The Tin Drum: Gunter Grass

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Roswitha Raguna: Bebra's mistress, then Oskar's. She is a beautiful Italian lady, but taller than Oskar, she has nevertheless chosen not to grow. She is the most celebrated somnambulist in all parts of Italy.

Grass worked his own enmeshment with the Nazi regime, which he only started talking about much later, into the fabric of this work. That’s why this novel is such a work of genius – he answers with a work of art.” Hans Magnus Enzensberger, who like Grass wasalso a member of "Gruppe 47" —the prestigious literary circle that began meeting regularly beginning in 1947 —wrote in a first review that this book had achieved becoming "world-class literature."Grass became a star with his very first novel. He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.” Its graphic content and critical depiction of the Wehrmacht enraged the country’s churches and soldiers. Senators in the Bremen vetoed Grass from being awarded its literature prize; years later, in 1997, the US state of Oklahoma tried to ban the film version for depicting Matzerath performing oral sex on a teenage girl. The story revolves around the life of Oskar Matzerath, as narrated by himself, when confined in a mental hospital, during the years 1952–1954.

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The Tin Drum has religious overtones, both Jewish and Christian. Oskar holds conversations with both Jesus and Satan throughout the book. His gang members call him "Jesus", and he refers to himself as "Satan" later in the book. [4] Critical reception [ edit ] 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. 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. Grass, Günter (4 October 2009). "Guenter Grass - The Tin Drum". World Book Club (Interview). Interviewed by Harriet Gilbert. BBC World Service. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023 . Retrieved 19 June 2023. 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.

Gottfried Vittlar: Becomes friends with and then testifies against Oskar in the Ring Finger Case at Oskar's bidding. 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. There is Bruno, Oskar's attendant in the loony bin. There is the elegant Jan Bronski, Oskar's mother's lover. (She is married to Matzerath). There is Oskar's beloved mother herself, and his Kashubian grandmother, who grows potatoes and always wears four skirts. And so on...there are many minor characters too. Twenty-four years later, Agnes becomesthe mother of Oskar Matzerath, the tin drummer and narrator of the novel. He decides as a little boy to stop growing.The Tin Drum is filled with German folk tales ~~ one of the triumphs of Mitchell’s translation ~~ one of the best translations I’ve ever read ~~ is his attention to local culture and history. During the war, Oscar gain popularity as an artist who could break glasses through his voice (showing how much Germans loved being shouted at) while after war it is his drumming (the creative art) that gets prominence.