The Tin Drum
Unknown, Gnter Grass, Ralph Manheim
Category: Literature
Tags: Literature
Meet Oskar Matzerath, the eternal three-year-old drummer. On the morning of his third birthday, dressed in a striped pullover and patent leather shoes, and clutching his drumsticks and his new tin drum, young Oskar makes an irrevocable decision: It was then that I declared, resolved, and determined that I would never under any circumstances be a politician, much less a grocer; that I would stop right there, remain as I wasand so I did; for many years I not only stayed the same size but clung to the same attire. Here is a Peter Pan story with a vengeance. But instead of Never-Never Land, Gnter Grass gives us Danzig, a contested city on the Polish-German border; instead of Captain Hook and his pirates, we have the Nazis. And in place of Peter himself is Oskar, a twisted puer aeternis with a scream that can shatter glass and a drum rather than a shadow. First published in 1959, The Tin Drums depiction of the Nazi era created a furor in Germany, for the world of Grasss making is rife with
