Mailer did Jesus in The Gospel According to the Son; now he plumbs the psyche
of history's most demonic figure in this chilling fictional chronicle of Hitler's
boyhood. Mailer tells the story through the eyes of Dieter, a devil tasked by Satan
(usually called the Maestro) with fostering Hitler's nascent evil, but in this study
of a dysfunctional 19th-century middle-class Austrian household, the real presiding
spirit is Freud. Young Adolph (often called Adi) is the offspring of an incestuous
marriage between a coarse, domineering civil servant and a lasciviously indulgent
mom. The boy duly develops an obsession with feces, a fascination with power,
a grandiose self-image and a sexually charged yen for mass slaughter (the sight of
gassed or burning beehives thrills him). Dieter frets over Hitler's ego-formation
while marveling at the future dictator's burning gaze, his ability to sway weak minds
and the instinctive fuhrerprinzip that emerges when he plays war with neighborhood
boys.talents furthered by Central Europe's ambient romantic nationalism. Mailer's
view of evil embraces religions and metaphysics, but it's rooted in the squalid
soil of toilet-training travails and perverted sexual urges. The novel sometimes
feels like a psychoanalytic version of The Screwtape Letters, but Mailer arrives
at a somber, compelling portrait of a monstrous soul.

Narrated by Harris Ulin.

Download File Size:418.75 MB

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