DaveNash3 reviewed The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Review of 'The Tin Drum' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Truly Amazing. Not only does this novel cover some major currents of the 20th century - industrialization, urbanization, partitioning of Poland, WWII, but also tackles eternal questions - what is truth? who is my father? Reality v memory.
The chapters: “Wide Skirt”, “Faith, hope, and love” and “Inspection of Concrete, barbaric, mystical, bored” are some of the best you’ll ever read.
The narrator is completely unreliable. Is he mental? When is he lying? At some points he is despicable and at others sympathetic. He also seems to find himself in the midst of major events - the night of crystal, German invasion of Poland, D-day. Yet it’s not a history lesson any more than Forrest Gump is. I think it’s important to understand other viewpoints of WWII and this is a complex realist view and not over sentimental or revisionist like the Forgotten Solider.
Like Danzig is he German, …
Truly Amazing. Not only does this novel cover some major currents of the 20th century - industrialization, urbanization, partitioning of Poland, WWII, but also tackles eternal questions - what is truth? who is my father? Reality v memory.
The chapters: “Wide Skirt”, “Faith, hope, and love” and “Inspection of Concrete, barbaric, mystical, bored” are some of the best you’ll ever read.
The narrator is completely unreliable. Is he mental? When is he lying? At some points he is despicable and at others sympathetic. He also seems to find himself in the midst of major events - the night of crystal, German invasion of Poland, D-day. Yet it’s not a history lesson any more than Forrest Gump is. I think it’s important to understand other viewpoints of WWII and this is a complex realist view and not over sentimental or revisionist like the Forgotten Solider.
Like Danzig is he German, Polish, Kashubian? Is he culpable for the deaths of his fathers? Is that a microcosm of post-WWII culpability questions?
Like the author, the narrator grew up in pre war Danzig and stayed until the war’s end after which he moved to Germany and got more involved in art. Maybe he’s some sort of alter ego.
The third part doesn't live up to the first two. Without the backdrop of adolescence or WWII, the loose plot flounders. Grass said it best - I liked 3 ft Oskar (the one from the first two parts) better than 4 ft Oskar. Worse, some of the promise of the first two parts isn’t fulfilled. Nevertheless, I totally recommend this.
