Mailer's lasting last

When, at the shrieking height of Beatlemania, John Lennon made his hotly misinterpreted declaration that The Beatles had become more famous than Jesus, all hell broke loose, particularly in the sickeningly fundamentalist regions of America's Bible Belt. Realities don't often mix well with beliefs.

Hopefully, 21st century level-headedness permits one to suggest that in the last half a century, more books have probably been written about Adolf Hitler's final solution than about the positive teachings of Jesus.

Hitler's enduring influence in the ever-flowing stream of published words is a phenomenon that is often rightly assimilated with the undoubted staying power of all that is sinister. This, Mr Mailer's last work before he passed away in November last year, is a lasting contribution in the field of faction, sometimes known as non-fiction novels, a genre the great American author made his over many a decade of sheer brilliance.

A towering figure in American literature for nearly 60 years, Mr Mailer developed a form of journalism that combined actual events, autobiography and political commentary with the richness of the novel. His works always stirred controversy because of both their stylish nonconformity and the controversial views of American life. His parting salvo is no exception.

The Castle in the Forest is the story of Hitler's childhood as seen through the eyes of Dieter, a demon sent to put him on his destructive path. The novel explores the idea that Hitler had no Jewish heritage but was the product of incest. It forms a thematic contrast with the famous writer's immediately previous novel The Gospel According to the Son (1997), which dealt with the early life of Jesus.

Modern thinking would have us believe that no one is actually born "bad". An infant does not come into the world endowed with a predisposition towards cruelty and murder; such base attributes are down to parental influences, chance circumstances and economic factors, goes the contention. Mr Mailer's electrifying and peculiar last novel, however, provides a different explanation, that of the intervention of the so-called forces of evil.

The narrator, who at the beginning of the book goes by the name of Dieter, a blond, elite member of the SS in the service of Heinrich Himmler, is a devil in the higher employ of an entity called the Maestro, a being who may or may not be Satan.

Going against the rules, Dieter has decided to write a history of Alois Schicklgruber, a peasant born in the northern part of lower Austria in 1837, whose life the Maestro, for certain reasons, has instructed him to study and influence. The Castle in the Forest is not about the barbaric individual who caused the extermination of innocent millions, but is rather the story of the child before the man. The insights into the life of young Hitler are so skilfully written that one cannot distinguish between fact and fiction. There's a chapter in which the family dog, stunned by his master's rage, submits on the floor and receives a beating. Klara, fearful that baby Hitler's excretions will cause offence, becomes over-zealous in wiping his bottom. It is recorded that Hitler, a victim of his bowel training, frequently relieved himself when ranting to the crowds. Significantly, Mr Mailer's novel is full of smells and vile odours ostensibly manufactured by Satan.

As Hitler grows older, bullied at school and at home, the Maestro orders Dieter to "stiffen the boy's spine, etch visions of power upon his dreams".

Filled with this sense of importance and a belief that he could see into the future, Hitler begins to assert himself; he organises games of Cowboys and Indians in the woods near his home, and at school he is seduced by the writings of Frederick Jahn, who spoke of a force that in the future would depend on a Führer cast of Iron and Fire.

There is a particular sentence that brings tears to his eyes: "The people will honour him and forgive all his sins."

On the very last page Mr Mailer reveals the meaning of his book's title. Translated into German it becomes Walderschloss, a name given to their hell-hole by the inmates of the Dachau concentration camp.

This captivating novel by a master of prose reinforces the belief that we delude ourselves if we lay the responsibility for hideous crimes on one single individual, including the devil. Mr Mailer's blunt message is that we are all to blame.

• Mr Flores is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written books of fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry in both Maltese and English. He was one of the co-founders of the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Publications.