The Tin Drum: Gunter Grass

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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. The moment when Oskar shouts and breaks every glass and window on a wide range is a good hyperbole, but somehow makes for a very unpleasant, disgusting feeling…at least for this reader The crucial question of this character is: now that the issue of German guilt is dealt with, can I begin to grow up? Can there be, metaphorically speaking, a mature new Germany? Or am I going to keep banging my tin drum like a monstrous little terrorist? That’s the key question. It’s not just Oskar’s coming of age story, but that of an entire country.” 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. I've read somewhere that Oskar symbolizes Nazism. Maybe, but I think Fascism would be closer to the mark. Germany falls through and so he wants to go to America. So America will become the new Fascist state?

Ma, come accadrebbe a chiunque, nei giorni in cui un senso di colpa sgarbato e impossibile da scacciare mi abbatte sui guanciali del mio letto di manicomio, cerco di appigliarmi alla mia ignoranza, che allora venne di moda, e che ancora oggi molti si portano in giro. But even John Irving, writer colleague and friend of Günter Grass, said that he never achieved the quality of the first novel in his later works. Perhaps there is a note of melancholy in that comment. Volviendo a la novela, el pequeño Oscar vive al principio con su madre, su padre biológico y el amante de su madre. De esta manera, ese triángulo entre Oscar, Alfred Matzerath y el polaco Jan Bronski llevarán a cabo gran parte de los episodios y sucesos que aparecerán a lo largo de la novela. Con la aparición de María mucho más adelante que se transformará en su novia y en la madre de su hijo Kurt, Oscar decidirá girar en 180° para buscar un destino que lo lleve donde él quiera, eso sí: siempre acompañado por su tambor de hojalata. Danzig, caught between Germany and Poland, is Oskar’s tragic playground. The story is dense, a rollercoaster; Oskar is both monster and tragic hero. Above all he is a witness, angry and despairing. Near the close of the novel Oskar says: “I’ve run out of words now, but still have to think over what Oskar’s going to do after his inevitable discharge from the mental institution. Marry? Stay single? Emigrate? Model? Buy a stone quarry? Gather disciples? Found a sect?”My German experience has been rather mixed: impressed by their technical, mechanical accomplishments: trains, autobahns, clean streets, I was disappointed by the icy attitude, the number of junkies encountered in Berlin and some crooks we have met there, albeit some of the fraudsters had come from former Yugoslavia…I think. Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition of the modern world. For Reese, who made his name with one-man shows based on letters and diaries of other such crowd-pleasers as Joseph Goebbels and the notorious German child murderer Jürgen Bartsch, Oskar Matzerath is a man whose conscience is on trial.

Esta novela, extensa y por momentos densa y compleja es sustentada por otras tantas que poseen esa misma densidad narrativa pero que a la hora de encarar su lectura depara atención e interés inmediato.

Dog Years" is a weird one, because while I was reading it I was constantly asking myself "where is he going with this?" and now that its over I think it might actually be the best of the three, both in audacity and getting its aims across. Or maybe I was just more attuned to the style by then. Its much tougher going at first. Without the shortness of "Cat and Mouse" or the cuteness of a crazy dwarf musician narrator to make things go down easier. Reading the cover copy you'd think it would be the most straightforward, as the publisher of my version describes the book as a boy and Hitler's dog avenging Nazi war crimes in post-war Germany, which sounds like a great idea for a TV show ("He's a traumatized soldier unable to come to grips with his past, the other used to enjoy belly rubs from unrepentant blots on humanity. Together, they fight crime.") but by the time that even becomes relevant you're way into the book. He retains the stature of a child while living through the beginning of World War II, several love affairs, and the world of postwar Europe. When Grass received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, 50 years after the publication of The Tin Drum, the jury wrote in its statement that this book represented the rebirth of the German novel in the 20th century. It was ambivalent praise —as if Grass had not gone on to write several more novels, stories and poems. El tambor de hojalata” de Günter Grass es una de esas novelas que uno ve en las librerías de usados y generan intriga, ya sea por su título o por la tapa que hayan elegido para la novela. Siempre la miré buscando saber de qué se trataba la historia y decidí leerla.