Colin Miner talks with Norman Mailer.

On the inspiration for his new novel The Castle in the Forest:

Mr. Mailer, who was nine in 1932, says that the work of one man deserves credit above and beyond for spurring him on: Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler.

“The book,” Mr. Mailer said, “stimulated the hell out of me, absolutely knocked me out when I read it. My mind began to race with all the possibilities about Hitler and at a certain point, I finally realized I had a lot to say about Hitler.”

On reading good authors:

“I almost don’t read anyone anymore,” he said. “The older I get, the more sensitive I’ve become to good writing. It stimulates me immensely and then I go off in all sorts of directions thinking about how I would’ve done it. And my mind races and it distracts me from my own work. And so I rarely read a good writer anymore.”

On George W. Bush:

… Mr. Mailer does not have kind words, referring to him as “nasty and stupid.”

Mailer also said that Mr. Bush, whom he believes is “not deep enough to be evil,” is a “social phenomenon,” the product of a shopping, marketing-oriented society.

“People believe that buying things is one of the most significant acts they can take and that is the handmaiden to stupidity. The country has become more and more stupid over the past fifteen to twenty years and George Bush is the fruit, the flower, of that tendency.”