Thurs. Feb. 15

We heard Norman Mailer speak at a lecture once and we were transfixed by this literary lion. This was probably 20 years ago, and, even then, we were thinking Mailer, though pugnacious and combative as always, was in the twilight of his career. Nope. At 83, he's back with "The Castle in the Forest," his first major novel in more than a decade. His job as a novelist this time? Exploring the evil of one Adolf Hitler, who occupies a slightly lower rung in hell than, say, Gary Gilmore. Mailer's narrator is Dieter, a mysterious SS man/devil who takes us back to Hilter's birth. In the New York Times, Lee Siegel writes, "There is no weary celebration of the demonic here, no facile declaration of evil's universal latency ... Mailer has never had sympathy for the Devil, and he has none here." Of course, we wonder if the world needs yet another book about Hitler. But if there's going to be one, why not from Mailer? The guy has earned our respect, attention and ire for half a century. He should do one of those ads for the new AARP that suggest aging is in the mind. Oh, and at 477 pages, this ranks of modest length in Mailer's world. You can hear Mailer read for $3 at Congregational United Church of Christ in Harvard Square Thursday Feb. 15 at 6:30 p.m.

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