yep, John Irving did base Owen on Oskar. I don't quite remember whether he studied German Lit, but at any rate he took a term abroad in Vienna (Austria).Originally Posted by bouquin
this discussion makes me want to read the book again (but I haven't got the time to do it at the moment)I read it in school and liked it a lot. if I can find it I might have a look at it, despite my exam preparation...
Or they can simply be a phallic symbol
(it does coincide with the story)
Through the darkness of future past
the magician longs to see
one chance out between two worlds
'Fire walk with me.'
Twin Peaks
I gave up.
At thunder and tempest, At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
To get things clear, they have to firstly be very unclear. But if you get them too quickly, you probably got them wrong.
If you need me urgent, send me a PM
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.
I too was left exhausted. If that is the intention of the novel then it certainly succeeded as far as I'm concerned! It was a relief to finish reading it; The Tin Drum is one of those works that, at the end, doesn't make me crave for more. I usually cry over stories whose principal characters are young ones who are left to fend for themselves but I must admit that I just couldn't establish any emotional bond with Oskar.
"He lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha!"
- CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
At p.550, I've found the last 100 pages the least enthralling - more of the same and rather slow moving. Isn't a good book supposed to improve as you approach the end? Nevertheless, there's now a faint hint of something novel. I shall tackle the ending with great expectations.
As for establishing an ‘emotional bond with Oskar’, I feel I understand but rather dislike him. Still, I'm far from sure.
Though still at p.550, on waking in the night, a jigsaw fell into place. Here's the view of a 6th generation Australian of pure German descent:
Oskar is your middle-of-the-road German born in the aftermath of WW1. He comes from a typical German extended family, with its smattering of Polish, Russian and English contamination. Naturally, there's the odd agitator/arsonist in the family tree and a full measure of emotional, sexual and marital ambiguities.
Like so many Germans, Oskar curtails his ethical and social development at three-years-old. Rather than participating positively in the world around him, he makes sporadic intrusions through drum-beats or high-pitched vocalisations before retreating under the four skirts of his German grandmother, Anna Bronski. While Oskar has mixed fortunes in avoiding the ravages of war, in imitation of the Fuhrer, he briefly assumes messianic leadership a gang.
Following WW1, Oskar, like many Germans, was aware of a Zeitgeist that was to culminate in Hitler's Third Reich. An optimal response was to consciously restrict physical development and social behaviour to the level of a late-developing 3-year-old, so as to avoid responsibility and culpability for events substantially outside of one's control.
Over the years, several memorable incidents continue play on Oskar's mind. Not least, the curious incident of slimy eels devouring a horse’s head…a horse’s brain. His mother Agnes was blessed with a Good Friday vision of the true state of the German psyche, although it was too much, too soon. Of course, Oscar and Matzerath saw nothing, but the sensitive Jan Bronski 'though weak, led Agnes away'.
After WW2, Oskar and many Germans, with stunted development, chose to grow into adulthood: as Bebra observes, Oskar is no longer three-foot-tall. But four-foot-two is hardly adult stature, nor is his altered behaviour exactly mature.
I’ll read on, today.
Last edited by Gladys; 10-30-2008 at 04:45 AM. Reason: spelling
I finished on the weekend. It’s a cryptic book that keeps one thinking, but I found the reading rather a chore. Here’s a few thoughts that seem to have settled.
Kurt, Oskar’s son and the new generation in Germany, is doing fine, top of the class. Young Maria, Kurt’s mother, is comfortably married to her boss. Oskar approaching thirty, has also survived, but being older, saw too much. He chooses to climbs Jacob’s Ladder to incarceration for murder, though not the ones he was accessory to. Oskar is haunted by the black witch of past decades, and the possibility of an unjust exoneration and release. Shunning just such a possibility, his ‘German’ mother, Agnes, suffered and died for sins, some of which were her own.
Joseph Koljaiczek/Wranka/Colchic, Oskar’s fiery Polish grandfather, first escaped to the sanctuary under his wife’s skirts, and is said to have escaped from a lethal threat to a great American dream. Jan Bonski, Oskar’s father of uncertain nationality, died in a most reluctant defence of Poland. Matzerath, Oskar’s presumptive German father, choked on his Nazi allegiance in dying for his country. Anna Bronski, Oskar’s grandmother, who had afforded him long-standing, material security, was herself concealed behind an Iron Curtain.
Let us not forget Meyn, the sadistic trumpeter; Albrecht Greff’s creative suicide; the war contribution of a dwarf troupe; Herbert’s violent liaison with Niobe; the informer Lucy Rennwand; nurses; Raskolnikov and repentance; the Polish Mr. Fajngold and his ‘family’; the brazen, creative Corporal Lankes; Bruno and string; poor Victor, the myopic Jew, executed in an on-going search for post-war German identify; and many others.
So these were the German people in the first half of the twentieth century, murky syntheses of Rasputin and Goethe?
Or I have missed something more important?
I am taking a break from this book because I have started to read fewer and fewer pages.
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
Are Bouquin and I alone in finishing the book in October?
The discussion was so spirited early.
Gladys,
I am very impressed with your analysis. Since I may be a prisoner of unfortunate circumstance for some time, maybe I will reread, closer if I can, and at least add some highlights. Perhaps there is something to be said for approaching difficult novels with caution. TD is very readable, even in translation, but it is hard to understand, much like James's very late masterworks.
Jozanny, a relative studied the far-from-late 'Washington Square' at high school this year. Both Literature classes at the school and their teachers believed the book was about a girl, jilted by a gold-digger, finding herself!
It has been a long time since I've read Washington Square, mmm. When I am under stress I tend to latch onto James, so maybe I will download a nice font e-text, since I don't own my own copy. I have a fairly decent James library, including his travel writings (which for some reason I have never finished!) but I do not own it all, and actually do not want to read his letters extant--odd I guess, about that, but since I am not a professional scholar, owning an edition of his letters seems too much to me. Some mystery should be left.
On topic: And this is just off the top of my head, but for me the most remarkable episode in TD is The Onion Cellar. The chapter brought me to tears, and it is still vivid, even though I did not do any rereading for this discussion. It made the entire novel worth it for me.
Last edited by Jozanny; 12-09-2008 at 05:49 AM. Reason: I am having a relapse of posting errors disease.
The importance of remorse:
One couple, Gerhard and Gudrun, wept for each other's facial hair - he, Gerhard, had none and she, Gudrun, had to shave her beard in vain...
Once the customers were done weeping, Oskar's band provided a transition back to normal life. Scholle was forever happy, Klepp laughed at the tears, and Oskar was one of the few in the world who could still cry without onions. Schmuh, for his part, never used his onions, but instead shot sparrows...
The passage you cite reminds me why I feel I must buy a critical companion to the novel at some point--Grass seems to always be alluding to fairy tales--isn't there something with killing sparrows in it in Grimm? And the facial hair too seems to warn the reader, recall something, though I've never read Goethe. Isn't that a terrible admission?
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote