“Their Humor Annoyed Him”

Cavalier Wit and Sympathy for the Devil in The Castle in the Forest

Authors

  • John Whalen-Bridge National University of Singapore Author

Keywords:

The Castle in the Forest, literary humor, moral philosophy, irony, evil and mortality

Abstract

Mailer’s innovative device of having a mind-entering demon narrate backgrounds denied to us by the enclosures of history allows Mailer to conflate the epistemological realism of first person narration with the omniscience of third person. Mailer’s Hitler novel recapitulates his karmic unified-field theory of life in a number of ways. We cannot make sense of the last two decades of Mailer’s writing career without paying attention to the Castle’s cavalier wit, which is, at its heart, almost invariably alone.

Author Biography

  • John Whalen-Bridge, National University of Singapore

    John Whalen-Bridge is Associate Professor of English at the National University of Singapore, where he teaches courses on American literature. He is currently writing about Buddhism in American culture, global Buddhism in relation to “spiritual tourism,” and the development of Religious Studies in Asia.

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Published

2026-02-10

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008): In Memorium

Section

Articles

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