The Devil Made Him Do It

Norman Mailer loves shit.



He loves it in all its oleaginous glory, in its clumpy turdiness, smeared between buttocks or alone in the woods. He's hopelessly devoted to shit; it's the kind of fascination that fuels posters on alt.sex.scat.

In "The Castle in the Forest" you'll find all sorts of rapturous takes on doo-doo. What you won't find is anything illuminating Adolf Hitler's psychology, or global politics, or good ol' evil. Mailer's devilish narrator has nothing to say except that there are no easy answers. He actually sets up a scene in which hundreds of bees are gassed up and die while little Adie watches, only to knock it down by saying, (and here I paraphrase, but I promise I'm being accurate to the spirit of the thing): "This moment looks like it could be significant to our boy's psyche. But it really isn't. It's just bees being gassed. It would be cheezy to create such an obvious analogy. This moment is not important."

Well, if it's not important, can I have my money back?