Die Blechtrommel in level

Jul 23, 2020 Daria rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, germany

I will not lie: this book wasn’t easy for me, in fact, it was a hell of a difficult book because of the style, the subject matter and the protagonist.

First the style: from the opening phrase, it becomes clear that Günter Grass writes Literature and that his language is pure art, it has its own life, its own rhythm, which go hand in hand with the meaning, sometimes hiding it, sometimes enhancing it, always with a very precise goal of conveying a specific feeling. It’s absolutely beautiful, but qu I will not lie: this book wasn’t easy for me, in fact, it was a hell of a difficult book because of the style, the subject matter and the protagonist.

First the style: from the opening phrase, it becomes clear that Günter Grass writes Literature and that his language is pure art, it has its own life, its own rhythm, which go hand in hand with the meaning, sometimes hiding it, sometimes enhancing it, always with a very precise goal of conveying a specific feeling. It’s absolutely beautiful, but quite exhausting – definitely not your typical beach read. I must say I immensely enjoyed the translator’s note that described the whole process and the difficulties he had in transmitting the author’s original language.

The subject matter: I won’t even attempt to tackle that in my short comment, because the book is very dense in history and I am not too closely familiar with all the details and nuances of the German transitions in the 19th and 20th century. I had to go and consult many external sources to make some passages clear, but if you are sucker for contemporary history like me, then these digressions won’t feel like a chore. In the process I also found out that my good Polish friend is part Kashubian, a minority whose existence I didn’t suspect before starting this book, so thank you, Günter Grass, for making me discover things about my friends! Anyway, back to the subject matter, the whole novel is an allegory of Germany becoming fascinated with Nazi ideology and sliding into war, and a critic of the bourgeois society that more or less actively supported this madness.

Finally, the real challenge for me was to put of with the POV of the protagonist-narrator. The guy has some clear grandiosity complex, which at times creates some sense of dissociation. He never seems to feel pity or sympathy for anyone, except maybe his mother, and happily drags people to their graves. This trait establishes the conditions for the reader to distance themselves from the narration, but it also makes the reading twice as hard, because I couldn’t get involved in the protagonist’s emotions (or rather lack of).

However, now that I’m done with it, I believe it was worth it. If nothing for the wonderful language, for chapters like the 16th Faith Hope Love, that left me staring at the wall in a stupor long after I closed the book. If nothing, for the weird and beauty of its magical realism used as a metaphor to explain complicated times. ...more

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