali to Jesus Christ. Now, in his first major work of fiction in more than a decade, The Castle in the Forest offers what may be Mailer's consummate literary endeavor: he has set out to explore the evil of Adolf Hitler.

The narrator, a mysterious SS man in possession of some extraordinary secrets, takes the young Adolf from birth through his adolescence. En route, revealing portraits are offered of Hitler's father and mother, and his sisters and brothers.

A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the Forest delivers its myriad twists and surprises with astonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between good and evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis that is employed with stunning originality. Now, on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday, Norman Mailer may well be saying more than he ever has before.©2007 Norman Mailer. All rights reserved; (P)2007 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Laughably Amateur Narrator, At Best

I like Mailer, I've read The Executioners Song, Harlots Ghost, and The Naked and the Dead, but I had no chance to see if I liked this story because the narrator was AWFUL. He reminds me of the not so good volunteer readers on the Librivox app. I yelled at this book at least 20x before I gave up. It's already a difficult subject, and the story is frankly perverse and scatological (I have no problem w that) so in a truly gifted narrators hands, this story might have come across as an oddly whimsical and enjoyable dark fairytale. It was certainly interesting, but his flatness, his lack of inflection, and pathetic attempts at character voices were too distracting. Will not finish, though I may pick up the actual book. Not recommended if you care about narration.

Pure DRECK!! Should be ZERO stars!

Here is a letter I just wrote to Audible:
I want my CREDIT back!!!
I bought this book thinking it was a legitimate historical novel. It turns out it is a FANTASY! The "narrator," who is purported to be an SS officer, turns out to be a minon of SATAN, not just metaphorically but a real honest-to-God (no pun) agent of THE devil! Normal Mailer must have been going SENILE when he wrote this piece of dreck! Introducing an agent of Satan as being the reason for the monster that was Adolf Hitler is a COP-OUT and seems to falsely mitigate the true, very human, HORROR that was the man (not a "Rosemary's baby") and those who did his work. I want this piece of literary dung flushed out of my library, I assure you I'll be deleting it from my computer, and I want my credit BACK!!

Worthy of Mailer

I was at first unimpressed and felt that the device of devils and angels was a bit clunky, but Mailer won me over. I find it, as I near the end, to be a very powerful work. The prose, at first, seem weak by Mailer's normal standards--the tone has hints of a mid-twentieth century English translation of Thomas Mann. I realized a quarter of the way through that this was certainly a choice. And a good one. The cumulative effects of the prose were stunning. As is the portrait of humanity that emerges. And the portrait of Hitler! To see and begin to comprehend the forces that molded so awful, so powerful an individual is a bit of insight that I truly appreciate. My big fear--since this clearly a first volume to a much larger work--is that Mailer will not be able to finish it, and leave us with another unfinished half masterpiece, which of course should be renamed "Hitler's Ghost."

The reader is top notch, and has a tone akin to Mailer?s, making it very pleasing to listen to.

Great one

This is one of the book you would like if you have read Mailer's other books like The Naked And The Dead, The Armies of The Night, The Executioner's Song, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Advertisements For Myself and etc.

Taking a cue from CS Lewis, a Devil who works for Satan narrates the early days of the Hitler. A lot is told about Alois' Hitler and his background.

This book is a mixture brilliance, excitement and sometimes dullness. I consider this book a great listen.

Interesting Premis

A strange book to be sure, but interesting if not a little disturbing for my taste.
All I kept thinking was off all the times when the course of history could have been altered for the better had Hitler's childhood / Education gone another way or had he not survived at all. I found the most interesting part was his chapter on Czar Nicholas II.