October / Germany Reading: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

[barbara0207]

Why does Oskar refers himself as "Oskar" every now and then?

He made himself from growing up? :-/ Sounds like a desperate attempt to rationalise/explain an undesirable condition ("It did not happen to me... I made it happen")

In this context one should note that the first person narrator starts with a confession: He admits that he is an inmate of an asylum. (Could anyone please quote the translated sentence? I've only got the book in German. Thanks.)

Oscar's first statement makes him a highly unreliable narrator. With this first sentence the author asks the reader to question everything Oskar says. So I think you are quite right to ask that question, Scheh, and I would have given a similar answer. Oskar wants to make us believe that refusing to grow was an act of protest, against his family, especially his father, and against the regime and that he needs his drum to express himself/his protest, eg when he disturbs the Nazi meeting by confusing the march music with his waltz rhythm. But is there really anything behind this so-called protest?

[Jozanny]

Oscar's first statement makes him a highly unreliable narrator. With this first sentence the author asks the reader to question everything Oskar says. So I think you are quite right to ask that question, Scheh, and I would have given a similar answer. Oskar wants to make us believe that refusing to grow was an act of protest, against his family, especially his father, and against the regime and that he needs his drum to express himself/his protest, eg when he disturbs the Nazi meeting by confusing the march music with his waltz rhythm. But is there really anything behind this so-called protest?

barbara, I agree with everything you post here, except, even in translation, I think Oskar's refusal to grow is more than a symptom of his own instability, which is why, to me, his voice is doing double duty here--yes, his birth and life is a magician's trick, but it is also an extended metaphor for German national immaturity, so the unreliable narrator is making significantly reliable observations.

[bouquin]

What a breath-taking start! Finding it hard to put it down (*shakes her fist at her RL obligations*)

Couple of questions...

Why does Oskar refers himself as "Oskar" every now and then?

He made himself from growing up? :-/ Sounds like a desperate attempt to rationalise/explain an undesirable condition ("It did not happen to me... I made it happen")

We can talk about the drum forever and ever, I guess.


Has anyone read Owen Meany? The size and the voice reminded me of Owen... (not one of my favorite characters... nor books).

I too became immediately interested in Oskar's habit of sometimes citing himself in the third person in the course of his narration. It gave me the impression that his story-telling is a kind of rough sketch (although for a rough sketch, it is rather dense), that he is just rambling on on the pages and leaves of ream paper that his keeper Bruno has provided him, without much thought or particular demands as to nouns, pronouns and the like. And I also think that it is in keeping in some way with his apparently being a psychiatric case: sometimes Oskar is he in the flesh, sometimes he is sort of detached to the person and speaks of him like some character other than himself.

I have read A Prayer for Owen Meany (I think it was discussed in the forum here last year?). There seems to be some uncanny similarities between Oskar and Owen. I'm wondering if John Irving did in fact get inspiration and influence from Gunter Grass when he wrote his book.

[Gladys]

Oscar's first statement makes him a highly unreliable narrator...Oskar wants to make us believe that refusing to grow was an act of protest…

Mad or not, Oskar, like all of us, has reasons for what he says and does. His reasons, however feeble, are meticulously revealed through internal monologue and narrative. Are our reasons sane?

At p.350, I can’t judge whether Oskar's birth and life is 'an extended metaphor for German national immaturity', but it seems likely that the precocious infant has intuited something terrifying or distasteful about the people or culture around him. So he opts out.

As Bouquin says, 'sometimes he is sort of detached'.

[Jozanny]

Mad or not, Oskar, like all of us, has reasons for what he says and does. His reasons, however feeble, are meticulously revealed through internal monologue and narrative. Are our reasons sane?

At p.350, I can’t judge whether Oskar's birth and life is 'an extended metaphor for German national immaturity', but it seems likely that the precocious infant has intuited something terrifying or distasteful about the people or culture around him. So he opts out.

As Bouquin says, 'sometimes he is sort of detached'.

Well, unless we literally want to see Oskar as a sufferer of achondroplasia (dwarfism), and I really don't, I think his character is an incarnation born out of irrational zealotry, but for me that is the easy part of the novel, which I readily admit is difficult to a near point of deterrence, which is in part why I am not fully rereading it with the club--but I am not fully cognizant on the eels, and that episode is an important part of the book, sinister and humorous both, as Grass manages. There are other highlights, too.

As to the drum, which Sche says we could talk about forever, , it is at once instantly accessible and distracting. Drumbeats certainly keep brownshirts marching, but they also deafen, and disrupt.

[Gladys]

I am not fully cognizant on the eels

With the perspicacity of an infant, Oskar sees the unpleasant in life: being Jewish, Polish, an arsonist, an adulterer, a dwarf, a heartless child, a gang member, a bully, a brownshirt, a patriot, a coward, a war victim, a paedophile, and an eel. So rather than live, Oskar flirts with life.

Likewise, his mother Agnes, a nurse in WW1, sees something in eels – in death, in decay, in ugliness, in foreignness, in food, in life – that repels and terrifies her. She attempts to assimilate but dies in the attempt. Will Oskar do better?

[Jozanny]

Likewise, his mother Agnes, a nurse in WW1, sees something in eels – in death, in decay, in ugliness, in foreignness, in food, in life – that repels and terrifies her. She attempts to assimilate but dies in the attempt. Will Oskar do better?

I'd like to look at a passage of text should I be able to find the time to do so over the weekend. I don't have a scanner, which would be useful in this instance. Maybe it's just me, but certain things nag me, and are flagged, as if I've allowed the import to get away, and Grass does very much evoke a certain fairytale quality to his extraordinarily vivid accounts.

[Scheherazade]

I have read only 1/3 of the book so far but I am not sure if Oskar is 'an extended metaphor for German national immaturity'. On the contrary, I think he is symbolizing the opposition, whose efforts were immature and insignificant. In the face of Nazi movement, their efforts were ridiculous (childsihly weak) such as trying to disrupt their parades with feeble drumming.

The repeated use of "Oskar" for self makes me think of some kind of SPD. Is he actually trying to distance himself from "Oskar"?

Eels are interesting... Wondering if they symbolize something like our failures and/or sins (church going and eels sort of coincide). The mother used to eat eels fine till she was forced to view the reality of their catch. She was leading a life far from perfect (sinful?) with her affairs and willingness to accept little gifts from other guys. When she started attending the Church, I think, she has actually realised the extent of her "sins" and was unable to cope with it (and probably it was too late for her to make any ammends). Hence, even though she is disgusted by the site of eels, she eats them till she dies; similarly, even though she realises her "sinful" ways, she carries on till she dies (pregnancy being a result of her affair).

Should note here that I don't like reading the sparknotes and such for my leisure reading so my theories might be well off the mark and not learned enough for some; please accept my apologies.

[Gladys]

I'm at page 400.

I am not sure if Oskar is 'an extended metaphor for German national immaturity'. On the contrary, I think he is symbolizing the opposition, whose efforts were immature and insignificant.

Oscar seems to show loyalty to no one.

The repeated use of "Oskar" for self makes me think of some kind of SPD. Is he actually trying to distance himself from "Oskar"?

Similarly, Oscar eschews responsibility for his own behaviour, although his conscience might bother him later (e.g. the execution of his 'father', Jan Bronski; and maybe his 'step-father', Alfred Matzerath).

Eels are interesting... Wondering if they symbolize something like our failures and/or sins

If sins, Agnes had recourse to the absolution of Father Wiehnke. Is there explicit evidence that Roman Catholicism ultimately failed her? Of course, the horse’s head connotes death: the wages of sin. Are the eels, Satan's emissaries from Hell?

[Gladys]

Ok so what do you guys think about the two incidents that take place inside the church? (the first involves Oskar and little Jesus and the second Oskar's "gang" and the fake ceremony)

Grandson of an arsonist, Oskar has little respect for authority or symbols of authority - except perhaps the dwarf Bembra. He mocks and undermines law and order, both secular and religious, yet he himself becomes a charismatic gang leader with divine pretensions. Is there some parallel here with Adolf Hitler?

[mickitaz]

Wow. Okay, step away for a couple of days; and you miss out!

I also was wondering what the significance was to Oskar refering to himself as "Oskar". Since he is in an asylum, perhaps this is just a symbolic reference to his detachment from reality. Or rather than providing a subjective view on the stories he references, he feels this provides an objective view.

[manolia]

Grandson of an arsonist, Oskar has little respect for authority or symbols of authority - except perhaps the dwarf Bembra. He mocks and undermines law and order, both secular and religious, yet he himself becomes a charismatic gang leader with divine pretensions. Is there some parallel here with Adolf Hitler?

Hmmm..good point. There may be a paralllel.
In that case what does Bembra symbolise? Why is he so important..in the beginning when Oskar and Bembra first meet, they instantly recognise one another as being of the same kind and Bembra says that he stopped growing up when he was about 10 years old or something. I wonder if that also has a historical significance. What was the historical background when Bembra stopped growing up? Was it WW1, but we never get to learn his real age, only that he looks ancient. Yet Bembra becomes an official Nazi entertainer and he convinces Oskar to follow along. But also he claims that it is better to play in front of the stage and not under it..I was thinking about it a lot.

[bouquin]

What a coincidence, I was on holiday in Normandy last month and had the opportunity to take photos of some of the WW2 German bunkers that dot the landscape there.... the concrete pillboxes of Corporal Lankes.

[Gladys]

.... the concrete pillboxes of Corporal Lankes.

The pillboxes are bigger than I imagined.

Now at p.450. Son Kurt is selling lighter flints. Having failed to follow in the footsteps of his drummer father, Kurt takes after his great grandfather, the arsonist Joseph Koljaiczek/Wranka/Colchic.

I'm hooked but am finding the mass of descriptive narrative and internal monologue heavy going.

[Jozanny]

Thank you for those images bouquin! I think the pill boxes went over my head at the time, though I am not positive. Wish I could stop everything else and join in, but my writer's block is over, and even though I may not score any pitches for a while, given the economic implosion, I have been getting back to work. Back on topic though, broadly: Perhaps the very richness of the exposition is a detraction, now that I think about it. I am a fairly educated reader, as I assume the rest of you are, and like Gladys, I was hooked to the story, but the novel exhausted me, mentally and to some degree, emotionally.

I may come back at a later date and add some things, since I know where to find you .