Overview

It is December of 1944, and a detachment of American soldiers has been assigned to guard an ancient castle in Belgium inhabited by an elderly aristocrat, his young wife, and countless valuable artifacts. The soldiers virtually wait out the war--indulging in various hobbies, exploring the castle's excesses (including a replica of Venice, complete with canals and gondolas), in other words, trying to do something other than war--until a German counterattack puts them in the fray. Semi-autobiographical, ?""Castle Keep""?was the first major novel to use the real language of the soldier, uncensored and true-to-life. Inventive and brilliantly comic, this novel is the quintessential portrait of man at war.

Full Product Details

9781564782083

Table of Contents

Reviews

The challenge to the novelist would seem to be to write fiction which has a real bearing on present-day concepts and values and, ideally, does something about them, while not descending into secret form and language. This is a tall order. But William Eastlake's new book, Castle Keep... goes a long way toward filling it... It should, in a crowded field, hold its own with honor. For it deals not with the bewilderment of the usual snafu of war. Its bewilderment is about life, with war but one of the many cosmic snafus in the human condition. -- Hans Konigsberger, New York Times Book Review The strength of Eastlake's design is in the massing of details and moments--bizarre, farcical, obscene, recondite, but always vividly pictured--into a whole that is truly tragic. There are drunk scenes that spin with laughter and nausea. There are battle scenes crackling with the unreality of sudden death... Gothic mystery, savage modern satire, heroic epic-- Castle Keep interweaves all three to create a surreal small masterpiece about the horrors and grim humors of war. -- Time William Eastlake is a fast man with a symbol, all right, but he's even faster with a gag line or a knockabout comic situation... His ultimate destination may be classically tragic, but the way to it lies through the twisting corridors of a carnival fun house... He is a superb technician, but there is more here than flashy technique. Eastlake has a gift for creating unforced comic situations and boldly outlined yet subtly shaded comic characters--he ranks here with his finest competitors in the proliferating genre of the comic novel. More important, he does not lose sight of the fact that the classic subject of the novel is human growth and change... One's response to a trip through Eastlake's castle is rather like one's response to a guided tour through one of those imitation castles American millionaires were fond of throwing up at the end of the 19th century. At first you can't believe your eyes... But amazement soon gives way to delight... About Castle Keep there need be no ambiguity. We got the castle and it is well worth keeping! -- Richard Schickel, Life

William Eastlake's earlier books (Go in Beauty, 1956; The Bronc People, 1958) have had a special and specially admiring audience. This novel, a kind of philosophical pantomime and also a fairy tale, is chameleon in character and certainly not everybody's book; those who respond will like it inordinately. And while structurally casual, it has many contradictory charms; a marvelous, ingenuous humor; a certain chivalric romanticism which tilts at reality; and a sometimes mad mystique of war, women, art, sex and of course death. The title reference is to a 10th century castle in the Ardennes during World War II where an American replacement company is stationed pending the expected German putsch. It is a symbol of all that is destroyed and can never be replaced with its ramparts of timeless wonder and grace against the mean hand of every man. In alternating scenes and episodes various members of the cadre appear, narrate: Major Falconer who has been tapped by the castle's Comte de Maldorais, an impotent man, to assure the lineage through his young wife, half his age; Captain Lionel Beckman, art historian, now the self-appointed custodian of the castle's paintings; and on down through Corporal Clearboy, a Negro, Private Henry Three Ears, an Indian, da Vaca; the cook, all of whom will respond to the challenge - if the castle does not stand.. we fail, all fails. Too, there are all kinds of obstreperous sorties, to the local brothel, through the countryside as they round up some Evangelists, hunt deer, pilfer champagne, etc. etc. The humor is untrammeled and so is much of the language which is the soldier's braggadocio of obscenity... Mr. Eastlake's talent is hard both to contain and isolate - it just, ?? exists. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Countries Available