The Tin Drum: Gunter Grass

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He’s certainly a bit mad, even monstrous, which is why his unique vision of a monstrous era ~~ 1930s & 1940s Germany ~~ is an essential one. The book is perfect as I lie in the hospital with a fractured kneecap. I hope to return home with the leg in a brace at the end of the week. Life was never said to be easy. Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), Novels, notably The Tin Drum (1959) and Dog Years (1963), of German writer Günter Wilhelm Grass, who won the Nobel Prize of 1999 for literature, concern the political and social climate of Germany during and after World War II. If you had told me about any of these I might have hesitated but alas, I tend to buy these kinds of books blindly and thus had no idea what I was in for. And while its tough going at times, the moments that work mostly make up for the times when you're wondering if the book was translated correctly.

Turns out he's playing the long game as things become more focused in the second part, which is a series of letters from someone on the periphery of events to his cousin, further describing not only the changing friendship between Walter and Edward but the world of ballet dancing and the changing emotions of the times as Germany starts to go off the rails into fairly scary territory. The nod to an epistolary style is much easier to digest and feels like a breath of fresh air compared to the denser earlier part. Sanctuary, at least for some people, may best be found in an insane asylum. From his white-enamelled metal hospital bed, under the watchful, if bewildered eye of Bruno, his nurse, Oskar Matzerath sets out with the help of a family photograph album to tell not only his story but also that of his country. Through all this, a toy tin drum, the first of which he received as a present on his third birthday, followed by many replacement drums each time he wears one out from over-vigorous drumming, remains his treasured possession; he is willing to commit violence to retain it. This is how The Tin Drum makes me feel. Acclaimed and recognized as one of the best books ever, it is not exactly among my favorites.Not caring for the world he is growing up in, a small boy determines to remain a child. The epic sweep of Grass' novel satirises German nationalism and the rise and fall of the Nazi movement. However this book uses war references in a different context just as some fiction books refers to classics. Oskar is a dwarf with a glass-breaking voice - and in one scene is seen shouting at enchanted people (can you imagine some dwarf with a loud, destructive and seductive voice?). The story is an autobiographical memoir written by a dwarf. Writing from an insane asylum in 1954, he is thirty. He recounts the events of his life and in so doing draws a picture of Nazi Germany before, during and after the Second World War. Born in Danzig (today Gdansk, Poland), we view through his peregrinations not only Danzig but also Dusseldorf and France, particularly Normandy. What is delivered is a satire, a bizarre, picturesque and vivid tale seeped in magical realism.

Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit is well established among my favorite masterpieces. As for The Tin Drum, I was hoping that a new reading, from a different angle, albeit in an abridged form, would make me discover new attractions, moments to love in the book.Through its verbal complexity, its use of fabulist images, and its daring choice to invest an absurd, amoral character with equal parts monstrosity and artistry ~~ Oskar’s expert ability to singshatter glass is juxtaposed against Kristallnacht ~~ Grass’s novel earns its stature.