What do you think?
Rate this book
Die Danziger Trilogie #1
The Tin Drum
The Barnes & Noble Review
Without a doubt, The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass is a classic of Western Literature. Sardonic in tone and exuberant in its condemnation of the late 20th century world and its values, The Tin Drum is a picture of a world in upheaval. Told through the eyes of dwarf, it was Grass's first novel and it catapulted him to fame.
The Tin Drum is a portrait of German society from the 1930s to the 1950s. The narrator of the story is Oskar Matzerath. He tells his story from the confines of an insane asylum where he is being held for a murder he did not commit. The fact that it is Oskar who is sane and the world that is mad is inconsequential because this is a world where values are inverted, the tragic is comic and the insane are sane. The narrative technique of the novel is based on the surrealistic style of the earlier German writer Franz Kafka and is closely related to the magic realism we find in the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie. Unnatural occurrences, essentially metaphoric events, are written as natural occurrences.
Born in the free city of Danzig on the Baltic coast, it is on his third birthday that Oskar makes a momentous decision. By sheer force of will, he decides he is not going to grow any more. Already possessing the full mental faculties of an adult, Oskar is complete inside and out, free from the constraints and patterns of the rest of the world by being able to chose his own destiny. It is this assertion of Oskar's individuality over what the state or society expects him to be that makes The Tin Drum a modern classic andsucha strong statement against a German society that has in its history so blindly conformed to a state-sponsored notion of thought and decorum.
The later period of Oskar's life is crammed with absurdist details: the death of his mother from a diet of fish, a diet started after witnessing a horrible scene of eels being pulled from the head of a dead horse. Another, the death of Oskar's friend Herbert Truczinski as he attempts to make love to a wooden ship figurehead. Finally, there is the death of his father and he tries to hide his Nazi affiliation from the invading Russians by swallowing a pin that Oskar has forced into his hand: each event in this period being dramatically metaphoric. After the war, Oskar moves to Dusseldorf in West Germany. It is there that he is charged with he murder of Sister Dorothea Kongetter. Oskar submits to being found insane and atones for guilt not truly his.
The Tin Drum is a mock epic of Germany, through rise, fall, and rebirth; a chronicle of both Western Europe's, and the world's, madness as it convulses and becomes inverted, where tragedy and comedy live intertwined. It is a masterful world of surrealism, which will shock, amuse, and cause one to reflect.
Larry Abuhoff
26 pages, MP3 Book
First published January 1, 1959
2845 people are currently reading
67059 people want to read
About the author
Günter Grass
305 books1,839 followersNovels, notably
The Tin Drum
(1959) and
Dog Years
(1963), of German writer Günter Wilhelm Grass, who won the Nobel Prize of 1999 for literature, concern the political and social climate of Germany during and after World War II.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,496 reviews
October 25, 2021
Society dislikes outsiders… Outsiders reciprocate…
Oskar is a little drummer boy staying outside of society and his life is an incessant drumming…
And the residents of Danzig find themselves caught in the danse macabre of the epochal saturnine satire and they keep dancing to the sinister drumroll of history… And they are incarcerated in the dungeon of controversial opposites: love and hate, loyalty and treason, religion and blasphemy, mirth and sorrow, the dead calm and the tempest of brown plague… And one day the liberators arrive, innocently raping and killing in the process of liberation…
At last the epochal plague is over but the historical farce continues…
When the history falls ill, the world becomes infected with madness.
Oskar is a little drummer boy staying outside of society and his life is an incessant drumming…
I’ve heard rabbits, foxes, and dormice drum. Frogs can drum up a storm. They say woodpeckers drum worms from their casings. And men beat on timpani, cymbals, kettles, and drums. We have eardrums and brake drums, we drum up excuses, drum into our heads, drum out of the corps. Drummer boys do that, to the beat of a drum. Composers pen concerti for strings and percussion. I might mention Tattoos, both minor and major, and Oskar’s attempts up to now…
And the residents of Danzig find themselves caught in the danse macabre of the epochal saturnine satire and they keep dancing to the sinister drumroll of history… And they are incarcerated in the dungeon of controversial opposites: love and hate, loyalty and treason, religion and blasphemy, mirth and sorrow, the dead calm and the tempest of brown plague… And one day the liberators arrive, innocently raping and killing in the process of liberation…
Things grew almost calm and cozy in our cellar. La Greff lay with increasing composure beneath the three men taking turns, and when one of them had had enough, my talented drummer handed Oskar over to a sweaty, slightly slant-eyed fellow I assume was a Kalmuck. Holding me with his left hand, he buttoned his trousers with his right, and took no offense when his predecessor, my drummer, did the reverse.
At last the epochal plague is over but the historical farce continues…
When the history falls ill, the world becomes infected with madness.
April 5, 2007
I had an intense reaction to this book. I friggin hated it. Or, rather, I loved to hate it, while I was reading it. It was an assignment in a Postmodern Lit. class, and everyone in the class liked the protagonist but me. I thought he was awful. I couldn't believe they enjoyed him, much less admitted to enjoying him. But some part of me must have understood.
...That was the point. This is a story I felt in my stomach. It was so full of perversion, of the grotesque, and I was 20 and a "good girl" and wanted so badly to not be drawn to it but there I was, ploughing through. Disgusted with so much along the way, but to my great surprise I found myself touched. I cried for a character I thought I was completely repelled by. I couldn't believe it. And at the end, when I reached the last page, when I finished and shut the book...I was grateful. Not to have finished it; I was grateful that I got to read it in the first place.
There are awful images and episodes that stick with me. It is not pleasant to revisit them. But you know what? With every bit of my smiley, idealistic being I say...Thank God. (Or, rather, Thank Grass.) There isn't always easy beauty, or recognizable beauty around us. Oftentimes the beauty is buried in dirt and hard-earned, and doesn't even look like anything lovely at all once you get to it. But you hold it in your hands and it will move you. And if you're lucky, it will change you.
...That was the point. This is a story I felt in my stomach. It was so full of perversion, of the grotesque, and I was 20 and a "good girl" and wanted so badly to not be drawn to it but there I was, ploughing through. Disgusted with so much along the way, but to my great surprise I found myself touched. I cried for a character I thought I was completely repelled by. I couldn't believe it. And at the end, when I reached the last page, when I finished and shut the book...I was grateful. Not to have finished it; I was grateful that I got to read it in the first place.
There are awful images and episodes that stick with me. It is not pleasant to revisit them. But you know what? With every bit of my smiley, idealistic being I say...Thank God. (Or, rather, Thank Grass.) There isn't always easy beauty, or recognizable beauty around us. Oftentimes the beauty is buried in dirt and hard-earned, and doesn't even look like anything lovely at all once you get to it. But you hold it in your hands and it will move you. And if you're lucky, it will change you.
September 10, 2021
امروز این کتاب رو ادیت میزنم تا اعلام کنم زینپس کتاب طبل حلبی قرآن منه. چون قرآنِ اون رفیق خفنمه که برای تولدم بهم هدیه دادتش.
خیلی خیلی ذوق میکنم که میبینم هم سلیقه ایم 😍😍
من کیستم؟ رویا یا اسکار؟ من نفرین شدهام، اسکار تقدیس شدهی خدایان. من هذیان گویم و اسکار سراپا صدق که در صفایش فتوری نیست. من بیحافظهام و اسکار تکرار است. من سردم یخم خشکیدهام و اسکار نه سرد است و نه گرم. اگر محاکمهام کنید سراپا گناهم ، من گناه نخستینم، من آن سقوط کرده از سنگینی بار گناهانی هستم که به دوش افکندهام. من رنج می کشم، جان میکنم، گریه میکنم، کفر میگویم، میخندم، سکوت میکنم، دوباره گریه میکنم و کفر میگویم. من ساکت نمیمانم. من متحملم، می نشینم تا چه پیش آید. به دقت به حرف دلم گوش کن و اگر تاب شنیدن آوردی، با سر تصدیقم کن. من سکوت نمیکنم...
میخواهید بدانید گنداب یعنی چه؟ مرا بخوانید.
من در یک بیمارستان معتبر دولتی، زیر دو لامپ شصت واتی و با تقلای زیاد به دنیا آمدم. بدبختی ام هم از همان لحظه شروع شد. پدر و مادربزرگ پدریم اصلا از تولدم خوشحال نشدند، در اصل هیچکس خوشحال نشد و آن دو نفر حتی سعی نکردند اندوه خود را پشت تعارفات معمول پنهان کنند. شاید تنها کسی که خوشحال شد مادرم بود. که احتمالا دلش برایم سوخت. چون چند ساعت بعد از تولدم، وقتی من را که با درشتترین چشمهای ممکن برای یک نوزاد انسان، به نور لامپ آویخته از سقف و شاپرکهایی که دورش میرقصیدند نگاه میکردم بغلش گرفت؛ با صدایی به لطافت و حزن مه صبحگاهی جنگلهای گیسوم در گوشم خواند: دختر کوچولوی لاغرِ کبودِ زشتم، نگران نباش، مامان دوستت داره.
و من در آن لحظه با مفهومی آشنا شدم که بیرحمانه روح نازکم را خراشید چنانکه اثرش تا همین حالا نمایان است. دوست نداشتنی و ناخواسته بودن...
بعد از آن شب به خودم قول دادم همه تلاشم را صرف زیبا، باهوش و دوست داشتنی شدن کنم تا مادر سرخورده نشود و دست از زاییدن بچه که بزرگترین وظیفهی زیستی و اجتماعیش بود برندارد. گمانم در اینکار موفق هم شدم. چون پنج سال بعد برادرم و چهار سال بعد از او خواهرم دنیا آمدند . در واقع میتوانم با افتخار بگویم آن دو زندگیشان رو مدیون رنجی بودند که من طی آن سالها کشیدم...
اما چه شد که کارم به اینجا کشید؟ این فرار بیمقصد از کجا شروع شد؟ داستان فرارم را هم باید مفصل برایتان بگویم. اما امروز وقتش نیست. ذهنتان هنوز آمادگی درکش را ندارد. شاید بعدا...
______________________
درباره کتاب:
اونقدر خوشحال و ذوق زده ام از خریدن و خوندن این کتاب که تمام بدنم در حال لرزیدنه.
شاهکار به معنای واقعی کلمه . نمیدونم شما به چی میگید یک کتاب یا یک داستان عالی، اما قول میدم این کتاب از هر چیزی که تاحالا خوندید و به ارگاسم ادبی رسوندتون یک پله بالاتره.
این کتاب رو بخونید، خودتون رو درونش پرتاب کنید و با جریانش همراه بشید. راوی به شدت غیر معتبره ولی عمیقا می تونید احساساتش رو جذب کنید. با خوندن خط اول دیگه نمیتونید کتاب رو ببندید. شما به این کتاب محکومید
خیلی خیلی ذوق میکنم که میبینم هم سلیقه ایم 😍😍
من کیستم؟ رویا یا اسکار؟ من نفرین شدهام، اسکار تقدیس شدهی خدایان. من هذیان گویم و اسکار سراپا صدق که در صفایش فتوری نیست. من بیحافظهام و اسکار تکرار است. من سردم یخم خشکیدهام و اسکار نه سرد است و نه گرم. اگر محاکمهام کنید سراپا گناهم ، من گناه نخستینم، من آن سقوط کرده از سنگینی بار گناهانی هستم که به دوش افکندهام. من رنج می کشم، جان میکنم، گریه میکنم، کفر میگویم، میخندم، سکوت میکنم، دوباره گریه میکنم و کفر میگویم. من ساکت نمیمانم. من متحملم، می نشینم تا چه پیش آید. به دقت به حرف دلم گوش کن و اگر تاب شنیدن آوردی، با سر تصدیقم کن. من سکوت نمیکنم...
میخواهید بدانید گنداب یعنی چه؟ مرا بخوانید.
من در یک بیمارستان معتبر دولتی، زیر دو لامپ شصت واتی و با تقلای زیاد به دنیا آمدم. بدبختی ام هم از همان لحظه شروع شد. پدر و مادربزرگ پدریم اصلا از تولدم خوشحال نشدند، در اصل هیچکس خوشحال نشد و آن دو نفر حتی سعی نکردند اندوه خود را پشت تعارفات معمول پنهان کنند. شاید تنها کسی که خوشحال شد مادرم بود. که احتمالا دلش برایم سوخت. چون چند ساعت بعد از تولدم، وقتی من را که با درشتترین چشمهای ممکن برای یک نوزاد انسان، به نور لامپ آویخته از سقف و شاپرکهایی که دورش میرقصیدند نگاه میکردم بغلش گرفت؛ با صدایی به لطافت و حزن مه صبحگاهی جنگلهای گیسوم در گوشم خواند: دختر کوچولوی لاغرِ کبودِ زشتم، نگران نباش، مامان دوستت داره.
و من در آن لحظه با مفهومی آشنا شدم که بیرحمانه روح نازکم را خراشید چنانکه اثرش تا همین حالا نمایان است. دوست نداشتنی و ناخواسته بودن...
بعد از آن شب به خودم قول دادم همه تلاشم را صرف زیبا، باهوش و دوست داشتنی شدن کنم تا مادر سرخورده نشود و دست از زاییدن بچه که بزرگترین وظیفهی زیستی و اجتماعیش بود برندارد. گمانم در اینکار موفق هم شدم. چون پنج سال بعد برادرم و چهار سال بعد از او خواهرم دنیا آمدند . در واقع میتوانم با افتخار بگویم آن دو زندگیشان رو مدیون رنجی بودند که من طی آن سالها کشیدم...
اما چه شد که کارم به اینجا کشید؟ این فرار بیمقصد از کجا شروع شد؟ داستان فرارم را هم باید مفصل برایتان بگویم. اما امروز وقتش نیست. ذهنتان هنوز آمادگی درکش را ندارد. شاید بعدا...
______________________
درباره کتاب:
اونقدر خوشحال و ذوق زده ام از خریدن و خوندن این کتاب که تمام بدنم در حال لرزیدنه.
شاهکار به معنای واقعی کلمه . نمیدونم شما به چی میگید یک کتاب یا یک داستان عالی، اما قول میدم این کتاب از هر چیزی که تاحالا خوندید و به ارگاسم ادبی رسوندتون یک پله بالاتره.
این کتاب رو بخونید، خودتون رو درونش پرتاب کنید و با جریانش همراه بشید. راوی به شدت غیر معتبره ولی عمیقا می تونید احساساتش رو جذب کنید. با خوندن خط اول دیگه نمیتونید کتاب رو ببندید. شما به این کتاب محکومید
February 12, 2008
My reaction to finishing this book was 'thank god that's over'. I thought it was interesting in the abstract, but at times I couldn't stand reading it. The unreliable main character Oskar, decides to stop growing at the age of three . He refuses to speak, and communicates by banging on his titular drum. I gather this is supposed to reflect German societies refusal to accept the realities of the rise of Nazism and their complicity in it. But I don't really care. My problem with the book wasn't the confusing structure, the occasional nasty scene (don't read this book if you're planning on eating eels anytime soon) but that I just couldn't stand the writing. I'm guessing that much of the humor was lost in translation, but what irritated me the most were the lame lyrical sections. Sentences like "long after I had lain down I was still standing on coconut fibres, and that is why I was unable to sleep; for nothing is more stimulating, more sleep-dispelling, more thought provoking than standing barefoot on a coconut fiber map" are pretty much bullshit (and it doesn't help that I heard Werner Herzog in my head when I read them). And there are a lot of them in this book. There's not enough realism to make the magic interesting. The crazy characters are intersting and funny at first, but there's no connection between them, and after a while their strangeness gets boring and repetitive. I really wanted to like this book, and I know a lot of people love it, but I'm never reading this one again. Maybe I'll try the movie.
February 11, 2025
When Satan's not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn't even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while?
The Tin Drum ~~~ Günter Grass
GRRRRRR The Tin Drum ~~ this damn exasperating book. It’s one of the best written, most difficult, utterly amazing, truly frustrating books I’ve ever read. I don’t even know where to begin with this review.
For starters, The Tin Drum is brilliant. Wait, no, it’s maddening … wait no it's ...
A nearly 600 page novel may badly wear you out, but the marks it leaves in your mind, as well as your soul, are profound enough to take all the pains of reading it. The Tin Drum is a very difficult novel to read; but it is also a fascinating one ~~ one of the most fascinating novels I've ever read. Producing great literature in a time of massive turbulence is a challenging task. Most of the time the writings during a war or massive political change appeal to the current age; eventually they decay with the passage of time ~~ Parade's End comes to mind ~~ but not so with The Tin Drum.
The Tin Drum is a strange, big novel, an epic satire and farce; it is also a provincial, magical realist, picaresque tale. This is the story of Oskar Matzerath, who tells his life story from a German mental hospital in 1954. Having deliberately stunted his growth at the age of 3 and capable of shattering glass with his voice, Oskar is a force of chaos, torn between the teachings of the mad faith healer Rasputin and the poet-prince Goethe, and between Satan and Jesus, both of whom Oskar impersonates.
He’s certainly a bit mad, even monstrous, which is why his unique vision of a monstrous era ~~ 1930s & 1940s Germany ~~ is an essential one.
Armed with the titular drum, Oskar, an incorrigible aesthete understood by no one but loved, at various times, by many, uses his instrument to drum up memories of his perfectly remembered life, beginning with his birth in 1924. It is through this compulsive devotion to rhythm that Oskar is able to produce his personal image of German history. And through his telling, we learn about the first days of WWII, when Oskar’s presumptive father reluctantly joined in the defense of the Danzig post office and became equal parts martyr and coward.
There are tales of Kashubian potato farmers ~~ Kashubians being one of the many quasi-stateless European cultures trampled in the WWII maelstrom ~~ and Nazis who blithely value animal rights more than human ones. There is a postwar, German jazz club where patrons cut onions so as to force themselves to cry and reckon with the past. We travel, with Oskar, to Paris, Normandy, Dusseldorf, on refugee trains besieged by partisans, and to a mental hospital that proves to be a kind of sanctuary.
Oskar is a fine chronicler of his era because he simply does not belong; his very rejection of it is embodied in his refusal to grow and in his decision to lead a gang of youths who fight against parents and all grownups, regardless of what they may be for or against.
The Tin Drum is filled with German folk tales ~~ one of the triumphs of Mitchell’s translation ~~ one of the best translations I’ve ever read ~~ is his attention to local culture and history.
Half a century after its debut, The Tin Drum remains a unique, irreverent exploration of a deranged and crumbling society ~~ Oskar compares Germans’ loyalty to Hitler to believing in Santa Claus ~~ a Santa Claus armed with poison gas. Shocking in its time, the book established the author as one of Germany’s preeminent moral authorities, warning, in the voice of Oskar, against the ignorance that was just then coming into fashion.
Through its verbal complexity, its use of fabulist images, and its daring choice to invest an absurd, amoral character with equal parts monstrosity and artistry ~~ Oskar’s expert ability to singshatter glass is juxtaposed against Kristallnacht ~~ Grass’s novel earns its stature.
Ultimately, The Tin Drum is a whirlpool of persons, events and emotions. Often, it's difficult to figure out where reality ends and Oskar’s fantasy/insanity begins. Memories, plans, dreams, thoughts ~~ all intertwine into one entity. There are more than a few complicated relationships here, a little bit about the war, a little bit about a theater, a little bit about love. But in all of these bits the main character is Oscar, he is always at the center of everything, even when he’s not.
So, who is Oskar? Or better yet, what is Oskar? He is a reflection of the society, of the time, of the people who surrounded him. Oscar is a terrible reflection of war and those vices that people hide so carefully in themselves. Oskar is a man who has absorbed all the evil of the world around him.
The Tin Drum is a challenging read ~~ one the most challenging reads I've ever taken up ~~ but it is well worth reading. In order to make the most of The Tin Drum you must willing to let Günter Grass lead and just accept that world as a world of the horrors of living in and through World War II in Germany.
The Tin Drum ~~~ Günter Grass
GRRRRRR The Tin Drum ~~ this damn exasperating book. It’s one of the best written, most difficult, utterly amazing, truly frustrating books I’ve ever read. I don’t even know where to begin with this review.
For starters, The Tin Drum is brilliant. Wait, no, it’s maddening … wait no it's ...
A nearly 600 page novel may badly wear you out, but the marks it leaves in your mind, as well as your soul, are profound enough to take all the pains of reading it. The Tin Drum is a very difficult novel to read; but it is also a fascinating one ~~ one of the most fascinating novels I've ever read. Producing great literature in a time of massive turbulence is a challenging task. Most of the time the writings during a war or massive political change appeal to the current age; eventually they decay with the passage of time ~~ Parade's End comes to mind ~~ but not so with The Tin Drum.
The Tin Drum is a strange, big novel, an epic satire and farce; it is also a provincial, magical realist, picaresque tale. This is the story of Oskar Matzerath, who tells his life story from a German mental hospital in 1954. Having deliberately stunted his growth at the age of 3 and capable of shattering glass with his voice, Oskar is a force of chaos, torn between the teachings of the mad faith healer Rasputin and the poet-prince Goethe, and between Satan and Jesus, both of whom Oskar impersonates.
He’s certainly a bit mad, even monstrous, which is why his unique vision of a monstrous era ~~ 1930s & 1940s Germany ~~ is an essential one.
Armed with the titular drum, Oskar, an incorrigible aesthete understood by no one but loved, at various times, by many, uses his instrument to drum up memories of his perfectly remembered life, beginning with his birth in 1924. It is through this compulsive devotion to rhythm that Oskar is able to produce his personal image of German history. And through his telling, we learn about the first days of WWII, when Oskar’s presumptive father reluctantly joined in the defense of the Danzig post office and became equal parts martyr and coward.
There are tales of Kashubian potato farmers ~~ Kashubians being one of the many quasi-stateless European cultures trampled in the WWII maelstrom ~~ and Nazis who blithely value animal rights more than human ones. There is a postwar, German jazz club where patrons cut onions so as to force themselves to cry and reckon with the past. We travel, with Oskar, to Paris, Normandy, Dusseldorf, on refugee trains besieged by partisans, and to a mental hospital that proves to be a kind of sanctuary.
Oskar is a fine chronicler of his era because he simply does not belong; his very rejection of it is embodied in his refusal to grow and in his decision to lead a gang of youths who fight against parents and all grownups, regardless of what they may be for or against.
The Tin Drum is filled with German folk tales ~~ one of the triumphs of Mitchell’s translation ~~ one of the best translations I’ve ever read ~~ is his attention to local culture and history.
Half a century after its debut, The Tin Drum remains a unique, irreverent exploration of a deranged and crumbling society ~~ Oskar compares Germans’ loyalty to Hitler to believing in Santa Claus ~~ a Santa Claus armed with poison gas. Shocking in its time, the book established the author as one of Germany’s preeminent moral authorities, warning, in the voice of Oskar, against the ignorance that was just then coming into fashion.
Through its verbal complexity, its use of fabulist images, and its daring choice to invest an absurd, amoral character with equal parts monstrosity and artistry ~~ Oskar’s expert ability to singshatter glass is juxtaposed against Kristallnacht ~~ Grass’s novel earns its stature.
Ultimately, The Tin Drum is a whirlpool of persons, events and emotions. Often, it's difficult to figure out where reality ends and Oskar’s fantasy/insanity begins. Memories, plans, dreams, thoughts ~~ all intertwine into one entity. There are more than a few complicated relationships here, a little bit about the war, a little bit about a theater, a little bit about love. But in all of these bits the main character is Oscar, he is always at the center of everything, even when he’s not.
So, who is Oskar? Or better yet, what is Oskar? He is a reflection of the society, of the time, of the people who surrounded him. Oscar is a terrible reflection of war and those vices that people hide so carefully in themselves. Oskar is a man who has absorbed all the evil of the world around him.
The Tin Drum is a challenging read ~~ one the most challenging reads I've ever taken up ~~ but it is well worth reading. In order to make the most of The Tin Drum you must willing to let Günter Grass lead and just accept that world as a world of the horrors of living in and through World War II in Germany.
September 30, 2019
When you hear an inner Oskar Matzerath hitting his tin drum in protest against the utter absurdity of life, you know it is time to make a choice for or against sanity.
Oskar himself chose the "easy" way out, deliberately refusing to grow up and accept "moral" guidelines, and in the end, he chose the asylum as the best place to write his unreliable, yet truthful account on the brutal times he called his own.
What do you do if you missed that point at age three to stop growing, but you have been gifted the curse of hearing the noise of the world? Sanity is a scary mindset, and hard to carry for long stretches. You tend to lose parts of it when the world heats up, and you never can be entirely sure you still have it, even when you check it every so often.
"One of the requisites of sanity is to disagree with the majority of the British public." That is Oscar Wilde's conclusion, and Oskar Matzerath may well have come to the same conclusion about his own environment, in reverse: if this Germany is sane, I better be on the other team!
The Tin Drum to me is one of the most oppressively true novels ever written, on equal terms with Midnight's Children or One Hundred Years of Solitude for its exploration of human irrationality and excess. In some respects it is more difficult to digest because it hits closer to home. But at the same time, it enhanced the powerful effect of the Asian and South American versions of human failure to live properly as I know from The Tin Drum that the deeper truth of chaos is a more sane description of reality than the insane project of writing "objective" accounts.
Oskar is drumming at full force, and some of his naughty brothers who refused to grow up a long time ago don't have the required wisdom and sanity to get themselves locked away before causing more harm than the planet can take.
Do you hear the noise?
Oskar himself chose the "easy" way out, deliberately refusing to grow up and accept "moral" guidelines, and in the end, he chose the asylum as the best place to write his unreliable, yet truthful account on the brutal times he called his own.
What do you do if you missed that point at age three to stop growing, but you have been gifted the curse of hearing the noise of the world? Sanity is a scary mindset, and hard to carry for long stretches. You tend to lose parts of it when the world heats up, and you never can be entirely sure you still have it, even when you check it every so often.
"One of the requisites of sanity is to disagree with the majority of the British public." That is Oscar Wilde's conclusion, and Oskar Matzerath may well have come to the same conclusion about his own environment, in reverse: if this Germany is sane, I better be on the other team!
The Tin Drum to me is one of the most oppressively true novels ever written, on equal terms with Midnight's Children or One Hundred Years of Solitude for its exploration of human irrationality and excess. In some respects it is more difficult to digest because it hits closer to home. But at the same time, it enhanced the powerful effect of the Asian and South American versions of human failure to live properly as I know from The Tin Drum that the deeper truth of chaos is a more sane description of reality than the insane project of writing "objective" accounts.
Oskar is drumming at full force, and some of his naughty brothers who refused to grow up a long time ago don't have the required wisdom and sanity to get themselves locked away before causing more harm than the planet can take.
Do you hear the noise?
September 9, 2018
One of those books you read and remember them after years of reading masses of other books. A masterpiece...
December 22, 2017
Μαγικός ρεαλισμός προσδοκιών ή ρεαλιστική μαγεία συνείδησης, όπως και να το χαρακτηρίσω αυτό το ταμπούρλο... χτυπούσε και θα χτυπάει πάντα τον ρυθμό της ιστορίας.
Αυτό το ταμπούρλο παίζει μελωδίες, τις μελωδίες του κόσμου. Με ποικιλία ρυθμική μας βάζει στο χορό της προπολεμικής Πολωνίας και Γερμανίας.
Στην ζωή των ανθρώπων που δέχτηκαν την άνοδο του Χίτλερ, το αίμα της ήττας της Πολωνίας, την εισβολή των ναζί στην Ευρώπη και το χτίσιμο του τείχους που χώρισε αδίστακτα την ανθρωπότητα σε ανατολικά και δυτικά στρατεύματα.
Σε ανατολικούς και δυτικούς τάφους «τουμπανιασμένων» πτωμάτων, σε βωμούς παλαιών και τωρινών εξουσιών.
Κυρίως βέβαια το ταμπούρλο αυτό διατυμπανίζει τους εσωτερικούς ατομικούς αγώνες όλων, καθώς ανακαλύπτουν την ανθρωπότητα τον 20ό αιώνα.
Και αρχίζει αυτό το σπαραξικάρδιο ταξίδι ανάγνωσης.
Ένα παράξενο, παράδοξο, αλληγορικό, ταπεινό και λαμπρό κομμάτι της μυθιστοριογραφίας.
Ο Όσκαρ Μάτσερατ, ένας παραμορφωμένος καμπούρης νάνος, είναι ο τυμπανιστής που αρνείται να μεγαλώσει.
Διατηρείται ως τα 18 του χρόνια στο ύψος ενός τρίχρονου παιδιού απο μίσος για την οικογένεια
και τον κόσμο που τον περιβάλλει.
Ο Όσκαρ, αυτός ο αυτοκαταστροφικός και σοφά παρανοϊκός νάνος κρατείται σε ψυχιατρείο με
τη θέληση του για ένα έγκλημα που δεν διέπραξε.
Συντροφιά με τον φρουρό που τον εποπτεύει - περισσότερο σαν φίλος- θα αρχίσει να γράφει
την αυτοβιογραφία του.
Το τενεκεδένιο ταμπούρλο είναι η μηχανή του χρόνου,
το ρυθμικό χτύπημα ανάκλησης αναμνήσεων που γράφονται απο τον Όσκαρ σε γυάλινο χαρτί, στον καθρέφτη που απεικονίζει την παραμορφωμένη εικόνα του ίδιου και ολοκλήρου του κόσμου.
Διαβάζοντας το έργο αυτό του Γκύντερ Γκρας και έχοντας προχωρήσει αρκετά άρχισα να αναρωτιέμαι,
για ποιο λόγο διάλεξε ο συγγραφέας να γράψει με τη μορφή αυτοβιογραφίας ενός διαταραγμένου νάνου,
με εμμονές και ιδιαίτερα χαρίσματα ειδικών αναγκών.
Τόννοι αφήγησης, εξοντωτικά λεπτομερείς περιγραφές, ανάκληση γεγονότων ακόμη και απο τη γέννηση του ή τη σύλληψη και τη γέννηση της «καημένης μαμάς» του, τόσο γραφικά, τόσο οξύμωρα διασκεδαστικά που συγκινούν.
Και εκεί που πελαγώνεις σε έναν εκλογικευμένο γλαφυρό παραλογισμό, σε ένα ατελείωτο παραμύθι που αναμειγνύονται ιστορία, κουλτούρα, παράδοση, τέχνη και θανατόμορφη, οδυνηρή, εκφυλισμένη απανθρωπιά σε μια ανθρώπινη αλληγορική διάσταση, ακούγονται οι κραυγές του Όσκαρ για μια ζωή ανάξια να τη ζεις, και αφυπνίζουν βάρβαρα την παθητικότητα και την συλλογική ευθύνη.
Κάπως έτσι... και γνωρίζοντας πως η ναζιστική εποχή και οι φιγούρες της έχουν παρουσιαστεί ως το κοινό κακό, ως σκοτεινά μυθικά πιόνια σε πλαίσια προπαγάνδας, άρχισα να αντιλαμβάνομαι την αριστουργηματική επινόηση του συγγραφέα και αποδέχτηκα την λαμπρότητα και το αναπόφευκτο της επιλογής του.
Χρειαζόταν έναν αφηγητή που δεν θα μπορούσε να είναι συνένοχος ή συνειδητά αποδεχόμενος της επεκτατικής εγκληματικότητας του ναζισμού.
Έναν παρανοϊκό τερατόμορφο νάνο που αφηγείται αλήθειες εγκληματικές για τον πόλεμο και τις κοινωνίες μα είναι δύσκολο να τον εμπιστευτείς ή να τον πιστέψεις.
Επιπλέον πως θα απεικονίζονταν οι τραγικές ιστορικές εξελίξεις ως παρανοϊκές, παρά μόνο μέσα απο την διορατική ματιά ενός διαταραγμένου νάνου που υπερβάλει και διεισδύει σε πολύ βαθύτερα νοήματα.
Ψυχολογικές προεκτάσεις δίνει η ικανότητα του συγγραφέα να τονίζει συνεχώς πως οι ανθρώπινες σχέσεις έχουν άπειρες δυνατότητες καλοσύνης, αντίθετα το νομοτελειακό ένστικτο για εκμετάλλευση είναι το κακό που πρέπει να ξεριζωθεί.
Ο Όσκαρ στοχάζεται με απίστευτη επιμονή και προσφέρει επιχειρήματα για κάθε απλή ή βαρυσήμαντη απόφαση.
Αν δεν εξετάζεις προσεκτικά τις σκέψεις σου θα πάρεις τις ψευδαισθήσεις που σου πλασάρουν σοβαρά και τότε οι συνέπειες θα είναι μοιραίες.
Εκπληκτικές οι περιγραφές ανθρώπων και γεγονότων ανάμεσα σε πραγματικότητα και φαντασία.
Αξέχαστο θα μου μείνει το συνήθειο της γιαγιάς του να φοράει τέσσερα φορέματα το ένα πάνω απο το άλλο και να τα συναλλάζει καθημερινά με γεωμετρική πρόοδο. Το τετραπλό φουστάνι-φρούριο-κρυψώνα-σιγουριά και αξία.
Το κεφάλι του αλόγου ως δόλωμα για να ψαρεύεις χέλια και κατόπιν να τα συλλέγεις μέσα απο τον εγκέφαλο ή το ανοιχτό στόμα του ζώου.
Ο θάνατος ενός απο τους πατέρες..του Όσκαρ κατά την σοβιετική εισβολή. Ήταν αυτός που μαγείρευε τα χέλια..και συμπορεύοταν με τους ναζιστές.
Η εμμονή ενός άλλου πατέρα-συγγενή...του Όσκαρ για μία τράπουλα, κατά τη διάρκεια επίθεσης σε πολωνικό ταχυδρομείο. Πεθαίνει καταλάθος ως περήφανος Πολωνός... προδωμένος απο παιδί και συμπατριώτες.
Η αντίδραση του Όσκαρ μπροστά στο άγαλμα του Ιησού. Αρχικά ο Χριστός δεν μπορούσε ή δεν ήθελα να παίξει με το ταμπούρλο που του προσφέρθηκε,
μέχρι που τα κατάφερε μετά απο καιρό.
Οι σεξουαλικές συνευρέσεις συγγενών και η φυσική αντιμετώπιση των αρχέγονων ενστίκτων.
Και φυσικά το Κατώι του κρεμμυδιού.
Ένα υπόγειο ψυχικής κάθαρσης και αλμυρής υγρασίας απο δάκρυα
ανακούφισης.
Και.. αρκετή σάτιρα που στάζει αίμα.
Δεν βρήκα βιβλίο άλλο που να έχω διαβάσει και να μπορώ να το συγκρίνω με το «τενεκεδένιο ταμπούρλο».
Ίσως επειδή με έκανε να θέλω να μείνω
αποστασιοποιημένη μα παράλληλα αντικειμενική και συνδεδεμένη με ανθρώπους και πράξεις γύρω μου. Και αυτό χρειάζεται ικανότητα αμερόληπτου παρατηρητή.
Είναι σίγουρα ένα βιβλίο που αποτελεί πρόκληση για όλους.
Σας προκαλώ....
Διαβάστε το.
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Άπειρες ευχές για όλους.
Αυτό το ταμπούρλο παίζει μελωδίες, τις μελωδίες του κόσμου. Με ποικιλία ρυθμική μας βάζει στο χορό της προπολεμικής Πολωνίας και Γερμανίας.
Στην ζωή των ανθρώπων που δέχτηκαν την άνοδο του Χίτλερ, το αίμα της ήττας της Πολωνίας, την εισβολή των ναζί στην Ευρώπη και το χτίσιμο του τείχους που χώρισε αδίστακτα την ανθρωπότητα σε ανατολικά και δυτικά στρατεύματα.
Σε ανατολικούς και δυτικούς τάφους «τουμπανιασμένων» πτωμάτων, σε βωμούς παλαιών και τωρινών εξουσιών.
Κυρίως βέβαια το ταμπούρλο αυτό διατυμπανίζει τους εσωτερικούς ατομικούς αγώνες όλων, καθώς ανακαλύπτουν την ανθρωπότητα τον 20ό αιώνα.
Και αρχίζει αυτό το σπαραξικάρδιο ταξίδι ανάγνωσης.
Ένα παράξενο, παράδοξο, αλληγορικό, ταπεινό και λαμπρό κομμάτι της μυθιστοριογραφίας.
Ο Όσκαρ Μάτσερατ, ένας παραμορφωμένος καμπούρης νάνος, είναι ο τυμπανιστής που αρνείται να μεγαλώσει.
Διατηρείται ως τα 18 του χρόνια στο ύψος ενός τρίχρονου παιδιού απο μίσος για την οικογένεια
και τον κόσμο που τον περιβάλλει.
Ο Όσκαρ, αυτός ο αυτοκαταστροφικός και σοφά παρανοϊκός νάνος κρατείται σε ψυχιατρείο με
τη θέληση του για ένα έγκλημα που δεν διέπραξε.
Συντροφιά με τον φρουρό που τον εποπτεύει - περισσότερο σαν φίλος- θα αρχίσει να γράφει
την αυτοβιογραφία του.
Το τενεκεδένιο ταμπούρλο είναι η μηχανή του χρόνου,
το ρυθμικό χτύπημα ανάκλησης αναμνήσεων που γράφονται απο τον Όσκαρ σε γυάλινο χαρτί, στον καθρέφτη που απεικονίζει την παραμορφωμένη εικόνα του ίδιου και ολοκλήρου του κόσμου.
Διαβάζοντας το έργο αυτό του Γκύντερ Γκρας και έχοντας προχωρήσει αρκετά άρχισα να αναρωτιέμαι,
για ποιο λόγο διάλεξε ο συγγραφέας να γράψει με τη μορφή αυτοβιογραφίας ενός διαταραγμένου νάνου,
με εμμονές και ιδιαίτερα χαρίσματα ειδικών αναγκών.
Τόννοι αφήγησης, εξοντωτικά λεπτομερείς περιγραφές, ανάκληση γεγονότων ακόμη και απο τη γέννηση του ή τη σύλληψη και τη γέννηση της «καημένης μαμάς» του, τόσο γραφικά, τόσο οξύμωρα διασκεδαστικά που συγκινούν.
Και εκεί που πελαγώνεις σε έναν εκλογικευμένο γλαφυρό παραλογισμό, σε ένα ατελείωτο παραμύθι που αναμειγνύονται ιστορία, κουλτούρα, παράδοση, τέχνη και θανατόμορφη, οδυνηρή, εκφυλισμένη απανθρωπιά σε μια ανθρώπινη αλληγορική διάσταση, ακούγονται οι κραυγές του Όσκαρ για μια ζωή ανάξια να τη ζεις, και αφυπνίζουν βάρβαρα την παθητικότητα και την συλλογική ευθύνη.
Κάπως έτσι... και γνωρίζοντας πως η ναζιστική εποχή και οι φιγούρες της έχουν παρουσιαστεί ως το κοινό κακό, ως σκοτεινά μυθικά πιόνια σε πλαίσια προπαγάνδας, άρχισα να αντιλαμβάνομαι την αριστουργηματική επινόηση του συγγραφέα και αποδέχτηκα την λαμπρότητα και το αναπόφευκτο της επιλογής του.
Χρειαζόταν έναν αφηγητή που δεν θα μπορούσε να είναι συνένοχος ή συνειδητά αποδεχόμενος της επεκτατικής εγκληματικότητας του ναζισμού.
Έναν παρανοϊκό τερατόμορφο νάνο που αφηγείται αλήθειες εγκληματικές για τον πόλεμο και τις κοινωνίες μα είναι δύσκολο να τον εμπιστευτείς ή να τον πιστέψεις.
Επιπλέον πως θα απεικονίζονταν οι τραγικές ιστορικές εξελίξεις ως παρανοϊκές, παρά μόνο μέσα απο την διορατική ματιά ενός διαταραγμένου νάνου που υπερβάλει και διεισδύει σε πολύ βαθύτερα νοήματα.
Ψυχολογικές προεκτάσεις δίνει η ικανότητα του συγγραφέα να τονίζει συνεχώς πως οι ανθρώπινες σχέσεις έχουν άπειρες δυνατότητες καλοσύνης, αντίθετα το νομοτελειακό ένστικτο για εκμετάλλευση είναι το κακό που πρέπει να ξεριζωθεί.
Ο Όσκαρ στοχάζεται με απίστευτη επιμονή και προσφέρει επιχειρήματα για κάθε απλή ή βαρυσήμαντη απόφαση.
Αν δεν εξετάζεις προσεκτικά τις σκέψεις σου θα πάρεις τις ψευδαισθήσεις που σου πλασάρουν σοβαρά και τότε οι συνέπειες θα είναι μοιραίες.
Εκπληκτικές οι περιγραφές ανθρώπων και γεγονότων ανάμεσα σε πραγματικότητα και φαντασία.
Αξέχαστο θα μου μείνει το συνήθειο της γιαγιάς του να φοράει τέσσερα φορέματα το ένα πάνω απο το άλλο και να τα συναλλάζει καθημερινά με γεωμετρική πρόοδο. Το τετραπλό φουστάνι-φρούριο-κρυψώνα-σιγουριά και αξία.
Το κεφάλι του αλόγου ως δόλωμα για να ψαρεύεις χέλια και κατόπιν να τα συλλέγεις μέσα απο τον εγκέφαλο ή το ανοιχτό στόμα του ζώου.
Ο θάνατος ενός απο τους πατέρες..του Όσκαρ κατά την σοβιετική εισβολή. Ήταν αυτός που μαγείρευε τα χέλια..και συμπορεύοταν με τους ναζιστές.
Η εμμονή ενός άλλου πατέρα-συγγενή...του Όσκαρ για μία τράπουλα, κατά τη διάρκεια επίθεσης σε πολωνικό ταχυδρομείο. Πεθαίνει καταλάθος ως περήφανος Πολωνός... προδωμένος απο παιδί και συμπατριώτες.
Η αντίδραση του Όσκαρ μπροστά στο άγαλμα του Ιησού. Αρχικά ο Χριστός δεν μπορούσε ή δεν ήθελα να παίξει με το ταμπούρλο που του προσφέρθηκε,
μέχρι που τα κατάφερε μετά απο καιρό.
Οι σεξουαλικές συνευρέσεις συγγενών και η φυσική αντιμετώπιση των αρχέγονων ενστίκτων.
Και φυσικά το Κατώι του κρεμμυδιού.
Ένα υπόγειο ψυχικής κάθαρσης και αλμυρής υγρασίας απο δάκρυα
ανακούφισης.
Και.. αρκετή σάτιρα που στάζει αίμα.
Δεν βρήκα βιβλίο άλλο που να έχω διαβάσει και να μπορώ να το συγκρίνω με το «τενεκεδένιο ταμπούρλο».
Ίσως επειδή με έκανε να θέλω να μείνω
αποστασιοποιημένη μα παράλληλα αντικειμενική και συνδεδεμένη με ανθρώπους και πράξεις γύρω μου. Και αυτό χρειάζεται ικανότητα αμερόληπτου παρατηρητή.
Είναι σίγουρα ένα βιβλίο που αποτελεί πρόκληση για όλους.
Σας προκαλώ....
Διαβάστε το.
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Άπειρες ευχές για όλους.
December 31, 2017
طبل الصفيح؛ تعدد السرد وطرح التساؤلات.. قراءة في رواية غونتر غراص : طبل الصفيح Die Blechtrommel - Günter Grass
نص المادة مختصر قمت بنشره على موقع إنكتاب وقد وضعت رابطة بصفحتي على ��ويتر، وأنشره هنا الأن
قيمة هذه العمل تكمن في صدقه تجاه الإنسان. وعندما منحت نوبل غراس كان تعلم إن الإنسان أحتل شأنًا مقدسًا في كتباته..
من واقع خبرة قرائية طويلة هذا العمل منهك للقارئ المحترف. سوف أتفهم من يقرأ الورقات الأولى ويتوقف عن العمل ليس لمللٍ قد يعتريه بقدر الجهد المضني الذي يتطلبه قراءة هذا النص المعقد والذي حبكت أجزائه بإحترافية عالية كان التكلف عنصرًا طاغيًا عليها. لكن بعض التكلف يأتي ثماره. مثل هذا النص
بقي أوسكار بالنسبة لي حالة إنسانية كغيرها من الحالات التي تعرفها بعضها في حياتنا اليومية. لكن غراس وهبها حياة خالدة من خلال الغرفة التي نزل بها في مصحه العقلي عندما أتهم دون وجه حق ومن هناك يسجل مذكراته وفق الرواية بكتبها الثلاثة.. أوسكار الذي أوقف نموه (القزم) لكن كان ينمو نموًا آخر (أوسكار ماتزيراث) مع طبلته ومع قدرات خارقة بتحطيمة للزجاج وصراخاته التي تعترض ما يقف أمامه وفق حالات الإعتراض.
المراحل التي عاشها أوسكار تخبرك عن أثر التحول في حياة الإنسان. الحياة التي عاشها بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى، وحياته قبل الحرب الثانية، وكذلك بعد الحرب. ووحده طبل الصفيح رفيقه الأول.
لقد أجاد الأديب الألماني للتعبير عت قلقه بعد الحرب الثانية وبدأ طاغيًا أثر التشتت والصراع الذي عانه الأوربي وخاصة الألماني على الصعيد الأوربي من أثر الدور الذي لعبة الرايخ في الحرب. تصدعات رجل القرن العشرين في النصف الأول منه مقلق ومخيف، ووسط كل هذا تبقى الكوميدياء بسودوايتها تحارب ذلك الإنسان علها تخفف بعض وجعه وفي النص الكثير من ذلك الهروب من أرض واقع الدمار والحرب والموت والدم والتهجير.
السردية المجنونة :
من أعظم تقنيات هذا النص الفاخر، أسلوب السرد والذي تنوع بين ضمير المتكلم (أنا) وضمير الغائب (هو)، وبينهما يظهر ويختفي ذلك الصوت الذي كأنه يحارب أوسكار من الداخل، والراوي (العليم) أنظر لكمية الجنون في السرد. كل هذا تم وفق واقعية جميلة هذ في الأصل مزج بين الواقعية وإسقاطات دينية عبثية، ومن قرأ رواية المعلم ومرغريتا لميخائيل بولغاكوف سيعرف أثر ذلك في الواقعية عندما يختلط مع الفنتازي. لكن هذا لن يصيبك بحيرة رغم بعض التشتت الذي سوف يزول وفق خلفياتك السابقة ومعرفتك بعظيم الروايات. كانت هذه أدوات غراس في الأصل لمحاكاة الظروف السياسية في تلك الحقبة الثلاثينات والأربعينات. لكنها كانت واقعية سحرية صادمة وليس فقط فنتازيا سحرية كحذاء سندريلا في النص الأوربي ، أو مصباح علاء الدين في النص العربي، ولكن يبدو جليًا أثر السردية العربية على الكاتب من حيث خروج حكايات صغيرة من وسط حكاية أكبر وفق وحدات سردية هائلة. هكذا هو النص يبدأ وينتهي وقيامه يمتد للسرد.
مرهقة هي الرواية التي تبدأ بجملة مخيفة كهذه "أعترف بأنني نزيل مصحة للأمراض العقلية" تعيق تقييمك للكثير من الأحداث الأولى وتبقى عالقة في ذهنك حتى بعد نهاية الرواية وتسأل نفسك هل ماقرأت تجاوز حدود الجملة الإخبارية أم أن الجمل مجرد خبر ضمن سياق النصو ومرهق لطفل أن يتحتم عليه الإختيار بين العمل في المتجر – البقالة – مع والده وبين إنتظار تحقيق أمنية الحصول على "الطبل"، وفي عيده الثالث يرتبط اوسكار بطبلةٍ لنهاية حكايته.
فضاء التساؤلات :
1
السؤال الذي كنت أطرحه على نفسي :
هل كان يحتاج أوسكار أن يجعلني في كل هذه الحيرة من نقاشات دينية بين اليهودية والمسيحية وإسقاطها على الواقع.. هل كنا نحن نحتاج هذا التشتت الدرامي مع النص لمعرفة الإنسان / الإنسان الذي عايش الحرب والحب والترحال وفقد الأحبة؟.
الإجابة : كنت أقول نعم هذا هو الإنسان وسط كل هذا فكيف بإنسان ينقل لنا زمنية رواية بين (1899 - 1954م).
2
السؤال الذي طرحته بعد نهاية الرواية هل كان (تيودور أدورنو) راضٍ عن هذا العمل بعد تحديه المنجزات العمل الروائي الأماني بعد الحرب.
3
عندما قرأت هذا النص الزاخر تذكرت مباشرة نص هو الآخر جميل وقوي (أفال منتصف الليل) لسلمان رشدي. هذا النص خرج نعم خرج من رحم رواية (طبل الصفيح) دون جدال. وأشرت لرواية مثل هذه لشهرة وعظمة نص (رشدي) وتحقيقه شهرة عالمية فاقت الخيال. من حيث السرد – رغم بساطته – ومن تعددية الرواي، ومن حيث طريقة بناء الرواية، ومن خلال كذلك إستخدام المثيولوجيا الهندي في رواية رشدي، ولو سأل أحدهم سلمان لأجاب : نعم تأثرت برواية غراس.
فاصلة :
لم يكن من السهل الشعور الكامل والمطلق بعظمة الترجمة فنحن نتحدث عن نص ألماني ولغة قد لا تجد مرادفات لبعض كلماتها في القاموس العربي وكما قال المترجم وفق هذا النص "إن ترجمة أعمال غراس لا تعني سوى شيء واحد، وهو تحويل حشيش مزدهر إلى تبن يابس” (أنظر ص 10 - 12).
أشكر غراس أن العمل لم يكن كبعض الروايات التي تأتي دون فصول أو ترقيم أو حتى تلك النجوم التي تفصل مشهدًا أو مقطعًا عن الآخر. فهذا توافق مع حجمها الكبير.
أخيرًا.. هذه العمل الفريد هو عبارة ثلاثية للكاتب وقد تلتها : (القط والفأر)، و(سنوات الكلاب)، والتي سوف تصبح تحمل اسم ((ثلاثية غدانسيغ)).
نص المادة مختصر قمت بنشره على موقع إنكتاب وقد وضعت رابطة بصفحتي على ��ويتر، وأنشره هنا الأن
قيمة هذه العمل تكمن في صدقه تجاه الإنسان. وعندما منحت نوبل غراس كان تعلم إن الإنسان أحتل شأنًا مقدسًا في كتباته..
من واقع خبرة قرائية طويلة هذا العمل منهك للقارئ المحترف. سوف أتفهم من يقرأ الورقات الأولى ويتوقف عن العمل ليس لمللٍ قد يعتريه بقدر الجهد المضني الذي يتطلبه قراءة هذا النص المعقد والذي حبكت أجزائه بإحترافية عالية كان التكلف عنصرًا طاغيًا عليها. لكن بعض التكلف يأتي ثماره. مثل هذا النص
بقي أوسكار بالنسبة لي حالة إنسانية كغيرها من الحالات التي تعرفها بعضها في حياتنا اليومية. لكن غراس وهبها حياة خالدة من خلال الغرفة التي نزل بها في مصحه العقلي عندما أتهم دون وجه حق ومن هناك يسجل مذكراته وفق الرواية بكتبها الثلاثة.. أوسكار الذي أوقف نموه (القزم) لكن كان ينمو نموًا آخر (أوسكار ماتزيراث) مع طبلته ومع قدرات خارقة بتحطيمة للزجاج وصراخاته التي تعترض ما يقف أمامه وفق حالات الإعتراض.
المراحل التي عاشها أوسكار تخبرك عن أثر التحول في حياة الإنسان. الحياة التي عاشها بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى، وحياته قبل الحرب الثانية، وكذلك بعد الحرب. ووحده طبل الصفيح رفيقه الأول.
لقد أجاد الأديب الألماني للتعبير عت قلقه بعد الحرب الثانية وبدأ طاغيًا أثر التشتت والصراع الذي عانه الأوربي وخاصة الألماني على الصعيد الأوربي من أثر الدور الذي لعبة الرايخ في الحرب. تصدعات رجل القرن العشرين في النصف الأول منه مقلق ومخيف، ووسط كل هذا تبقى الكوميدياء بسودوايتها تحارب ذلك الإنسان علها تخفف بعض وجعه وفي النص الكثير من ذلك الهروب من أرض واقع الدمار والحرب والموت والدم والتهجير.
السردية المجنونة :
من أعظم تقنيات هذا النص الفاخر، أسلوب السرد والذي تنوع بين ضمير المتكلم (أنا) وضمير الغائب (هو)، وبينهما يظهر ويختفي ذلك الصوت الذي كأنه يحارب أوسكار من الداخل، والراوي (العليم) أنظر لكمية الجنون في السرد. كل هذا تم وفق واقعية جميلة هذ في الأصل مزج بين الواقعية وإسقاطات دينية عبثية، ومن قرأ رواية المعلم ومرغريتا لميخائيل بولغاكوف سيعرف أثر ذلك في الواقعية عندما يختلط مع الفنتازي. لكن هذا لن يصيبك بحيرة رغم بعض التشتت الذي سوف يزول وفق خلفياتك السابقة ومعرفتك بعظيم الروايات. كانت هذه أدوات غراس في الأصل لمحاكاة الظروف السياسية في تلك الحقبة الثلاثينات والأربعينات. لكنها كانت واقعية سحرية صادمة وليس فقط فنتازيا سحرية كحذاء سندريلا في النص الأوربي ، أو مصباح علاء الدين في النص العربي، ولكن يبدو جليًا أثر السردية العربية على الكاتب من حيث خروج حكايات صغيرة من وسط حكاية أكبر وفق وحدات سردية هائلة. هكذا هو النص يبدأ وينتهي وقيامه يمتد للسرد.
مرهقة هي الرواية التي تبدأ بجملة مخيفة كهذه "أعترف بأنني نزيل مصحة للأمراض العقلية" تعيق تقييمك للكثير من الأحداث الأولى وتبقى عالقة في ذهنك حتى بعد نهاية الرواية وتسأل نفسك هل ماقرأت تجاوز حدود الجملة الإخبارية أم أن الجمل مجرد خبر ضمن سياق النصو ومرهق لطفل أن يتحتم عليه الإختيار بين العمل في المتجر – البقالة – مع والده وبين إنتظار تحقيق أمنية الحصول على "الطبل"، وفي عيده الثالث يرتبط اوسكار بطبلةٍ لنهاية حكايته.
فضاء التساؤلات :
1
السؤال الذي كنت أطرحه على نفسي :
هل كان يحتاج أوسكار أن يجعلني في كل هذه الحيرة من نقاشات دينية بين اليهودية والمسيحية وإسقاطها على الواقع.. هل كنا نحن نحتاج هذا التشتت الدرامي مع النص لمعرفة الإنسان / الإنسان الذي عايش الحرب والحب والترحال وفقد الأحبة؟.
الإجابة : كنت أقول نعم هذا هو الإنسان وسط كل هذا فكيف بإنسان ينقل لنا زمنية رواية بين (1899 - 1954م).
2
السؤال الذي طرحته بعد نهاية الرواية هل كان (تيودور أدورنو) راضٍ عن هذا العمل بعد تحديه المنجزات العمل الروائي الأماني بعد الحرب.
3
عندما قرأت هذا النص الزاخر تذكرت مباشرة نص هو الآخر جميل وقوي (أفال منتصف الليل) لسلمان رشدي. هذا النص خرج نعم خرج من رحم رواية (طبل الصفيح) دون جدال. وأشرت لرواية مثل هذه لشهرة وعظمة نص (رشدي) وتحقيقه شهرة عالمية فاقت الخيال. من حيث السرد – رغم بساطته – ومن تعددية الرواي، ومن حيث طريقة بناء الرواية، ومن خلال كذلك إستخدام المثيولوجيا الهندي في رواية رشدي، ولو سأل أحدهم سلمان لأجاب : نعم تأثرت برواية غراس.
فاصلة :
لم يكن من السهل الشعور الكامل والمطلق بعظمة الترجمة فنحن نتحدث عن نص ألماني ولغة قد لا تجد مرادفات لبعض كلماتها في القاموس العربي وكما قال المترجم وفق هذا النص "إن ترجمة أعمال غراس لا تعني سوى شيء واحد، وهو تحويل حشيش مزدهر إلى تبن يابس” (أنظر ص 10 - 12).
أشكر غراس أن العمل لم يكن كبعض الروايات التي تأتي دون فصول أو ترقيم أو حتى تلك النجوم التي تفصل مشهدًا أو مقطعًا عن الآخر. فهذا توافق مع حجمها الكبير.
أخيرًا.. هذه العمل الفريد هو عبارة ثلاثية للكاتب وقد تلتها : (القط والفأر)، و(سنوات الكلاب)، والتي سوف تصبح تحمل اسم ((ثلاثية غدانسيغ)).
August 30, 2022
قبلاً فیلم «طبل حلبی» آقای «فولکر شلوندورف» را دیده بودم و بعد از آن مصر بودم تا کتاب را بخوانم تا اینکه فرصتش پیش آمد. کتاب فوقالعاده بود و فیلم هم قابل قبول. اگر قصد دارید این کتاب را مطالعه کنید باید کمی حوصله توصیفهای بسیار دقیق و جزئی گراس را داشته باشید و همچنین به رئالیسم جادویی علاقهمند باشید. ترجمه عالی جناب حبیبی هم که نیاز به تعریف کردن ندارد.
********************************************************************
در این دنیا چه چیز، کدام رمان است که حماسهای به وسعت یک آلبوم عکس بسراید؟ صفحه ۵۹ کتاب
غمی که غم باشد اصلا موضوع نمیخواهد.… همان بی علتی میشود گفت مضحکش نشان عمق بسیارش بود، که از آن بیشتر ممکن نبود. صفحه ۶۳ کتاب
رابطه آدم بزرگها با ساعتشان بسیار عجیب و کودکانه است. البته من هرگز از این کیفیت سر در نیاوردهام چون خودم هیچ وقت کودک نبودهام. با این همه ساعت شاید عالیترین اختراع آدم بزرگها باشد. اما حقیقت این است که همان قدر که آدم بزرگها توانایی نوآوری دارند و با پشتکار و نیروی نامجویی و نیز مقداری یاری بخت گاهی موفق هم میشوند که چیزهای نوی اختراع کنند همین که چیزی درست کردند که بر زمانشان نشان گذاشت خود بنده آن میشوند. صفحه ۸۴ کتاب
من امروز پی بردهام به اینکه چیزها هم نگاه میکنند و هیچ چیزی نادیده نمیماند. حتی کاغذهای دیواری اتاق حافظه شان بهتر از مال آدمهاست. فقط خدای بزرگ نیست که همهچیز را میبیند. صفحه ۲۶۰ کتاب
در این ملک پایان کار همیشه آغازیست همراه با امید به هر پایانی حتی پایان قطعی و مکتوبست: مادام که انسان امیدوار است پیوسته کار را با پایانی پر امید از نو آغاز میکند. صفحه ۲۷۶ کتاب
گورستانها همیشه بر من جاذبه اعمال کردهاند. شسته و رفته و صادقند. در آنها منطقی مردانه سرزنده میبینم. آدم در گورستان جسور میشود و جرات گرفتن تصمیم پیدا میکند. در گورستان است که خط پیرامون زندگی -منظورم البته حاشیهی قبرها نیست- آشکار میشود و به بیانی دیگر زندگی معنا مییابد. صفحه ۵۸۶ کتاب
قرن ما بعدها قرن خشک چشمان نام خواهد گرفت. گرچه همه جا درد بسیار است و درست به دلیل همین قحط اشک بود... صفحهای ۷۰۸ کتاب
********************************************************************
در این دنیا چه چیز، کدام رمان است که حماسهای به وسعت یک آلبوم عکس بسراید؟ صفحه ۵۹ کتاب
غمی که غم باشد اصلا موضوع نمیخواهد.… همان بی علتی میشود گفت مضحکش نشان عمق بسیارش بود، که از آن بیشتر ممکن نبود. صفحه ۶۳ کتاب
رابطه آدم بزرگها با ساعتشان بسیار عجیب و کودکانه است. البته من هرگز از این کیفیت سر در نیاوردهام چون خودم هیچ وقت کودک نبودهام. با این همه ساعت شاید عالیترین اختراع آدم بزرگها باشد. اما حقیقت این است که همان قدر که آدم بزرگها توانایی نوآوری دارند و با پشتکار و نیروی نامجویی و نیز مقداری یاری بخت گاهی موفق هم میشوند که چیزهای نوی اختراع کنند همین که چیزی درست کردند که بر زمانشان نشان گذاشت خود بنده آن میشوند. صفحه ۸۴ کتاب
من امروز پی بردهام به اینکه چیزها هم نگاه میکنند و هیچ چیزی نادیده نمیماند. حتی کاغذهای دیواری اتاق حافظه شان بهتر از مال آدمهاست. فقط خدای بزرگ نیست که همهچیز را میبیند. صفحه ۲۶۰ کتاب
در این ملک پایان کار همیشه آغازیست همراه با امید به هر پایانی حتی پایان قطعی و مکتوبست: مادام که انسان امیدوار است پیوسته کار را با پایانی پر امید از نو آغاز میکند. صفحه ۲۷۶ کتاب
گورستانها همیشه بر من جاذبه اعمال کردهاند. شسته و رفته و صادقند. در آنها منطقی مردانه سرزنده میبینم. آدم در گورستان جسور میشود و جرات گرفتن تصمیم پیدا میکند. در گورستان است که خط پیرامون زندگی -منظورم البته حاشیهی قبرها نیست- آشکار میشود و به بیانی دیگر زندگی معنا مییابد. صفحه ۵۸۶ کتاب
قرن ما بعدها قرن خشک چشمان نام خواهد گرفت. گرچه همه جا درد بسیار است و درست به دلیل همین قحط اشک بود... صفحهای ۷۰۸ کتاب
February 12, 2021
"" خُب، انکار چرا؟ من در یک آسایشگاه روانی بستری هستم ""
شروع کتاب با عبارتِ بالا و بدون هیچ مقدمه ای از مولف و مترجم، تَک خطی است که خبر از آَشوبی 793 صفحه ای میدهد که باید و شاید خواند ، هم به همین اعتبار و هم، به اعتبار جایزه یِ نوبلِ ادبی یِ 1999 که نصیبِ نویسنده اَش شده
اولا
نویسنده کتاب، "گونتر گراس" با ترکیبِ شایسته یِ نوبلی از "خیال پردازیِ واقع گُریز" از یک سو و "واقع نگریِ خیال زُدا" از دیگر سو
داستانی بلند و گیرا، با روایتی از درونِ زندگی و زمانه یِ کودکی طبل نَواز را تعریف میکند که در سه سالگی رشد جسمانی اَش متوقف شده و در جای جایِ داستان به ورق بازی ای شیطانی و صدالبته آمیخته به تلخیِ محض با حوادث روزگار و آدمیانی سرگرم است که نه میتوانند و نه میخواهند که فریبایی یِ دنیایِ کوتوله گی اَش را محترم شمارند
گراس، از میانه یِ قرنِ جنگ و صلحِ اروپایی، داستانی انسانی میسازد، از رفقا و آشنایانی که وی، جانشان را با ابزارِ معصومیتِ کوتوله گی اَش، ابلیسانه (یا بهتر است بگویم ابلیسَکانه) به باد فنا میدهد، از رفیقی که به درخواست خودش در واپسین نفس های داستان، اعلام جرمی مضحک علیه اَش میکند تا بحکمِ محکمه، زمین گیری "آسوده بستر" در تیمارستان لقب گیرد، از رنگِ چشمانی که حیرتمندانه بیشتر به دایی زاده و معشوقه یِ مادر شبیه تَر است تا چشمان مردکی که پدر میخواند، از ریشخندِ "هر آنی، در هوائی" بودنِ دَم و دستگاهِ هیتلری و رقبایِ هم طرازَش در شرق و غرب در سفاهتِ عالم سوز، از هبوطِ از عرش به فرشِ عشقی غیرمادی و جاودانه به "لهستان" و مرزهای همیشه در کشاکشَش به عشق هایی زمینی و سوزان، تَن بنیاد و دَم به دَم نو شونده ای با دخترکان و پیرزنان که هیچیک را یارایِ هماوردی با عشقِ دیرپا به طبلش -این زبان همیشه گویایَش- نیست، که چونان قلمِ گراس، واگویه ی دیده ها و شنیده هایش است و حافظه ای بی حنجره اما خوش طنین که جان ها را شیفته کرده و خاطر ها را به معصومیت کودکی شان بازمیگرداند
دوما
ترجمه ای بَس خواستنی ویا به تعبیرِ این بنده، "فرزند وار" از سروش حبیبی که البته بعضا بِعَمد، سخت ادیبانه نوشته، تا هم بنمایدِ سخنِ دلِ گراس را و هم آنچه را که این خط سیرِ پرآشوب و انسانی برای خواننده ی ایرانی دارد را زیباتر و جاندارتَر به نمایش بگذارد، فقط اینکه استفاده یِ دریغ شده از ویرگول در ترجمه، سخت خوانی و دیرفهمی را، شاید در 30 الی 50 جمله از کتاب، لاجرم مینماید
سوما
کتابِ حاضر، در بهترین حالت یک هفته و حتی تا یک ماه، بسته به حال و احوال و عاداتِ خوانشیِ شما زمان لازم دارد تا خوشدلانه غرقِ دریایِ خیالَش شوید اما از من میشنوید این رمان را بهار و تابستان بخوانید
چهارما
فیلمی 2.5ساعته که برنده یِ اسکارِ بهترینِ فیلم خارجی یِ سال 1980 شده، بَر بُنیادِ همین رمان ساخته شده، بِنام
The Tin Drum
:تماشایِ فیلم در یوتیوب
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3j1M...
:تماشای مراسم اهدایِ اسکار 1980 به این فیلم در یوتیوب
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzYUl...
:مصاحبه ای با گونتر گراس با زیرنویس فارسی
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg-QH...
شروع کتاب با عبارتِ بالا و بدون هیچ مقدمه ای از مولف و مترجم، تَک خطی است که خبر از آَشوبی 793 صفحه ای میدهد که باید و شاید خواند ، هم به همین اعتبار و هم، به اعتبار جایزه یِ نوبلِ ادبی یِ 1999 که نصیبِ نویسنده اَش شده
اولا
نویسنده کتاب، "گونتر گراس" با ترکیبِ شایسته یِ نوبلی از "خیال پردازیِ واقع گُریز" از یک سو و "واقع نگریِ خیال زُدا" از دیگر سو
داستانی بلند و گیرا، با روایتی از درونِ زندگی و زمانه یِ کودکی طبل نَواز را تعریف میکند که در سه سالگی رشد جسمانی اَش متوقف شده و در جای جایِ داستان به ورق بازی ای شیطانی و صدالبته آمیخته به تلخیِ محض با حوادث روزگار و آدمیانی سرگرم است که نه میتوانند و نه میخواهند که فریبایی یِ دنیایِ کوتوله گی اَش را محترم شمارند
گراس، از میانه یِ قرنِ جنگ و صلحِ اروپایی، داستانی انسانی میسازد، از رفقا و آشنایانی که وی، جانشان را با ابزارِ معصومیتِ کوتوله گی اَش، ابلیسانه (یا بهتر است بگویم ابلیسَکانه) به باد فنا میدهد، از رفیقی که به درخواست خودش در واپسین نفس های داستان، اعلام جرمی مضحک علیه اَش میکند تا بحکمِ محکمه، زمین گیری "آسوده بستر" در تیمارستان لقب گیرد، از رنگِ چشمانی که حیرتمندانه بیشتر به دایی زاده و معشوقه یِ مادر شبیه تَر است تا چشمان مردکی که پدر میخواند، از ریشخندِ "هر آنی، در هوائی" بودنِ دَم و دستگاهِ هیتلری و رقبایِ هم طرازَش در شرق و غرب در سفاهتِ عالم سوز، از هبوطِ از عرش به فرشِ عشقی غیرمادی و جاودانه به "لهستان" و مرزهای همیشه در کشاکشَش به عشق هایی زمینی و سوزان، تَن بنیاد و دَم به دَم نو شونده ای با دخترکان و پیرزنان که هیچیک را یارایِ هماوردی با عشقِ دیرپا به طبلش -این زبان همیشه گویایَش- نیست، که چونان قلمِ گراس، واگویه ی دیده ها و شنیده هایش است و حافظه ای بی حنجره اما خوش طنین که جان ها را شیفته کرده و خاطر ها را به معصومیت کودکی شان بازمیگرداند
دوما
ترجمه ای بَس خواستنی ویا به تعبیرِ این بنده، "فرزند وار" از سروش حبیبی که البته بعضا بِعَمد، سخت ادیبانه نوشته، تا هم بنمایدِ سخنِ دلِ گراس را و هم آنچه را که این خط سیرِ پرآشوب و انسانی برای خواننده ی ایرانی دارد را زیباتر و جاندارتَر به نمایش بگذارد، فقط اینکه استفاده یِ دریغ شده از ویرگول در ترجمه، سخت خوانی و دیرفهمی را، شاید در 30 الی 50 جمله از کتاب، لاجرم مینماید
سوما
کتابِ حاضر، در بهترین حالت یک هفته و حتی تا یک ماه، بسته به حال و احوال و عاداتِ خوانشیِ شما زمان لازم دارد تا خوشدلانه غرقِ دریایِ خیالَش شوید اما از من میشنوید این رمان را بهار و تابستان بخوانید
چهارما
فیلمی 2.5ساعته که برنده یِ اسکارِ بهترینِ فیلم خارجی یِ سال 1980 شده، بَر بُنیادِ همین رمان ساخته شده، بِنام
The Tin Drum
:تماشایِ فیلم در یوتیوب
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3j1M...
:تماشای مراسم اهدایِ اسکار 1980 به این فیلم در یوتیوب
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzYUl...
:مصاحبه ای با گونتر گراس با زیرنویس فارسی
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg-QH...
July 23, 2020
One crazy ride. Oskar is unlike any other character you will ever read about besides maybe Tyrion Lannister. The book is a comic masterpiece, a fanciful rendering of Germany during the war and after. It is part vaudeville, part absurd, part insane, and like nearly all great literature, impossible to classify. The movie was also unbelievably great. If you want to read one book by this Nobel laureate, I would suggest starting here - you will have a hard time putting in down. I think that it would be a good companion read to Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon. This was the first of his Danzig trilogy along with the similarly excellent Cat and Mouse and the harrowing Dog Years.
August 31, 2015
Heil, Oskar Koljaiczek Matzerath-Bronski! The drummer! The magical three-year-old! The hunchback! The Jesus! The Satan! The Goethe! The Rasputin! The arsonist reincarnate! The student! The destroyer of glass! The tempter! The Skat ace! The bane of propaganda assemblies! The war veteran! The Catholic! The disciple maker! The choir boy! The fizz blower! The father! The prodigal son! The entertainer! The tombstone engraver! The art model! The devotee of nurses! The jazz musician! The star! The lover! The dog-walker extraordinaire! The friend! The accused! The insane! The man!
He comes to us as a baby, yet he stays in our hearts a legend. This little boy-man that breaks every rule of humanity yet is the epitome of humanity itself. How does he do it? A tin drum in his arms, he echoes a steady beat that moves one to lose track of the pretenses we mask ourselves with. He reduces this farce we call sanity to rubble. Bladder control shattered, heart rate rising, laughter spouting, everyone surrenders. We all are born again drenched in sweats and stink.
Who is he again, you ask?
He is you and me.
You see, all of us, like Herr Oskar, start fresh thinking ourselves timelessly young, forever denying adulthood, jesters forever being three-year-olds. We not-so-young keep adulthood at bay, a bunch of Peter Pans frolicking around the world, being silly happy, irresponsible, doing what we want, persons stuck in an age where we are merely infants, barely kids. No regard for what others think, no imparity in our straightforward vision, we arm ourselves with nothing but a tin-drum, the distilled pureness of life, a weapon against the mockery and scorn of adulthood, this sickness called youth. But then life forces us to grow up. It might be like Oskar, the death of his last remaining parent. It might be something else, something really painful. But we all bury our tin-drums and we change. We become hunchbacks, disfigured, compared to our youthful selves. Our vision, our passions they dry up and we go through life doing odd jobs, supporting our family, raising children, eating, drinking, watching movies instead of traveling, not that there’s anything wrong with this kind of life. It’s just what happens. We compromise, make the most out of the situation. That’s life for you. Given enough time, often too much time, we rediscover our youthful passions and we learn to drum again, to enjoy, to travel. But by that time the black cook called death is looming just around the corner. Singing: Ha! Ha! Ha!
But considering this, even if Oskar’s life turned out this way, look up at what all he accomplished.
It ain’t too bad, huh?
This story of a magical little man is the embodiment of the human experience. His disparate experiences which will make you laugh, feel pain, confusion, anger and a whole motley crew of other emotions is the ultimate story of man in a backdrop of extremes yet is the story of a person who chose to live life in his own terms. He illustrates that survival is not a circumstantial matter but rather a mindset you choose to adapt.
The human life with its virulent jumps through time is ever unfathomable, ever mystifying. We will never know what will happen to us nor understand why these things happen. The journey we take is wreathed with puzzling events and painful moments, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its beams of joy. The odd assortment of sentiments life makes us experience is ultimately what being human is. You smile and laugh when you feel happy and cry when you are pierced by pain. It’s choosing which moments to memorialize in our minds, which thoughts to make magical that will make the difference. Let’s hope that these moments find us. Let’s pray that we, like Oskar, find our own tin drums that will give a steady beat of purpose to our hearts. Drum away all the unnecessary baggage and crosses. Let go of your circumscribed thoughts and enjoy the thrilling, pounding moments life has to offer. Let’s laugh. Let’s dance. Let’s make magic. And magic is all about believing.
*drumrolls please*
Gunter Grass’ 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to him: "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history". Good ole Oskar was living in a period of war, but Grass tells us that the fable of life no matter how dark can always be fun. It’s just a matter of rolling with it.
Life’s a hoot ain’t it?
He comes to us as a baby, yet he stays in our hearts a legend. This little boy-man that breaks every rule of humanity yet is the epitome of humanity itself. How does he do it? A tin drum in his arms, he echoes a steady beat that moves one to lose track of the pretenses we mask ourselves with. He reduces this farce we call sanity to rubble. Bladder control shattered, heart rate rising, laughter spouting, everyone surrenders. We all are born again drenched in sweats and stink.
Who is he again, you ask?
He is you and me.
You see, all of us, like Herr Oskar, start fresh thinking ourselves timelessly young, forever denying adulthood, jesters forever being three-year-olds. We not-so-young keep adulthood at bay, a bunch of Peter Pans frolicking around the world, being silly happy, irresponsible, doing what we want, persons stuck in an age where we are merely infants, barely kids. No regard for what others think, no imparity in our straightforward vision, we arm ourselves with nothing but a tin-drum, the distilled pureness of life, a weapon against the mockery and scorn of adulthood, this sickness called youth. But then life forces us to grow up. It might be like Oskar, the death of his last remaining parent. It might be something else, something really painful. But we all bury our tin-drums and we change. We become hunchbacks, disfigured, compared to our youthful selves. Our vision, our passions they dry up and we go through life doing odd jobs, supporting our family, raising children, eating, drinking, watching movies instead of traveling, not that there’s anything wrong with this kind of life. It’s just what happens. We compromise, make the most out of the situation. That’s life for you. Given enough time, often too much time, we rediscover our youthful passions and we learn to drum again, to enjoy, to travel. But by that time the black cook called death is looming just around the corner. Singing: Ha! Ha! Ha!
But considering this, even if Oskar’s life turned out this way, look up at what all he accomplished.
It ain’t too bad, huh?
This story of a magical little man is the embodiment of the human experience. His disparate experiences which will make you laugh, feel pain, confusion, anger and a whole motley crew of other emotions is the ultimate story of man in a backdrop of extremes yet is the story of a person who chose to live life in his own terms. He illustrates that survival is not a circumstantial matter but rather a mindset you choose to adapt.
The human life with its virulent jumps through time is ever unfathomable, ever mystifying. We will never know what will happen to us nor understand why these things happen. The journey we take is wreathed with puzzling events and painful moments, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its beams of joy. The odd assortment of sentiments life makes us experience is ultimately what being human is. You smile and laugh when you feel happy and cry when you are pierced by pain. It’s choosing which moments to memorialize in our minds, which thoughts to make magical that will make the difference. Let’s hope that these moments find us. Let’s pray that we, like Oskar, find our own tin drums that will give a steady beat of purpose to our hearts. Drum away all the unnecessary baggage and crosses. Let go of your circumscribed thoughts and enjoy the thrilling, pounding moments life has to offer. Let’s laugh. Let’s dance. Let’s make magic. And magic is all about believing.
*drumrolls please*
Gunter Grass’ 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to him: "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history". Good ole Oskar was living in a period of war, but Grass tells us that the fable of life no matter how dark can always be fun. It’s just a matter of rolling with it.
Life’s a hoot ain’t it?
September 2, 2020
This, excitingly, felt like an ur-text not only of magic realism, but of a lot of later 20th-century litfic. Its postmodern self-awareness of its references, the grotesquerie and sleaze, and vagabond escapades in mundane settings, were all characteristic of the 1980s and 90s novels that were my first acquaintance with serious contemporary fiction. (And by no means only Midnight's Children, which is basically The Tin Drum plus X-Men in a different culture.) The Tin Drum's influence may have been renewed with the 1979 film (probably why there are references in early 80s music, like Japan's Tin Drum album and arguably the name Bronski Beat). Several of these key traits in fiction had already become visible in earlier 1950s writings like Lolita (1955) and early Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim, 1954) and Philip Larkin, and would soon be carried forward by Pynchon. Yes, this did sometimes pop up earlier in the twentieth century (notably Joyce, though I feel there was often something more refined and less scuzzy and claustrophobic there, regardless of subject matter, like the interwar Paris scene was, and of course its own compatriot Berlin Alexanderplatz which isn't as ludic and effervescent). The mood of The Tin Drum ultimately harks back to, at least from the English-language perspective, the 18th century picaresque romp and the early modern (Shakespeare, Rabelais, Cervantes) and late medieval (Chaucer). But, when linked with the works and trends it prefigured or inspired, The Tin Drum feels like a landmark in a general, notable break from the witty pinched primness of the interwar decades, the memory of WWI trauma and then the nervousness of the 1930s hanging over it, either hinting at or avoiding sex. (Thinking here about e.g. Woolf, and because I've read them this year, Chandler and early Hemingway as well as golden age detectives, Wodehouse etc.) There's something rather late-1960s about The Tin Drum - most especially in the scenes in The Onion Cellar jazz club in post-war Dusseldorf, which read to me like "what if people had tried to deal with WWII trauma through a 1960s happening?" - it seems to be trying to regain the liberal, experimental mood popularly associated with Weimar Berlin, which was so rudely interrupted, and bring it back into the flow of culture in whatever modified way is possible. It shows strands of continuity between that and the jazz hipsters of the 1950s and in turn the hippies.
The novel is of course deliberately un-beautiful and un-refined. The infamous scene of the eels and the horsehead, one can imagine was concocted for its especial disgustingness; readers are even treated to a detailed recap near the end. The whole project represents and celebrates what the Nazis called 'degenerate art', and the voice of a person whom they wanted to exterminate once he was no longer useful to them as entertainment. A character who, as part of further artistic reaction from the author, fails to be pure and nice in order to most neatly and piously refute them. The only character whose good looks are frequently remarked on - the beautiful blue eyed blond Jan Bronski, the embodiment of 'a lover not a fighter' - is supposed to be comically cowardly in contrast to the Nazi Aryan ideal of such a man as a brave and selfless soldier. (Though I confess I failed to notice this until analysing the book after reading, as he simply seemed like a type very recognisable to me, a man who is attractive but a bit gormless - and given that it takes actual fighting to make him recoil, not half as gormless as some 21st century men.)
That deliberate failure of Oskar to be nice is complicated: he is creepy, lascivious and at least a minor criminal - all negative stereotypes long associated with dwarves. Criticism of this is not merely a part of the 21st-century social justice movement: when Charles Dickens was writing David Copperfield in serial form (1849-50), an acquaintance of his confronted him about the character of Miss Mowcher, a dwarf like she was; Dickens began a process of modifying the character to make her more positive and less of a caricature. Oskar on one level reinforces these stereotypes, which have been seen in many films made since WWII - but the novel is also implicitly about asserting his right to choose to be alive and to be heard at length as a person, regardless of his being unpleasant and an offender, and fitting negative stereotypes. For this reason too, the reliability of his narrative is genuinely ambiguous, in unusual contrast to, say, Lolita, and many other literary unreliable narrators of the following decades.
I'd felt like I ought to read The Tin Drum since my teens, Günter Grass being one of the authors listed in The Divine Comedy track 'The Booklovers', whom I've been trying to make my way through, twenty-odd years after I would like to have finished them. At some point I also figured I should read it because it's about an important part of Polish history, albeit the very opposite end of the country from where my family came from and therefore almost a different country. (It literally was one when my grandparents were born). But the book always sounded either boring, horrible or both. One particular GR friend review a few years ago intensified my assumption that it would be horrible. But by the start of this year, I'd read at least one book by enough of the listed authors that The Tin Drum was one of only two post-war (and therefore likely easier-to-read) titles left on my list and so it was time to have a go at it when I could.
Many of the adventures Oskar relates, first of his grandparents and parents, and then his own, are more fun and expansive than I ever expected this book to be, and it isn't until a third of the way into the novel that Nazism definitively intrudes, when Kristellnacht is reported. But a background grimness always hangs over the story because the narrator mentions from the very first that he is, at the time of telling his tale, locked up in an institution - and as he is a dwarf in mid-century Germany, who also has moderate (as distinct from mild) autism-like traits and behaviours, that does not seem to bode well at all. (A GR friend who has autistic sons also saw these traits in the character.) Knowledge of Oskar's unfreedom casts shadow on the most picaresque episodes, or any times he or his allies appear to be on the up; even the grotesque episodes would read more lightly otherwise. Also strange and unpleasant was reading about the war from a German perspective without overt apologies and unambiguous resistance in the text: reading the words of news reports about German successes and failures from the official German early-1940s perspective, mentioned much as if they were weather. If I'd ever read anything else like that it was very rarely.
The Tin Drum is unlike the vast majority of WWII books where one relaxes on characters' behalf once the war is over. The constant foreshadowing subverts that usual trajectory or wartime fiction, which I'm guessing had already become a cliché by the time Grass was writing this novel. Whilst Oskar turns out to be imprisoned for quite different reasons (and, it emerges, in some ways he likes institutional life and his "keeper") the author has created a continual tension that shows how in some ways the war wasn't over and people were still living amid its wreckage and legacy, even if the literal battles had finished in Europe. Even if the West German state's ideology, and approach to someone like Oskar, is different, there can't help be some hint of his potential fate under Nazism lingering in one's imagined idea of the ending during a first reading. Official discomfort with Oskar's inappropriateness, at one stage near the end, seems to echo that with Meursault's lack of emotion. Also symbolic of the persistent legacy of the Nazi era, of people remaining partly shackled by its ideas, is that Oskar keeps returning to the idea of marrying one female character although he knows that during the war she would have acquiesced to him being killed off in a state programme with other 'defectives'.
Having recently embarked on reading the original John Constantine Hellblazer comics, in the weeks just before I read the second half of The Tin Drum they proved an interesting comparison in this respect. Background and synopses for later volumes indicate that Constantine will at points end up in prison and a psychiatric hospital, but he always gets out again. He's got trials ahead of him, that must include literally - which lends a certain heaviness - but he ultimately ends up a free man.
Drawing parallels between Oskar and comics characters seems appropriate. Maybe I give too much weight to Kavalier and Clay but as with American comics by Jewish refugees, The Tin Drum is also about degenerate art and/or the degenerate artist having superpowers (Oskar singshattering glass, in Breon Mitchell's English coinage, and his later ability to affect others' emotional states through drumming). Though Oskar, as a character of ambiguous morality and very visible flaws, has far more in common with the dark, troubled and/or satirical superheroes of the 1980s and onwards than with the Golden Age. A major difference between comics and litfic is that - as can be seen in many GR reviews of The Tin Drum - in a literary novel, if a narrator is in a mental institution, it's implied the reader should automatically conclude this is an unreliable narrator (a reflex which seems to conflict with the popularity of social-justice driven interpretations of other features of literature); whereas in comics and their recent screen adaptations, quite a lot of heroes and other trustworthy characters seem to have been in one at some point, or at least been regarded as mad by others around them (for example Thor and Erik Selvig in the Marvel Thor films). The Tin Drum, on the cusp between fantasy and literary realism, maintains its balancing act in this respect too: as a fantasy or comics protagonist, Oskar could be believed; if he is read strictly as a literary-realist protagonist, the 'magic realism' could be part of his madness. Whilst that distinction and set of trends wasn't as apparent in 1959 as it is now (though the protagonists of ghost stories often wondered if they were mad, or were suspected of being so) it still reads as if it's intentionally unresolved which Oskar is, and that is another strength of the novel that makes it a classic - it can be read as relevant to a trend which was not so fully developed as it is now.
The writing in The Tin Drum is not as overtly experimental, and more easily readable than I expected from the novel's reputation. It didn't require the level of adjustment and attention that, say, Thomas Mann would (at time of writing I've been looking again at the beginnings of his big books). However, it also has flights of the spectacular: especially in elaborate metaphors, and in the long lists and recaps in the second half of Oskar's life, the events of the novel, and the history of Danzig. Translator Breon Mitchell's afterword draws attention to the way Grass uses sentence length to create tension and momentum. (And notes that this was not replicated in the first English translation by Ralph Mannheim.)
Most of the protracted metaphors are really euphemisms, and reflect the way that many people who lived through WWII couldn't talk, or couldn't talk directly, about the events of those years. Some of them are truly impressive and subtle, such as the one in the final chapter of Part One, 'Faith, Hope, Love' about Santa Claus, almonds and the gasman. But others, especially the roundabout sexual euphemisms, which often simply seem to reflect older generations' discomfort talking directly about sex, became IMO increasingly tedious. (Though I think many GR friends who enjoy Rabelaisian novels full of wordplay would love these regardless.)
These two reasons for euphemism intersect when the story reaches the Russian occupation of Germany and the mass rapes by soldiers. At the time The Tin Drum was published, there remained a national refusal to talk about this - and that was still the case in the late 1950s, as was seen in the reception of the memoir A Woman in Berlin. So it was bold to allude to it at all. The innuendos used about it in The Tin Drum read with a playfulness that's highly inappropriate to the contemporary reader, though do probably reflect male minimisation of harm as well as the collective hushing-up, and therefore suit the era from a certain angle.
And The Tin Drum does reflect its times effectively whilst also seeming very modern in its approach (some of the latter may be because of the new English translation). It is about its times whilst also being more than that, not least because of having a few years' distance from its biggest events, and because events are a backdrop, a catalyst, not the only story even whilst they are integral to the characters' fates. Over the past couple of years, I've had a few conversations online about Brexit novels, and, more recently others with a friend about the inevitable glut of covid litfic that will be showing up over the next two or three years. In general I think it is still too close to these events for really good and interesting works to come out of them, taking account of multiple perspectives - and a lot of what there is currently or will be soon, is thinly disguised polemic and/or early processing in fictional form. (Though one or two things of enduring interest will surely come out of it via sheer weight of numbers.) Whilst reading in Part Three of The Tin Drum about the 1948 West German currency reform and its effects in multiple characters' lives, I thought *this* is how it should be done. The reform is undoubtedly pervasive and difficult in its immediate effects, yet the story is still driven by the characters and not by their opinions on the subject. I've not found out how long Grass took to write The Tin Drum, but the best part of ten years' distance, whether in composition or revisions, went into making that section the way it was. The story's arc is also thirty years or more, and when dealing with relatively recent but deep-rooted events and reactions, I think a canvas that large tends to produce the most interesting result.
There is lots I'd like to say about The Tin Drum which I haven't got space for - especially reading the novel in the context of Grass' revelations about fighting in the war, and as a work of hidden guilt. But many other aspects are covered elsewhere, so I have concentrated on a few topics that weren't in the GR reviews I've read. (A few lines more of this paragraph in comment 3 below.)
The novel is of course deliberately un-beautiful and un-refined. The infamous scene of the eels and the horsehead, one can imagine was concocted for its especial disgustingness; readers are even treated to a detailed recap near the end. The whole project represents and celebrates what the Nazis called 'degenerate art', and the voice of a person whom they wanted to exterminate once he was no longer useful to them as entertainment. A character who, as part of further artistic reaction from the author, fails to be pure and nice in order to most neatly and piously refute them. The only character whose good looks are frequently remarked on - the beautiful blue eyed blond Jan Bronski, the embodiment of 'a lover not a fighter' - is supposed to be comically cowardly in contrast to the Nazi Aryan ideal of such a man as a brave and selfless soldier. (Though I confess I failed to notice this until analysing the book after reading, as he simply seemed like a type very recognisable to me, a man who is attractive but a bit gormless - and given that it takes actual fighting to make him recoil, not half as gormless as some 21st century men.)
That deliberate failure of Oskar to be nice is complicated: he is creepy, lascivious and at least a minor criminal - all negative stereotypes long associated with dwarves. Criticism of this is not merely a part of the 21st-century social justice movement: when Charles Dickens was writing David Copperfield in serial form (1849-50), an acquaintance of his confronted him about the character of Miss Mowcher, a dwarf like she was; Dickens began a process of modifying the character to make her more positive and less of a caricature. Oskar on one level reinforces these stereotypes, which have been seen in many films made since WWII - but the novel is also implicitly about asserting his right to choose to be alive and to be heard at length as a person, regardless of his being unpleasant and an offender, and fitting negative stereotypes. For this reason too, the reliability of his narrative is genuinely ambiguous, in unusual contrast to, say, Lolita, and many other literary unreliable narrators of the following decades.
I'd felt like I ought to read The Tin Drum since my teens, Günter Grass being one of the authors listed in The Divine Comedy track 'The Booklovers', whom I've been trying to make my way through, twenty-odd years after I would like to have finished them. At some point I also figured I should read it because it's about an important part of Polish history, albeit the very opposite end of the country from where my family came from and therefore almost a different country. (It literally was one when my grandparents were born). But the book always sounded either boring, horrible or both. One particular GR friend review a few years ago intensified my assumption that it would be horrible. But by the start of this year, I'd read at least one book by enough of the listed authors that The Tin Drum was one of only two post-war (and therefore likely easier-to-read) titles left on my list and so it was time to have a go at it when I could.
Many of the adventures Oskar relates, first of his grandparents and parents, and then his own, are more fun and expansive than I ever expected this book to be, and it isn't until a third of the way into the novel that Nazism definitively intrudes, when Kristellnacht is reported. But a background grimness always hangs over the story because the narrator mentions from the very first that he is, at the time of telling his tale, locked up in an institution - and as he is a dwarf in mid-century Germany, who also has moderate (as distinct from mild) autism-like traits and behaviours, that does not seem to bode well at all. (A GR friend who has autistic sons also saw these traits in the character.) Knowledge of Oskar's unfreedom casts shadow on the most picaresque episodes, or any times he or his allies appear to be on the up; even the grotesque episodes would read more lightly otherwise. Also strange and unpleasant was reading about the war from a German perspective without overt apologies and unambiguous resistance in the text: reading the words of news reports about German successes and failures from the official German early-1940s perspective, mentioned much as if they were weather. If I'd ever read anything else like that it was very rarely.
The Tin Drum is unlike the vast majority of WWII books where one relaxes on characters' behalf once the war is over. The constant foreshadowing subverts that usual trajectory or wartime fiction, which I'm guessing had already become a cliché by the time Grass was writing this novel. Whilst Oskar turns out to be imprisoned for quite different reasons (and, it emerges, in some ways he likes institutional life and his "keeper") the author has created a continual tension that shows how in some ways the war wasn't over and people were still living amid its wreckage and legacy, even if the literal battles had finished in Europe. Even if the West German state's ideology, and approach to someone like Oskar, is different, there can't help be some hint of his potential fate under Nazism lingering in one's imagined idea of the ending during a first reading. Official discomfort with Oskar's inappropriateness, at one stage near the end, seems to echo that with Meursault's lack of emotion. Also symbolic of the persistent legacy of the Nazi era, of people remaining partly shackled by its ideas, is that Oskar keeps returning to the idea of marrying one female character although he knows that during the war she would have acquiesced to him being killed off in a state programme with other 'defectives'.
Having recently embarked on reading the original John Constantine Hellblazer comics, in the weeks just before I read the second half of The Tin Drum they proved an interesting comparison in this respect. Background and synopses for later volumes indicate that Constantine will at points end up in prison and a psychiatric hospital, but he always gets out again. He's got trials ahead of him, that must include literally - which lends a certain heaviness - but he ultimately ends up a free man.
Drawing parallels between Oskar and comics characters seems appropriate. Maybe I give too much weight to Kavalier and Clay but as with American comics by Jewish refugees, The Tin Drum is also about degenerate art and/or the degenerate artist having superpowers (Oskar singshattering glass, in Breon Mitchell's English coinage, and his later ability to affect others' emotional states through drumming). Though Oskar, as a character of ambiguous morality and very visible flaws, has far more in common with the dark, troubled and/or satirical superheroes of the 1980s and onwards than with the Golden Age. A major difference between comics and litfic is that - as can be seen in many GR reviews of The Tin Drum - in a literary novel, if a narrator is in a mental institution, it's implied the reader should automatically conclude this is an unreliable narrator (a reflex which seems to conflict with the popularity of social-justice driven interpretations of other features of literature); whereas in comics and their recent screen adaptations, quite a lot of heroes and other trustworthy characters seem to have been in one at some point, or at least been regarded as mad by others around them (for example Thor and Erik Selvig in the Marvel Thor films). The Tin Drum, on the cusp between fantasy and literary realism, maintains its balancing act in this respect too: as a fantasy or comics protagonist, Oskar could be believed; if he is read strictly as a literary-realist protagonist, the 'magic realism' could be part of his madness. Whilst that distinction and set of trends wasn't as apparent in 1959 as it is now (though the protagonists of ghost stories often wondered if they were mad, or were suspected of being so) it still reads as if it's intentionally unresolved which Oskar is, and that is another strength of the novel that makes it a classic - it can be read as relevant to a trend which was not so fully developed as it is now.
The writing in The Tin Drum is not as overtly experimental, and more easily readable than I expected from the novel's reputation. It didn't require the level of adjustment and attention that, say, Thomas Mann would (at time of writing I've been looking again at the beginnings of his big books). However, it also has flights of the spectacular: especially in elaborate metaphors, and in the long lists and recaps in the second half of Oskar's life, the events of the novel, and the history of Danzig. Translator Breon Mitchell's afterword draws attention to the way Grass uses sentence length to create tension and momentum. (And notes that this was not replicated in the first English translation by Ralph Mannheim.)
Most of the protracted metaphors are really euphemisms, and reflect the way that many people who lived through WWII couldn't talk, or couldn't talk directly, about the events of those years. Some of them are truly impressive and subtle, such as the one in the final chapter of Part One, 'Faith, Hope, Love' about Santa Claus, almonds and the gasman. But others, especially the roundabout sexual euphemisms, which often simply seem to reflect older generations' discomfort talking directly about sex, became IMO increasingly tedious. (Though I think many GR friends who enjoy Rabelaisian novels full of wordplay would love these regardless.)
These two reasons for euphemism intersect when the story reaches the Russian occupation of Germany and the mass rapes by soldiers. At the time The Tin Drum was published, there remained a national refusal to talk about this - and that was still the case in the late 1950s, as was seen in the reception of the memoir A Woman in Berlin. So it was bold to allude to it at all. The innuendos used about it in The Tin Drum read with a playfulness that's highly inappropriate to the contemporary reader, though do probably reflect male minimisation of harm as well as the collective hushing-up, and therefore suit the era from a certain angle.
And The Tin Drum does reflect its times effectively whilst also seeming very modern in its approach (some of the latter may be because of the new English translation). It is about its times whilst also being more than that, not least because of having a few years' distance from its biggest events, and because events are a backdrop, a catalyst, not the only story even whilst they are integral to the characters' fates. Over the past couple of years, I've had a few conversations online about Brexit novels, and, more recently others with a friend about the inevitable glut of covid litfic that will be showing up over the next two or three years. In general I think it is still too close to these events for really good and interesting works to come out of them, taking account of multiple perspectives - and a lot of what there is currently or will be soon, is thinly disguised polemic and/or early processing in fictional form. (Though one or two things of enduring interest will surely come out of it via sheer weight of numbers.) Whilst reading in Part Three of The Tin Drum about the 1948 West German currency reform and its effects in multiple characters' lives, I thought *this* is how it should be done. The reform is undoubtedly pervasive and difficult in its immediate effects, yet the story is still driven by the characters and not by their opinions on the subject. I've not found out how long Grass took to write The Tin Drum, but the best part of ten years' distance, whether in composition or revisions, went into making that section the way it was. The story's arc is also thirty years or more, and when dealing with relatively recent but deep-rooted events and reactions, I think a canvas that large tends to produce the most interesting result.
There is lots I'd like to say about The Tin Drum which I haven't got space for - especially reading the novel in the context of Grass' revelations about fighting in the war, and as a work of hidden guilt. But many other aspects are covered elsewhere, so I have concentrated on a few topics that weren't in the GR reviews I've read. (A few lines more of this paragraph in comment 3 below.)
February 21, 2019
Onions and Potatos
In the very first chapter, I was reminded of Midnight Children because of Oscar's conversational tone of narrative - same as that of Saleem Shinai. Once MC was in my mind couldn't help locating similarities - both narrators start their stories with the first meeting of their maternal grandparents, both like talking about sex, both of them feel need to hide from the world (Oskar in grandmother's skirts, Shinai in laundry box) etc. Still there are enough differences, MC is more magical realism, Tin Drum is more about unreliable narrator
Unreliable Narrator
Why would you consider a narrator unreliable ? He is out of mind or delusional, he is a habitual liar, he is full of inferiority or superiority complexes, he had lied to you before, he is full of guilt. Oscar fulfills all these conditions. The book begins with lines:
He has lied to his family half his life. He himself corrects lies he has told you half a book before - putting an asterisk on everything he says. He tells you he deliberately stopped growing - and faked an accident to provide the world reason for that. The fact that a lot of information comes from his drum is not too much satisfying either. He is using both first-person pronouns and his name to talk about himself - at times in the same sentence.
Hence you must take everything he says with a pinch, correction a bowl full of salt. It is funny to see how whenever you find a reason to doubt a declaration he wants to maintain, he would run to explanations - as if he was telling you his story face-to-face and had seen you rise your eye-brow in doubt.
His schizophrenia, self-obsession, and complexes though won't stop him from being witty - every page of the book has some really witty play of words on it. At times, it gets a bit trying but Oscar is too busy showing off to care about your time.
War and War guilt
War as such doesn't show up much in the book except a few chapters it contains no soldiers and guns. I don't think concentration camps were mentioned even once.
There are some allegorical elements - Oscar's mother (the source of harmony in his world) dies at onset of war, Oscar polish uncle (whom he calls his biological father) dies when Poland falls to Russians and his German father dies with fall of Germany trying to swallow Nazi party pin. Wartime madness mostly shows up in sexual madness.
Oscar's is attracted alternatively to Rasputin and Goethe in R-G-R-G sequence which seems to show Germany's WWI-peace-WWII-peace sequence.
During the war, Oscar gain popularity as an artist who could break glasses through his voice (showing how much Germans loved being shouted at) while after war it is his drumming (the creative art) that gets prominence.
However this book uses war references in a different context just as some fiction books refers to classics. Oskar is a dwarf with a glass-breaking voice - and in one scene is seen shouting at enchanted people (can you imagine some dwarf with a loud, destructive and seductive voice?).
His favorite toy is Tin Drum - a common sight in war times, for armies marched on sound of drums. His mother was a nurse and he too has a fetish for nurses, red cross nurses; another common sight in WWII. He may as well have served as war Mascot. Like Oscar's drumming, It could have been a more enchanting book for people who have lived through the war - unlike me who has to google out everything.
Oscar doesn't much like Hitler, but he has a love-hate relationship with Jesus (Hitler's title 'Fuhrer' literally means guardian; so does the word 'Christ') - depending upon his mood he doesn't believe in Jesus, believes in Jesus, is a messenger of Jesus, is Jesus himself, is father of Jesus etc. In another scene, our dwarf hero is seen leading his street gangs to invade church (Hitler brought down synagogues).
The later half of the book is full of symbols of war guilt. Besides German father's death in trying to swallow Nazi pin, we have Oscar's fall in an open grave (mirroring German fall at end of war) and working as gravestone architect (too many dead in war) but no symbol is as prominent as hunchback he develops when he chose to grow-up (just a little) at the end of war. He models for painters often portrayed entirely in black with an increasingly larger hunchback while painters completely ignored his blue eyes ( comment on the complete negative portrayal of Germany after the war?). Onion cellar club showed how having lived through war, people were so full of remorse, they were out of tears and needed to peel onions to be able to weep.
An aggressive indifference
The clash between art and war is a constant theme:
Beethoven's big painting in Oscar's house has to give up its supreme position when Oscar's parents had to put in Hitler's painting. Beethoven was an artist and was deaf, deaf to the Hitler shouting in front of him. That somewhat sums Oscar's attitude towards war. He is indifferent to what happens around him, somewhat like Albert Campus and his Stranger - but in Oscar, this indifference is too aggressive, almost insane. He refused to grow up because he thought grownups were evil and he is constantly running away from the world, looking for solitude - in grandma's skirts, under the table his three parents are playing cards on or inside some almirah. When there is firing going outside, Oskar spends his time playing cards inside. He risks his claimed biological father's life for a new drum - repeatedly. He betrays both his fathers and his street-gang-followers to save himself. When his whole family is facing a life threat, he is too busy watching the trail of ants on ground.
This indifference attracts an equal indifference from us. It is really difficult to sympathize with this guy. At times he seems to be trying to make it difficult for us to relate to him - this book can be a thousand things, but it is definitively not a melodrama.
On the size of the book
You may think that with over 550 pages or this long review, it is a long book - do not be deluded by that; through its witty pose, it becomes a much, much, much longer book, almost Dickens long. Like Dickens, Grass seemed to have perfected each chapter separately with too much detail and wit, rather than trying to keep a natural flow which makes you go to next chapter as soon as you finish one.
In the very first chapter, I was reminded of Midnight Children because of Oscar's conversational tone of narrative - same as that of Saleem Shinai. Once MC was in my mind couldn't help locating similarities - both narrators start their stories with the first meeting of their maternal grandparents, both like talking about sex, both of them feel need to hide from the world (Oskar in grandmother's skirts, Shinai in laundry box) etc. Still there are enough differences, MC is more magical realism, Tin Drum is more about unreliable narrator
Unreliable Narrator
Why would you consider a narrator unreliable ? He is out of mind or delusional, he is a habitual liar, he is full of inferiority or superiority complexes, he had lied to you before, he is full of guilt. Oscar fulfills all these conditions. The book begins with lines:
"GRANTED: I AM an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight."
He has lied to his family half his life. He himself corrects lies he has told you half a book before - putting an asterisk on everything he says. He tells you he deliberately stopped growing - and faked an accident to provide the world reason for that. The fact that a lot of information comes from his drum is not too much satisfying either. He is using both first-person pronouns and his name to talk about himself - at times in the same sentence.
Hence you must take everything he says with a pinch, correction a bowl full of salt. It is funny to see how whenever you find a reason to doubt a declaration he wants to maintain, he would run to explanations - as if he was telling you his story face-to-face and had seen you rise your eye-brow in doubt.
His schizophrenia, self-obsession, and complexes though won't stop him from being witty - every page of the book has some really witty play of words on it. At times, it gets a bit trying but Oscar is too busy showing off to care about your time.
War and War guilt
I look for the land of the Poles that is lost to the Germans, for the moment at least. Nowadays the Germans have started searching for Poland with credits, Leicas, and compasses, with radar, divining rods, delegations, and moth-eaten provincial students' associations in costume. Some carry Chopin in their hearts, others thoughts of revenge. Condemning the first four partitions of Poland, they are busily planning a fifth; in the meantime flying to Warsaw via Air France in order to deposit, with appropriate remorse, a wreath on the spot that was once the ghetto. One of these days they will go searching for Poland with rockets. I meanwhile, conjure up Poland on my drum. And this is what I drum : Poland's lost, but not forever, all are lost, but not forever, Poland's not lost forever.
War as such doesn't show up much in the book except a few chapters it contains no soldiers and guns. I don't think concentration camps were mentioned even once.
There are some allegorical elements - Oscar's mother (the source of harmony in his world) dies at onset of war, Oscar polish uncle (whom he calls his biological father) dies when Poland falls to Russians and his German father dies with fall of Germany trying to swallow Nazi party pin. Wartime madness mostly shows up in sexual madness.
Oscar's is attracted alternatively to Rasputin and Goethe in R-G-R-G sequence which seems to show Germany's WWI-peace-WWII-peace sequence.
During the war, Oscar gain popularity as an artist who could break glasses through his voice (showing how much Germans loved being shouted at) while after war it is his drumming (the creative art) that gets prominence.
An entire credulous nation believed, there's faith for you, in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the gas man.
However this book uses war references in a different context just as some fiction books refers to classics. Oskar is a dwarf with a glass-breaking voice - and in one scene is seen shouting at enchanted people (can you imagine some dwarf with a loud, destructive and seductive voice?).
His favorite toy is Tin Drum - a common sight in war times, for armies marched on sound of drums. His mother was a nurse and he too has a fetish for nurses, red cross nurses; another common sight in WWII. He may as well have served as war Mascot. Like Oscar's drumming, It could have been a more enchanting book for people who have lived through the war - unlike me who has to google out everything.
Oscar doesn't much like Hitler, but he has a love-hate relationship with Jesus (Hitler's title 'Fuhrer' literally means guardian; so does the word 'Christ') - depending upon his mood he doesn't believe in Jesus, believes in Jesus, is a messenger of Jesus, is Jesus himself, is father of Jesus etc. In another scene, our dwarf hero is seen leading his street gangs to invade church (Hitler brought down synagogues).
The later half of the book is full of symbols of war guilt. Besides German father's death in trying to swallow Nazi pin, we have Oscar's fall in an open grave (mirroring German fall at end of war) and working as gravestone architect (too many dead in war) but no symbol is as prominent as hunchback he develops when he chose to grow-up (just a little) at the end of war. He models for painters often portrayed entirely in black with an increasingly larger hunchback while painters completely ignored his blue eyes ( comment on the complete negative portrayal of Germany after the war?). Onion cellar club showed how having lived through war, people were so full of remorse, they were out of tears and needed to peel onions to be able to weep.
An aggressive indifference
The clash between art and war is a constant theme:
They are coming," he whispered. "They will take over the meadows where we pitch our tents. They will organize torchlight parades. They will build rostrums and fill them, and down from the rostrums, they will preach our destruction. Take care, young man. Always take care to be sitting on the rostrum and never to be standing out in front of it."
Beethoven's big painting in Oscar's house has to give up its supreme position when Oscar's parents had to put in Hitler's painting. Beethoven was an artist and was deaf, deaf to the Hitler shouting in front of him. That somewhat sums Oscar's attitude towards war. He is indifferent to what happens around him, somewhat like Albert Campus and his Stranger - but in Oscar, this indifference is too aggressive, almost insane. He refused to grow up because he thought grownups were evil and he is constantly running away from the world, looking for solitude - in grandma's skirts, under the table his three parents are playing cards on or inside some almirah. When there is firing going outside, Oskar spends his time playing cards inside. He risks his claimed biological father's life for a new drum - repeatedly. He betrays both his fathers and his street-gang-followers to save himself. When his whole family is facing a life threat, he is too busy watching the trail of ants on ground.
This indifference attracts an equal indifference from us. It is really difficult to sympathize with this guy. At times he seems to be trying to make it difficult for us to relate to him - this book can be a thousand things, but it is definitively not a melodrama.
On the size of the book
You may think that with over 550 pages or this long review, it is a long book - do not be deluded by that; through its witty pose, it becomes a much, much, much longer book, almost Dickens long. Like Dickens, Grass seemed to have perfected each chapter separately with too much detail and wit, rather than trying to keep a natural flow which makes you go to next chapter as soon as you finish one.
August 10, 2017
دوستانِ گرانقدر،این داستانِ جذاب، از زبانِ پسر بچه ای آلمانی به نامِ <اسکار> روایت میشود که علاقهٔ شدیدی به طبل زدن دارد و از سه سالگی به بعد، کوتوله قد مانده است و از نظر جسمانی رشد نکرده است
**************
از داستان مادربزرگ و تولدِ مادر او که بگذریم.. به آنجا میرسیم که در داستان مشخص نیست که پدر واقعی این پسرک چه کسی میباشد، چراکه مادرش از طرفی با پسر عمهٔ خود یعنی یان برونسکی که لهستانی میباشد، رابطه دارد و از سوی دیگر با مردی به نامِ آلفرد ماتزارات ارتباط دارد.. امّا از آنجایی که مادر اسکار با ماتزارات ازدواج میکند، لذا اسکار پسر ماتزارات لقب میگیرد و فامیلی او نیز ماتزارات میشود،.. امّا ممکن است که فرزندِ یان برونسکی باشد
در موردِ زمان تولدش اسکار میگوید: اولین تلألوئی که در این دنیا دیدم، نور یک لامپِ 60 واتی بود و چشم اندازِ درامر شدن و طبل نوازی بود که از اشتیاقِ بسیار زیادِ من به برگشتن به رحمِ مادرم، جلوگیری میکرد
در دروازدهم سمپتامبر سال 1924، اسکار تولد سه سالگی خود را جشن میگیرد و در یک شیطنتِ کودکانه از زیر زمین به پایین می افتد و سرش ضربه میخورد و دیگر از آن زمان به بعد حتی یک سانت هم قدش رشد نمی کند
طبل زدن های اسکار بسیار گوش خراش بود و از آن آزار دهنده تر و گوش خراشتر صدای جیغ های وحشتناکِ او بود ... جیغ های اسکار هر شیشه ای را میتوانست خورد کند.. او در هیچ حالتی طبل را از خودش جدا نمیکرد و حتی در مدرسه و حتی در حال لباس درآوردن، اگر کسی طبل را از او میگرفت آنچنان جیغ میزد که شیشه ها فرو میریخت... حتی یکی از پزشکان شهر تصمیم میگیرد تا مقاله ای پزشکی در مورد این ناهنجاری حنجرهٔ اسکار بنویسد
اسکار روز به روز از نظر سنی بزرگ میشود و حدوداً به دوازده سالگی میرسد و همچنان کوتوله مانده است و طبل را نیز به همراه دارد و مادرش نیز کماکان با پسرعمه اش رابطهٔ مخفیانه دارد و اسکار هم این را میداند... روزهای پرخروش سخنرانی های پیشوا و یا همان هیتلرِ بزرگ است و آلمانها قصد دارند تا مناطقی را که پس از جنگ جهانی اول به زور از آنها گرفته شده است و بخشی از آن به دست لهستانی ها افتاده است را باز پس گیرند
مادر اسکار به دلیل فشارهای روانی شروع به خوردن ماهی خام میکند و خودکشی کرده و اسکار در نزدیک به سن 16 سالگی مادرش را از دست میدهد
مادربزرگ اسکار، دختری همسن اسکار به نامِ آنا را به پدر اسکار معرفی میکند تا در کارهای مغازه و خانه به آنها کمک کند.. اسکارِ شانزده ساله، عاشقِ آنا میشود..و حتی یکشب با آنا سکس دارد... اما یکروز پدرش را در حا�� سکس با آنا میبیند و دیگر دخترک از چشم اسکار می افتد
زندگی اسکار زمانی از یکنواختی خارج میشود که با گروه کوتوله ها به رهبری کوتوله ای سن بالا به نامِ ببرا و دختری کوتوله به نامِ رزویتا آشنا میشود و برای شاد کردن دل سربازهای آلمانی با آنها شروع به سفر به مناطق جنگی میکند... و عاشق رزویتا میشود
****************
عزیزانم... بهتر است خودتان این داستان را بخوانید و از سرنوشت آن آگاه شوید... آیا اسکار برای همیشه کوتوله میماند؟ عشقِ او به رزویتا به سرانجام خواهد رسید و یا خیر! جنگ چه تغییراتی در زندگی او و اشخاصی که در زندگی او نقش دارند، ایجاد خواهد کرد؟ با خواندن داستان به پاسخ این سؤال ها خواهید رسید
--------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ شناختِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
**************
از داستان مادربزرگ و تولدِ مادر او که بگذریم.. به آنجا میرسیم که در داستان مشخص نیست که پدر واقعی این پسرک چه کسی میباشد، چراکه مادرش از طرفی با پسر عمهٔ خود یعنی یان برونسکی که لهستانی میباشد، رابطه دارد و از سوی دیگر با مردی به نامِ آلفرد ماتزارات ارتباط دارد.. امّا از آنجایی که مادر اسکار با ماتزارات ازدواج میکند، لذا اسکار پسر ماتزارات لقب میگیرد و فامیلی او نیز ماتزارات میشود،.. امّا ممکن است که فرزندِ یان برونسکی باشد
در موردِ زمان تولدش اسکار میگوید: اولین تلألوئی که در این دنیا دیدم، نور یک لامپِ 60 واتی بود و چشم اندازِ درامر شدن و طبل نوازی بود که از اشتیاقِ بسیار زیادِ من به برگشتن به رحمِ مادرم، جلوگیری میکرد
در دروازدهم سمپتامبر سال 1924، اسکار تولد سه سالگی خود را جشن میگیرد و در یک شیطنتِ کودکانه از زیر زمین به پایین می افتد و سرش ضربه میخورد و دیگر از آن زمان به بعد حتی یک سانت هم قدش رشد نمی کند
طبل زدن های اسکار بسیار گوش خراش بود و از آن آزار دهنده تر و گوش خراشتر صدای جیغ های وحشتناکِ او بود ... جیغ های اسکار هر شیشه ای را میتوانست خورد کند.. او در هیچ حالتی طبل را از خودش جدا نمیکرد و حتی در مدرسه و حتی در حال لباس درآوردن، اگر کسی طبل را از او میگرفت آنچنان جیغ میزد که شیشه ها فرو میریخت... حتی یکی از پزشکان شهر تصمیم میگیرد تا مقاله ای پزشکی در مورد این ناهنجاری حنجرهٔ اسکار بنویسد
اسکار روز به روز از نظر سنی بزرگ میشود و حدوداً به دوازده سالگی میرسد و همچنان کوتوله مانده است و طبل را نیز به همراه دارد و مادرش نیز کماکان با پسرعمه اش رابطهٔ مخفیانه دارد و اسکار هم این را میداند... روزهای پرخروش سخنرانی های پیشوا و یا همان هیتلرِ بزرگ است و آلمانها قصد دارند تا مناطقی را که پس از جنگ جهانی اول به زور از آنها گرفته شده است و بخشی از آن به دست لهستانی ها افتاده است را باز پس گیرند
مادر اسکار به دلیل فشارهای روانی شروع به خوردن ماهی خام میکند و خودکشی کرده و اسکار در نزدیک به سن 16 سالگی مادرش را از دست میدهد
مادربزرگ اسکار، دختری همسن اسکار به نامِ آنا را به پدر اسکار معرفی میکند تا در کارهای مغازه و خانه به آنها کمک کند.. اسکارِ شانزده ساله، عاشقِ آنا میشود..و حتی یکشب با آنا سکس دارد... اما یکروز پدرش را در حا�� سکس با آنا میبیند و دیگر دخترک از چشم اسکار می افتد
زندگی اسکار زمانی از یکنواختی خارج میشود که با گروه کوتوله ها به رهبری کوتوله ای سن بالا به نامِ ببرا و دختری کوتوله به نامِ رزویتا آشنا میشود و برای شاد کردن دل سربازهای آلمانی با آنها شروع به سفر به مناطق جنگی میکند... و عاشق رزویتا میشود
****************
عزیزانم... بهتر است خودتان این داستان را بخوانید و از سرنوشت آن آگاه شوید... آیا اسکار برای همیشه کوتوله میماند؟ عشقِ او به رزویتا به سرانجام خواهد رسید و یا خیر! جنگ چه تغییراتی در زندگی او و اشخاصی که در زندگی او نقش دارند، ایجاد خواهد کرد؟ با خواندن داستان به پاسخ این سؤال ها خواهید رسید
--------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ شناختِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
April 17, 2023
"A cualquiera que intentara quitarme el tambor le rompí, quebré, e hice añicos, a grito de chillidos, cristales de ventanas, vasos llenos de cerveza llenos, botellas de cerveza vacías, frascos de perfume, platones de adorno, y en una palabra toda clase de objetos de vidrio manufacturados por el vidriera, en parte como simple vidrio o como artístico."
“El tambor de hojalata” de Günter Grass es una de esas novelas que uno ve en las librerías de usados y generan intriga, ya sea por su título o por la tapa que hayan elegido para la novela. Siempre la miré buscando saber de qué se trataba la historia y decidí leerla.
El trabajo de Grass en esta extensísima novela es titánico, posee arrebatos de realismo mágico, género fantástico y parodia y en ella, el niño Oscar Matzerath decide detener su crecimiento a la edad de tres años aunque su cuerpo indique otra cosa.
La historia comprende el período que va desde el año 1920 hasta 1950, o sea, desde que Oscar narra cómo fue engendrada su madre hasta que cumple los 30 años de edad y además comienza contando su historia desde el hospital psiquiátrico en el que se encuentra internado con Bruno, el enfermero devenido casi en su asistente personal.
La novela posee infinidad de anécdotas contadas por el pequeño Oscar quien, para expresarse además de tocar su tambor decorado con triángulos rojos y blancos también es dueño de un poderoso grito capaz de destruir cristales de todo tipo, cosa que sucede en distintas oportunidades.
Es innegable hablar de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y del nazismo, ya que la posición, tanto de Oscar y de los personajes secundarios que lo rodean tanto del autor es más bien ambivalente ya que los aberrantes sucesos protagonizados por los nazis (especialmente el relato de la violenta, fatídica y horrorosa “Noche de los cristales rotos” o “Kristallnacht”) son vistas por un ingenuo Oscar y más bien puesto a consideración del lector el juzgamiento de los hechos de esa noche del 9 al 10 de noviembre de 1938. Mismo caso para la defensa de la oficina de correos polaca en Danzig (Gdansk) que los nazis atacaron con toda su furia el 1° de septiembre de 1939.
Volviendo a la novela, el pequeño Oscar vive al principio con su madre, su padre biológico y el amante de su madre. De esta manera, ese triángulo entre Oscar, Alfred Matzerath y el polaco Jan Bronski llevarán a cabo gran parte de los episodios y sucesos que aparecerán a lo largo de la novela. Con la aparición de María mucho más adelante que se transformará en su novia y en la madre de su hijo Kurt, Oscar decidirá girar en 180° para buscar un destino que lo lleve donde él quiera, eso sí: siempre acompañado por su tambor de hojalata.
Esta novela, extensa y por momentos densa y compleja es sustentada por otras tantas que poseen esa misma densidad narrativa pero que a la hora de encarar su lectura depara atención e interés inmediato.
Realmente vale la pena leer “El tambor de hojalata”.
“El tambor de hojalata” de Günter Grass es una de esas novelas que uno ve en las librerías de usados y generan intriga, ya sea por su título o por la tapa que hayan elegido para la novela. Siempre la miré buscando saber de qué se trataba la historia y decidí leerla.
El trabajo de Grass en esta extensísima novela es titánico, posee arrebatos de realismo mágico, género fantástico y parodia y en ella, el niño Oscar Matzerath decide detener su crecimiento a la edad de tres años aunque su cuerpo indique otra cosa.
La historia comprende el período que va desde el año 1920 hasta 1950, o sea, desde que Oscar narra cómo fue engendrada su madre hasta que cumple los 30 años de edad y además comienza contando su historia desde el hospital psiquiátrico en el que se encuentra internado con Bruno, el enfermero devenido casi en su asistente personal.
La novela posee infinidad de anécdotas contadas por el pequeño Oscar quien, para expresarse además de tocar su tambor decorado con triángulos rojos y blancos también es dueño de un poderoso grito capaz de destruir cristales de todo tipo, cosa que sucede en distintas oportunidades.
Es innegable hablar de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y del nazismo, ya que la posición, tanto de Oscar y de los personajes secundarios que lo rodean tanto del autor es más bien ambivalente ya que los aberrantes sucesos protagonizados por los nazis (especialmente el relato de la violenta, fatídica y horrorosa “Noche de los cristales rotos” o “Kristallnacht”) son vistas por un ingenuo Oscar y más bien puesto a consideración del lector el juzgamiento de los hechos de esa noche del 9 al 10 de noviembre de 1938. Mismo caso para la defensa de la oficina de correos polaca en Danzig (Gdansk) que los nazis atacaron con toda su furia el 1° de septiembre de 1939.
Volviendo a la novela, el pequeño Oscar vive al principio con su madre, su padre biológico y el amante de su madre. De esta manera, ese triángulo entre Oscar, Alfred Matzerath y el polaco Jan Bronski llevarán a cabo gran parte de los episodios y sucesos que aparecerán a lo largo de la novela. Con la aparición de María mucho más adelante que se transformará en su novia y en la madre de su hijo Kurt, Oscar decidirá girar en 180° para buscar un destino que lo lleve donde él quiera, eso sí: siempre acompañado por su tambor de hojalata.
Esta novela, extensa y por momentos densa y compleja es sustentada por otras tantas que poseen esa misma densidad narrativa pero que a la hora de encarar su lectura depara atención e interés inmediato.
Realmente vale la pena leer “El tambor de hojalata”.
December 10, 2021
گونتر گراس در رشتهی مجسمهسازی تحصیل کرد. در سال ۱۹۵۹ رمان طبل حلبی او را به اوج شهرت رساند. در این رمان، و نیز در رمان سالهای سگی که در سال ۱۹۶۳ منتشر کرد، جزییات واقعی با تخیلات عجیب و غریب در هم آمیختهاند. در اغلب رمانهای گراس، محل وقوع حوادث همان محل تولد خود نویسنده است. گراس شعر هم میگفت و اغلب خود، آنها را مصور میکرد.
🥁
روزی روزگاری یک پسر بچهای بود که مدام طبل میزد؛ اسم او اسکار بود. او مادر بیچارهاش را بخاطر خوردن بیش از حد ماهی از دست داده! اسکار زیاد دست به گل به آب میداد؛ پسربچهای بود که بدون طبل حلبیاش نمیتوانست زندگی کند. او در سه سالگی جا مانده و رشد جسمیاش متوقف شده بود ولی در عوض صدایی داشت که تمام شیشهها را میلرزاند و میشکست. قدرتی فوقالعاده و دور از تصور در حالیکه همه گمان میکردند او کندذهن است، ولی همه چیز را به خوبی میفهمید و کاملا در جریان اتفاقات و وقایعی که در اطرافش میگذشت، بود!
🥁
کتاب برای من کمی کسلکننده بود و در بعضی جاهای کتاب واقعا از دست اسکار، راوی داستان حرص میخوردم و دلم میخواست زودتر کتاب را تمام کنم. غیرقابل اعتماد بودن راوی، شخصیت دور از ذهن و تصورش گاهی آزاردهنده میشد. البته در اینکه کتاب از شاهکارهای ادبیات جهان است و در لیست رمانهای برتر قرار دارد جای شک نیست.
🥁
روزی روزگاری یک پسر بچهای بود که مدام طبل میزد؛ اسم او اسکار بود. او مادر بیچارهاش را بخاطر خوردن بیش از حد ماهی از دست داده! اسکار زیاد دست به گل به آب میداد؛ پسربچهای بود که بدون طبل حلبیاش نمیتوانست زندگی کند. او در سه سالگی جا مانده و رشد جسمیاش متوقف شده بود ولی در عوض صدایی داشت که تمام شیشهها را میلرزاند و میشکست. قدرتی فوقالعاده و دور از تصور در حالیکه همه گمان میکردند او کندذهن است، ولی همه چیز را به خوبی میفهمید و کاملا در جریان اتفاقات و وقایعی که در اطرافش میگذشت، بود!
🥁
کتاب برای من کمی کسلکننده بود و در بعضی جاهای کتاب واقعا از دست اسکار، راوی داستان حرص میخوردم و دلم میخواست زودتر کتاب را تمام کنم. غیرقابل اعتماد بودن راوی، شخصیت دور از ذهن و تصورش گاهی آزاردهنده میشد. البته در اینکه کتاب از شاهکارهای ادبیات جهان است و در لیست رمانهای برتر قرار دارد جای شک نیست.
September 7, 2024
داستان از اون جایی شروع میشه که اسکار ۳۰ ساله ولی از لحاظ قد و قامت ۳ ساله (شخصیت اصلی داستان) در آسایشگاه روانی بسترییه و داستان زندگیاش رو از زمان آشنایی پدربزرگ با مادربزرگش در کشور آلمان (حدود سال ۱۹۰۰) شروع میکنه و تا زمان حالی که در بیمارستان حضور داره مینویسه. انتقاد از مسائل اجتماعی-سیاسی و مصائب دو جنگجهانی با زبان طنز، پرسوناژهای عجیبغریب گورزاد و فلکزده با رفتارهای بامزه و خندهدار، قلم کنایهای و شیرین، جزییات بسیار زیاد داستانی و حوادث نیمهواقعی-نیمهجادویی ویژگیهای اصلی طبل حلبی گونتر گراسه.
به شخصه چندتا از موقعیتها و شخصیتهای داستانیاش انقدر برام زنده و پویا بود که فکر کنم برای همیشه در ذهنم موندگار شد.
کی میتونه با خوندن این کتاب اسکار قوزقوزی کوتوله رو با اون طبل دور سفید و سرخش و جیغهاش یادش بره؟ یا مثلا گرف سبزیفروش که علاقه ویژهای به پسربچهها داشت :)؟
یا کی میتونه اون کلهی سیاه اسب رو که پر از مارماهی بود، فراموش کنه؟ یا ماریای گرد و غلنبه رو که همیشه بوی وانیل میداد؟
به طور مثال اسکار ماریا رو اینطوری توصیف میکنه: "سر کوچک ماریا که در مشت جا میگرفت به گونههای تپل و برجسته استخوان و چشمانی درشت و زیبا در دو جانب بینی ظریف و ناچیزش آراسته بود. از مشخصات بدنش، که او را در شمار کوتاهقامتان میسازد شانه های فراخ و پستان های برجستهاش بود که انگاری درست از زیر بغلش روییده بود و سرین پت و پهنش که درست در نشیمنگاه مستراح جا میافتاد. این بقچهبندی بر روی دو ران لاغر سوار بود که میانشان، زیر موهای شرمگاه طاقنصرتی میانخالی پدید میآورد و روی هم رفته میان آن سر و این بدن خویشاوندی آشکاری دیده میشد.[..] انگشتان تپلاش به سوسیسهای کوچکی میمانست." ص ۳۴۷
این کتاب پر از اتفاقات و شخصیتهای کولی با توصیفهای پرآبوتاب و غیرمستقیم و استعاری بهصورت طنزه و خوندنشون شیرینی خاصی داره و مدام مخاطب رو اغوا و وسوسه میکنه که یه صفحه بیشتر بخون! من رو میبینی؟ من رو ببلع!
نکته مهم دیگری که در داستان وجود داره و زیاد هم آشکار نیست و کمتر بهش پرداخته شده ولی در پایان کتاب از زبون خود اسکار باهاش مواجه میشیم روح تاریخه. چیزی که با عنوان آشپز سیاه یا دده آشپز داخل داستان وجود داره و تمام اتفاقات تاریخ و زندگی زیر سایه سیاه اون اتفاق میافته و مثل ملکالموتی داسبهدست بالای سر شخصیتهای داستان و گوشه و کنار داستان قرار داره و جریان های تاریخی و داستانی رو پیش میبره و در پایان کتاب اسکار حضورش رو بیشتر احساس میکنه: "آنچه آنوقتها مرا در راهپله میترساند یا در زیرزمین و زغالدانی ناگهان صدا میداد و توی دلم را خالی میکرد تا من بخندم همیشه همهجا بود گرچه پنهان بود..[..] دیگر از اسکار نپرسید که او که بود. دیگر هیچ کلمهای برای وصف او ندارم، زیرا آنکه اول پشت سرم مینشست و بعد قوزم را میبوسید از این به بعد به پیشبازم میآید." ص۷۹۰_۷۹۲
پ.ن: اوایل کتاب به شدت پر از غلطهای ویراستاری بود که توی ذوق میزد ولی رفتهرفته بهتر شد. ترجمه سروش حبیبی مثل همیشه خوبه فقط بعضی قسمتهای کتاب مثل فصل نیوبه یا اشارهاش به جزیره lesbos یا ارجاعها به شخصیت های تاریخی و داستانی ادیسه و چند قلم دیگه نیازمند پانویس و توضیح مترجم بود که دریغ شده بود.
۱۴۰۳/۰۳/۲۰
به شخصه چندتا از موقعیتها و شخصیتهای داستانیاش انقدر برام زنده و پویا بود که فکر کنم برای همیشه در ذهنم موندگار شد.
کی میتونه با خوندن این کتاب اسکار قوزقوزی کوتوله رو با اون طبل دور سفید و سرخش و جیغهاش یادش بره؟ یا مثلا گرف سبزیفروش که علاقه ویژهای به پسربچهها داشت :)؟
یا کی میتونه اون کلهی سیاه اسب رو که پر از مارماهی بود، فراموش کنه؟ یا ماریای گرد و غلنبه رو که همیشه بوی وانیل میداد؟
به طور مثال اسکار ماریا رو اینطوری توصیف میکنه: "سر کوچک ماریا که در مشت جا میگرفت به گونههای تپل و برجسته استخوان و چشمانی درشت و زیبا در دو جانب بینی ظریف و ناچیزش آراسته بود. از مشخصات بدنش، که او را در شمار کوتاهقامتان میسازد شانه های فراخ و پستان های برجستهاش بود که انگاری درست از زیر بغلش روییده بود و سرین پت و پهنش که درست در نشیمنگاه مستراح جا میافتاد. این بقچهبندی بر روی دو ران لاغر سوار بود که میانشان، زیر موهای شرمگاه طاقنصرتی میانخالی پدید میآورد و روی هم رفته میان آن سر و این بدن خویشاوندی آشکاری دیده میشد.[..] انگشتان تپلاش به سوسیسهای کوچکی میمانست." ص ۳۴۷
این کتاب پر از اتفاقات و شخصیتهای کولی با توصیفهای پرآبوتاب و غیرمستقیم و استعاری بهصورت طنزه و خوندنشون شیرینی خاصی داره و مدام مخاطب رو اغوا و وسوسه میکنه که یه صفحه بیشتر بخون! من رو میبینی؟ من رو ببلع!
نکته مهم دیگری که در داستان وجود داره و زیاد هم آشکار نیست و کمتر بهش پرداخته شده ولی در پایان کتاب از زبون خود اسکار باهاش مواجه میشیم روح تاریخه. چیزی که با عنوان آشپز سیاه یا دده آشپز داخل داستان وجود داره و تمام اتفاقات تاریخ و زندگی زیر سایه سیاه اون اتفاق میافته و مثل ملکالموتی داسبهدست بالای سر شخصیتهای داستان و گوشه و کنار داستان قرار داره و جریان های تاریخی و داستانی رو پیش میبره و در پایان کتاب اسکار حضورش رو بیشتر احساس میکنه: "آنچه آنوقتها مرا در راهپله میترساند یا در زیرزمین و زغالدانی ناگهان صدا میداد و توی دلم را خالی میکرد تا من بخندم همیشه همهجا بود گرچه پنهان بود..[..] دیگر از اسکار نپرسید که او که بود. دیگر هیچ کلمهای برای وصف او ندارم، زیرا آنکه اول پشت سرم مینشست و بعد قوزم را میبوسید از این به بعد به پیشبازم میآید." ص۷۹۰_۷۹۲
پ.ن: اوایل کتاب به شدت پر از غلطهای ویراستاری بود که توی ذوق میزد ولی رفتهرفته بهتر شد. ترجمه سروش حبیبی مثل همیشه خوبه فقط بعضی قسمتهای کتاب مثل فصل نیوبه یا اشارهاش به جزیره lesbos یا ارجاعها به شخصیت های تاریخی و داستانی ادیسه و چند قلم دیگه نیازمند پانویس و توضیح مترجم بود که دریغ شده بود.
۱۴۰۳/۰۳/۲۰
September 20, 2022
The story here is thoroughly absorbing. The writing is of its own style—creative, unique, one-of-a-kind. Simply marvelous.
The book is perfect as I lie in the hospital with a fractured kneecap. I hope to return home with the leg in a brace at the end of the week. Life was never said to be easy.
During twelve days the book has kept me thoroughly occupied. Now at home, I have finished the book and am writing my review.
The story is an autobiographical memoir written by a dwarf. Writing from an insane asylum in 1954, he is thirty. He recounts the events of his life and in so doing draws a picture of Nazi Germany before, during and after the Second World War. Born in Danzig (today Gdansk, Poland), we view through his peregrinations not only Danzig but also Dusseldorf and France, particularly Normandy. What is delivered is a satire, a bizarre, picturesque and vivid tale seeped in magical realism.
The idiom, “to beat a drum”, is to bring attention to a cause, and that is what the book does /did. It won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1999. Oskar, it is he who is the dwarf, the midget, who through his drumming protests against the era as well as the middle-class mentality of his family. Gunter Grass, a German, delivers a sharp critique of Germany and the mindset that prevailed. When the book first came out in 1959, it was banned. It was dubbed as blasphemous.
Oskar, rebels by two means—his drumming and shrill singing. Windows splinter. Glass shatters. This is merely one example of how magical realism is woven into the tale.
I listened to the version translated into English by Ralph Manheim. In my view the prose is the tale’s strongest point. The choice of words enhances the value of the tale told. Don’t hesitate to read this translation.
The audiobook is narrated by Robert Gladwell. He speaks clearly, although I did reduce the speed. The prose is meant to be savored and thought about. I have given the narration four stars. The pronunciation of some names are a bit off. This is not of much importance. Perhaps I should have given the narration five stars--it was easy to follow all the way through. This is helpful in those parts that are confusing when your mind is whirling, grasping to understand the author’s implied message.
I love this book for its creativity, its vividness and how it delivers its message. The writing is a real treat.
************************
*The Tin Drum 5 stars
*Cat and Mouse TBR
*Dog Years TBR
The book is perfect as I lie in the hospital with a fractured kneecap. I hope to return home with the leg in a brace at the end of the week. Life was never said to be easy.
During twelve days the book has kept me thoroughly occupied. Now at home, I have finished the book and am writing my review.
The story is an autobiographical memoir written by a dwarf. Writing from an insane asylum in 1954, he is thirty. He recounts the events of his life and in so doing draws a picture of Nazi Germany before, during and after the Second World War. Born in Danzig (today Gdansk, Poland), we view through his peregrinations not only Danzig but also Dusseldorf and France, particularly Normandy. What is delivered is a satire, a bizarre, picturesque and vivid tale seeped in magical realism.
The idiom, “to beat a drum”, is to bring attention to a cause, and that is what the book does /did. It won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1999. Oskar, it is he who is the dwarf, the midget, who through his drumming protests against the era as well as the middle-class mentality of his family. Gunter Grass, a German, delivers a sharp critique of Germany and the mindset that prevailed. When the book first came out in 1959, it was banned. It was dubbed as blasphemous.
Oskar, rebels by two means—his drumming and shrill singing. Windows splinter. Glass shatters. This is merely one example of how magical realism is woven into the tale.
I listened to the version translated into English by Ralph Manheim. In my view the prose is the tale’s strongest point. The choice of words enhances the value of the tale told. Don’t hesitate to read this translation.
The audiobook is narrated by Robert Gladwell. He speaks clearly, although I did reduce the speed. The prose is meant to be savored and thought about. I have given the narration four stars. The pronunciation of some names are a bit off. This is not of much importance. Perhaps I should have given the narration five stars--it was easy to follow all the way through. This is helpful in those parts that are confusing when your mind is whirling, grasping to understand the author’s implied message.
I love this book for its creativity, its vividness and how it delivers its message. The writing is a real treat.
************************
*The Tin Drum 5 stars
*Cat and Mouse TBR
*Dog Years TBR
April 5, 2024
أطرق الرئيس اليمني علي عبد الله صالح وهو يفكر في طلب الروائي الألماني غونتر غراس. فبعد أن عرض الأول على الأخير تكريمه بوسام استحقاق، وضع الأديب شرطاً لقبوله، وهو إسقاط التهم الموجهة للروائي اليمني وجدي الأهدل بسبب روايته (قوارب جبلية) بالإضافة إلى حمايته من الملاحقة القضائية. انتهى الموقف بقبول الرئيس الراحل الشرط، وتكريم الأديب الألماني، واستعادة الأهدل حريته.
تكشف لنا هذه الواقعة الجانب الإنساني في غونتر غراس، والذي جسد مثالاً للمثقف الذي لا يلهث وراء الجوائز أياً كان الثمن. من المعروف أن غراس أحد أشهر الأدباء الألمان والحاصل على جائزة نوبل عام 1999. من أشهر أعماله سنوات الكلاب والقط والفأر والطبل الصفيح، التي قد تعد أشهرها وهي موضوع هذه المراجعة.
خصلتان تبرزان للقارئ عندما يطالع هذه الرواية لأول مرة: عنوانها الذي لا يفصح عن شيء، وحجمها الذي قد يُنفِّر البعض ويشعل الحماسة في البعض الآخر. أما تصنفيها فليس بسهل هو الآخر، يمكنني الافتراض بأنه يحمل ملامح الواقعية السحرية، الفانتازيا التاريخية والكوميديا السوداء. خليط جذاب، أليس كذلك؟
نرافق أوسكار منذ ميلاده حتى ثلاثينياته. أوسكار قصير القامة الذي توقف نموه منذ نعومة أظفاره، وعشق الطبل منذ سن الثالثة فلازمه في الحل والترحال حتى غدا جزءًا منه. أوسكار اللطيف الذي إن غضب صرخ حتى تتحطم النوافذ والأكواب وحتى عدسات النظارات. ابتداءً من الصفحات الأولى، سيلمس القارئ تلك العناصر الغرائبية في السرد، ثم ما يلبث أن يصطدم بأحداث تاريخية تحوم حول الحرب العالمية الثانية، وخصوصاً اجتياح ألمانية النازية لبولندا. بهذا تجمع الرواية ما بين مرونة الخيال وصلابة الواقع.
ونظراً لحجم الرواية الضخم، لا يجدر بالقارئ التوقع بأن تكون الفصول بنفس الجودة، والأجزاء بنفس درجة الإمتاع. ثمة فصول مضحكة، ممتعة، أو مؤثرة، وأخرى يداهمك الملل وأنت تخوض فيها. ربما كان فصل "قبو البصل" من أمتع الأجزاء التي مرت علي في "الطبل الصفيح".
يجدر بالذكر أن الرواية تحولت إلى فلم عام 1979 وحصد العديد من الجوائز. استعرضت الفلم سريعاً على اليوتيوب ووجدت فيه الكثير مشاهد الرواية كما هي. كدأب الروايات الطويلة، ستجد عسراً في بعض مراحل القراءة، لكنك ما إن تفرغ منها حتى تشعر بالإنجاز، وبأنك كسبت صديقاً جديداً؛ صديق اسمه أوسكار.
تكشف لنا هذه الواقعة الجانب الإنساني في غونتر غراس، والذي جسد مثالاً للمثقف الذي لا يلهث وراء الجوائز أياً كان الثمن. من المعروف أن غراس أحد أشهر الأدباء الألمان والحاصل على جائزة نوبل عام 1999. من أشهر أعماله سنوات الكلاب والقط والفأر والطبل الصفيح، التي قد تعد أشهرها وهي موضوع هذه المراجعة.
خصلتان تبرزان للقارئ عندما يطالع هذه الرواية لأول مرة: عنوانها الذي لا يفصح عن شيء، وحجمها الذي قد يُنفِّر البعض ويشعل الحماسة في البعض الآخر. أما تصنفيها فليس بسهل هو الآخر، يمكنني الافتراض بأنه يحمل ملامح الواقعية السحرية، الفانتازيا التاريخية والكوميديا السوداء. خليط جذاب، أليس كذلك؟
نرافق أوسكار منذ ميلاده حتى ثلاثينياته. أوسكار قصير القامة الذي توقف نموه منذ نعومة أظفاره، وعشق الطبل منذ سن الثالثة فلازمه في الحل والترحال حتى غدا جزءًا منه. أوسكار اللطيف الذي إن غضب صرخ حتى تتحطم النوافذ والأكواب وحتى عدسات النظارات. ابتداءً من الصفحات الأولى، سيلمس القارئ تلك العناصر الغرائبية في السرد، ثم ما يلبث أن يصطدم بأحداث تاريخية تحوم حول الحرب العالمية الثانية، وخصوصاً اجتياح ألمانية النازية لبولندا. بهذا تجمع الرواية ما بين مرونة الخيال وصلابة الواقع.
ونظراً لحجم الرواية الضخم، لا يجدر بالقارئ التوقع بأن تكون الفصول بنفس الجودة، والأجزاء بنفس درجة الإمتاع. ثمة فصول مضحكة، ممتعة، أو مؤثرة، وأخرى يداهمك الملل وأنت تخوض فيها. ربما كان فصل "قبو البصل" من أمتع الأجزاء التي مرت علي في "الطبل الصفيح".
يجدر بالذكر أن الرواية تحولت إلى فلم عام 1979 وحصد العديد من الجوائز. استعرضت الفلم سريعاً على اليوتيوب ووجدت فيه الكثير مشاهد الرواية كما هي. كدأب الروايات الطويلة، ستجد عسراً في بعض مراحل القراءة، لكنك ما إن تفرغ منها حتى تشعر بالإنجاز، وبأنك كسبت صديقاً جديداً؛ صديق اسمه أوسكار.
October 13, 2024
¿Es Oscar Matzerath un niño genio, un adolescente perverso o un loco asesino? La pluma de Grass entrecruza endiablada y repetitivamente la realidad y la fantasía, el crimen y el castigo, lo místico y lo infame, sin piedad ni descanso para el agotado lector. Extenuante. Intrincada. Desbordante. Con una libertad creativa pocas veces vista. La extraña historia de un país deshecho por la guerra y la de un ser oscuro, grotesco y desamparado aferrado estoicamente a su tambor.
April 13, 2015
Re-visit 2015: Günter Grass, Nobel-winning German novelist, dies aged 87
Description: Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...
Did you spot Charles Aznavour in there!?
Powerful film of a powerful novel.
Sherbet fizz
Re-Read details: As Hitler rises to power, three-year-old Oskar decides he doesn't want to grow up. Stars Phil Daniels and Kenneth Cranham. Broadcast on:
blurb - Classic novel of the rise and fall of Hitler as seen through the eyes of the dwarfish narrator, Oskar Matzerath.
Not caring for the world he is growing up in, a small boy determines to remain a child. The epic sweep of Grass' novel satirises German nationalism and the rise and fall of the Nazi movement.
___
Brilliant portrayal of a youngster in denial of real-life. This theme has been loosely followed up in Cabaret and Pan's Labyrinth.
April 13, 2015
ألمانيا، الأرض التي تصارعت عليها بكل قوة وعنف وحيوية مختلف تيارات وأهواء الثقافة الغربية والعالمية، الأرض التي جمعت بين دقة وبرود العقل وأشواق الروح الإنسانية (اعتذر عن هذا الكليشيه الرخيص)، هذه الأرض وجدت نفسها مدمرة تماماً بعد نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية مادياً وروحياً.
مادياً: فقدت ألمانيا بنيتها التحتية والصناعية التي كانت الأفضل في أوروبا قبل الحرب، روحياً شعر الألمان انهم فقدوا بوصلتهم الأخلاقية والنفسية. وهل كان هناك أي معنى روحاني أو أخلاقي للحياة من بعد: الهولوكوست، من بعد مقتل 8 ملايين جندي ألماني!، من بعد اغتصاب مليوني امرأة ألمانية على يد القوات
الروسية!، من بعد احتلال وتقسيم ألمانيا، بعد وبعد وبعد وبعد......الخ
هنا يأتي دور الفنان الملتزم والكاتب الحقيقي ليرفع مرآة كبيرة وصادقة كي يرى فيها بلده.. حالته الحقيقية، يرى فيها شعبه ما فعل أبناءه وما اقترفوه بحق أنفسهم والآخرين. وهذا ما فعله بالضبط الروائي الألماني غونتر غراس في روايته الضخمة والفارقة "الطبل الصفيح".
يفتتح الطفل المعجزة والقزم أوسكار ماتزيراث (شخصية الرواية الرئيسية) الرواية بهذه الجملة المعبرة : "اعترف بأني نزيل مستشفى للأمراض العقلية". هذه الجملة الصادمة هي بداية حكي اوسكار الطويل والمتشعب والذي يتداخل فيه ضمير الأنا مع ضمير المتكلم مع الراوي العليم مع الراوي الغير المحايد، ليتحدث ويثرثر ويسرد كل ما مر به أثناء سنوات طفولته وشبابه، في المرحلة ما بين الحربين العالميتين إلى فترة الحرب العالمية الثانية. هذه السنوات الـ 30 الحافلة والموتورة التي قرر خلالها الطفل اوسكار أن يتوقف عن النمو الجسدي، حيث أنه اختار أن يبقى على مسافة بينه وبين عالم الكبار الفاسد والعنيف، وعايش كذلك صعود النازية لحكم ألمانيا، وبدايات الحرب العالمية، ومارس أيضاً علاقة غير مشروعة مع زوجة أبيه الثانية انتهت بكارثة، بالإضافة لدوره الأساس في مقتل والديه، وكان شاهداً بعدها كفنان على ألمانيا ما بعد الحرب العالمية القانية.
ولا أعتقد أن غونتر غراس استطاع أن يكتب عن هذه السنوات الـ 30 الأولى من عمر بطل الرواية أوسكار التي اختلطت فيها أحداث حياة أوسكار العجائبية مع تاريخ وطنه المأساوي بكل ما فيه من دم وقبح، بدون أن يبني هيكلاً ضخماً ومعقداً يحمل على أعمدته المادة الروحية والرسالة الأخلاقية التي أراد أن يوصلها غراس لألمانيا والعالم. تحتوي "الطبل الصفيح" في داخلها على تقنيات روائية وتقاليد سردية وحكائية كثيرة: ففيها القصة داخل القصة، وفيها تقليد رواية الـ bildungsroman الألمانية العريق، وفيها تقنية "محيط القصص" التي جاءت في ملحمة الشاهنامة وألف ليلة وليلة، وفيها أسلوب المذكرات، والقصص الأخلاقية، وفيها يهرب الراوي ويتنصل من ما يرويه، لأنه يعكس حالات عقلية ونفسية متناقضة، فهو: عنصري ومتسامح، وهو مجنون ومختل عقلياً ولكنه واقعي وعقلاني، وهو حساس للغاية ولكنه عنيف ودموي، وهو متأمل في حركة الزمن والتاريخ ولكنه مندفع ونزق.
هذه رواية معقدة والتعقيد هنا ليس رغبة في تعذيب القراء، فيما أعتقد، بل هو انعكاس دقيق وشامل لروح القرن العشرين نفسه. هذه الرواية الطموحة تضم في نسيجها العنف، العنصرية، البارانويا من الآخر، تحكي قصة تسلط الديكتاتورية على الشعوب، وانتشار الديمقراطية، وتضخم الأيديولوجيات مثل الاشتراكية والرأسمالية والفاشية والقومية، وتسجل أسلوب حياة المجتمع الزراعي والصناعي والحضري وثم الاستهلاكي.
انها رواية تعكس الروح الألمانية المعذبة والقلقة والمتهمة بالأفكار الكبرى، انها "رواية أفكار" مثل: رواية "سد هارتا" للكاتب هيرمان هيسا أو رواية "الجبل السحري" للروائي توماس مان أو رواية "القلعة" للكاتب فرانز كافكا (لم يكن كافكا ألمانياً ولكنه كتب بالألمانية) ولكنها اكبر من أن تكون رواية تتغنى وتعرض أفكار وفلسفات القرن العشرين فحسب، ففي بدايتها يعلن الطفل أوسكار بأنه قرر أن يتوقف عن النمو الجسدي، قرر أن يعيش في مكان ما خارج التاريخ وخارج الطبيعة حزناً واحتجاجاً على ما يحصل حوله. أي أن جسد الرواية يحوي على أشكال وألون الحياة المعاشة أيضاً وليس الفلسفة والأفكار الجافة.
ولا تخلو الرواية من المرح، سواء كان مرحاً طبيعياً، أو ما نسميه بالكوميديا السوداء، ويمتد هذا لعناوين الفصول أيضاً. فالفصل الـــ27 من الرواية يحمل عنوان غريب وساخر وهو "تفتيش الخرسانة، أو البربرية والروحانية والملل". هذا الفصل الرائع يلخص، في رأيي، روح تاريخ القرن العشرين وما جري فيه.
وفي هذا الفصل يقوم أوسكار مع مجموعة من الفنانين والكتاب بعد نهاية الحرب العالمية الثانية بزيارة مجموعة من المواقع الحربية الخرسانية التي بناها الجيش الألماني في شمال فرنسا خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية، خلال هذه الزيارة تلتقي مجموعة الفنانين مع جندي ألماني سابق خدم في هذه المواقع، يقول الجندي الذي ترك العسكرية وتحول لممارسة الفن أن هذه المواقع الحربية الخرسانية تجسد رمزياً كابوس أسود عاشته الأرض لفترة طويلة، ولكنها تمثل له الآن أعمالاً فنية تحوي في داخلها الكثير من الجمال الغامض. وأظن شخصياً أن "الطبل الصفيح" لا تختلف عن ذلك.
ومن الصعب أن تقرأ هذه الرواية وأنت تعيش في العالم العربي بدون أن تشعر بكثير من الألم والغصة في روحك.
احدى أفضل 10 روايات قرأتها منذ أن بدأت في قراءة الأدب العالمي في سن 14.
July 5, 2019
به نام او
طبل حلبی بی شک بهترین اثر گونتر گراس نویسنده بزرگ آلمانی ست و یکی از بهترین رمانهایی ست که خواندهام. طبل حلبی با زبانی طنز و بسیار گزنده
روایتگر سالهای جنگ در آلمان نازی ست. گراس با زبانی صریح و بیپروا ما را با مناسبات زندگی مردم آلمان و بخشی از لهستان در طول سالهای جنگ جهانی دوم و اشغال آن توسط نیروهای شوروی آشنا میکند. بسیاری طبل حلبی را در رده رمانهای رئالیسم جادویی برمیشمارند ولی آنچه مسلم است این است که رئالیسم جادویی در طبل حلبی اصلا به غلظت آثار مارکز نیست و بسیار معتدل استفاده شده است که اتفاقا بسیار موثر واقع شده است.
در آخر اگر رمانخوان حرفهای هستید و از فضاهای چرک و کثیف و زبان صریح و در بسیاری از جاها هزلگونه خاطرتان آزرده نمیشود حتما طبل حلبی را بخوانید.
طبل حلبی بی شک بهترین اثر گونتر گراس نویسنده بزرگ آلمانی ست و یکی از بهترین رمانهایی ست که خواندهام. طبل حلبی با زبانی طنز و بسیار گزنده
روایتگر سالهای جنگ در آلمان نازی ست. گراس با زبانی صریح و بیپروا ما را با مناسبات زندگی مردم آلمان و بخشی از لهستان در طول سالهای جنگ جهانی دوم و اشغال آن توسط نیروهای شوروی آشنا میکند. بسیاری طبل حلبی را در رده رمانهای رئالیسم جادویی برمیشمارند ولی آنچه مسلم است این است که رئالیسم جادویی در طبل حلبی اصلا به غلظت آثار مارکز نیست و بسیار معتدل استفاده شده است که اتفاقا بسیار موثر واقع شده است.
در آخر اگر رمانخوان حرفهای هستید و از فضاهای چرک و کثیف و زبان صریح و در بسیاری از جاها هزلگونه خاطرتان آزرده نمیشود حتما طبل حلبی را بخوانید.
September 26, 2021
What can I say!!!
January 2, 2023
Funny, Brechtian Story of a Murderous Dwarf who is a Genius Drummer
This is a tough book to review.
The story uses Brecht's concept of distancing to keep us from identifying with the characters.
The tale takes place in Germany and Poland, before, during, and after World War II.
The main character and narrator is Oskar Matzerath, a dwarf (and later on, a hunchbacked dwarf), who develops a precocious genius for drumming as a toddler. His parents supply him with toy tin drums (which he wears out with his incessant drumming). Hence, the title.
Oskar is born in Danzig (also known as Gdansk), the sometimes German but most often Polish, city on the Baltic coast. Unbeknownst to the clueless adults around him who think he's retarded, he is born with the cognitive faculties of an adult. He becomes a dwarf because he decides to stop growing at age three to avoid having to work in his family's grocery store. The hunchback shows up later, after an illness when he is older.
Oskar tells us that at his baptism in the local Catholic church he deliberately does not renounce Satan (which the adults present, including his putative father, Jan Bronski attribute to his "retardation). Actually, Oskar wants to keep his relationship with Satan and not denounce it. After the baptism, Oskar whispers to Satan (who seems to be alive and well within him):
"Did you make it through?" (through the Baptism he means).
'Satan hopped up and down and whispered, "Did you see those church windows, Oskar? All glass, all glass!"
This refers to Oskar's ability (also unknown to the adults, except his mother) to "sing shatter" glass, that is to sing a high note which shatters glass.
Oskar goes on to live a life of crime, including committing several murders. He also wins acclaim, later in life, for his prodigious talent as a drummer. He seems to have the capacity to survive no matter what (part of his deal with the Devil?), for example, producing a precious necklace (supposedly a gift) from its hiding place at the very moment he needs to flee his home.
At one point, Oskar decides he wants to take refuge from the world in a Mental Hospital with comfy beds. So he manipulates a "friend" into betraying him and accusing him of a murder he did not commit. After his lawyer exonerates him and he is let out of the mental institution, he contemplates going to America, where his grandfather (an arsonist) might be living.
There are many other characters in this colorful, picaresque tale. There are Oskar's various loves, the full sized Maria (who might be the father of Oskar's presumed son, Kurt, a "chip off the old block"--a total brat who hits and punches his "dad") and the deceased Roswitha, another dwarf. There is his "master", Bebra, who enlists Oskar to join his travelling show at one point and at a later time, contracts him to play concerts throughout Germany.
There is Bruno, Oskar's attendant in the loony bin. There is the elegant Jan Bronski, Oskar's mother's lover. (She is married to Matzerath). There is Oskar's beloved mother herself, and his Kashubian grandmother, who grows potatoes and always wears four skirts. And so on...there are many minor characters too.
During the War, Oskar supports either the Polish opposition or the Nazis (even though he doesn't particularly like the Nazis), depending on what's convenient for him.
Oskar is clearly a villain. He commits multiple crimes, including many murders (direct and indirect), vandalism, theft, etc. He's vain, selfish, malicious, cruel and an accomplished liar. He's diabolically clever and comes out on top no matter what befalls him.
But for some reason we don't hate him. He is a weird and amusing fellow. He's also an excellent story teller. Is he a mirror of the dark side in all of us?
I've read somewhere that Oskar symbolizes Nazism. Maybe, but I think Fascism would be closer to the mark. Germany falls through and so he wants to go to America. So America will become the new Fascist state?
Paul Michael Garcia does a decent job as the audio reader. I followed along in the ebook as I listened to the audio.
Update: I recently found out that Gunter Grass was a member of the Nazi party in Hitler's Germany.. He hid and denied this most of his life and in fact spent much of his later life denouncing the Nazis. So the author's real life story resembles that of Oskar in a way. Like Oskar, he was an opportunist.
Update 2023: I have to say, this review is kind of prescient. Because lately, the U.S. has been on the brink of becoming the new Fascist state. So far, our democracy has manage to hold on by a wispy thread. But we're on thin ice here. I just hope democracy survives.
This is a tough book to review.
The story uses Brecht's concept of distancing to keep us from identifying with the characters.
The tale takes place in Germany and Poland, before, during, and after World War II.
The main character and narrator is Oskar Matzerath, a dwarf (and later on, a hunchbacked dwarf), who develops a precocious genius for drumming as a toddler. His parents supply him with toy tin drums (which he wears out with his incessant drumming). Hence, the title.
Oskar is born in Danzig (also known as Gdansk), the sometimes German but most often Polish, city on the Baltic coast. Unbeknownst to the clueless adults around him who think he's retarded, he is born with the cognitive faculties of an adult. He becomes a dwarf because he decides to stop growing at age three to avoid having to work in his family's grocery store. The hunchback shows up later, after an illness when he is older.
Oskar tells us that at his baptism in the local Catholic church he deliberately does not renounce Satan (which the adults present, including his putative father, Jan Bronski attribute to his "retardation). Actually, Oskar wants to keep his relationship with Satan and not denounce it. After the baptism, Oskar whispers to Satan (who seems to be alive and well within him):
"Did you make it through?" (through the Baptism he means).
'Satan hopped up and down and whispered, "Did you see those church windows, Oskar? All glass, all glass!"
This refers to Oskar's ability (also unknown to the adults, except his mother) to "sing shatter" glass, that is to sing a high note which shatters glass.
Oskar goes on to live a life of crime, including committing several murders. He also wins acclaim, later in life, for his prodigious talent as a drummer. He seems to have the capacity to survive no matter what (part of his deal with the Devil?), for example, producing a precious necklace (supposedly a gift) from its hiding place at the very moment he needs to flee his home.
At one point, Oskar decides he wants to take refuge from the world in a Mental Hospital with comfy beds. So he manipulates a "friend" into betraying him and accusing him of a murder he did not commit. After his lawyer exonerates him and he is let out of the mental institution, he contemplates going to America, where his grandfather (an arsonist) might be living.
There are many other characters in this colorful, picaresque tale. There are Oskar's various loves, the full sized Maria (who might be the father of Oskar's presumed son, Kurt, a "chip off the old block"--a total brat who hits and punches his "dad") and the deceased Roswitha, another dwarf. There is his "master", Bebra, who enlists Oskar to join his travelling show at one point and at a later time, contracts him to play concerts throughout Germany.
There is Bruno, Oskar's attendant in the loony bin. There is the elegant Jan Bronski, Oskar's mother's lover. (She is married to Matzerath). There is Oskar's beloved mother herself, and his Kashubian grandmother, who grows potatoes and always wears four skirts. And so on...there are many minor characters too.
During the War, Oskar supports either the Polish opposition or the Nazis (even though he doesn't particularly like the Nazis), depending on what's convenient for him.
Oskar is clearly a villain. He commits multiple crimes, including many murders (direct and indirect), vandalism, theft, etc. He's vain, selfish, malicious, cruel and an accomplished liar. He's diabolically clever and comes out on top no matter what befalls him.
But for some reason we don't hate him. He is a weird and amusing fellow. He's also an excellent story teller. Is he a mirror of the dark side in all of us?
I've read somewhere that Oskar symbolizes Nazism. Maybe, but I think Fascism would be closer to the mark. Germany falls through and so he wants to go to America. So America will become the new Fascist state?
Paul Michael Garcia does a decent job as the audio reader. I followed along in the ebook as I listened to the audio.
Update: I recently found out that Gunter Grass was a member of the Nazi party in Hitler's Germany.. He hid and denied this most of his life and in fact spent much of his later life denouncing the Nazis. So the author's real life story resembles that of Oskar in a way. Like Oskar, he was an opportunist.
Update 2023: I have to say, this review is kind of prescient. Because lately, the U.S. has been on the brink of becoming the new Fascist state. So far, our democracy has manage to hold on by a wispy thread. But we're on thin ice here. I just hope democracy survives.
April 29, 2020
“Se Apollo aspirava all’armonia e Dioniso all’ebbrezza e al caos, Oskar era un piccolo semidio che portava l’armonia nel caos e la ragione nell’ebbrezza”
Con grande piacere dichiaro terminata questa sfiancante lettura.
Ci sono stati momenti che avrei voluto gridare sperando di trovare in me una tonalità “libricida”.
Un fiume di parole e di scene assurde.
I passaggi, continui e repentini (sovente all’interno della stessa frase!), dalla prima alla terza persona rendono Oskar voce narrante e, al contempo, oggetto del discorso.
Oskar, pertanto, gestisce il suo stesso sdoppiamento e mentre spezza se stesso fa altrettanto con la dovuta concentrazione della lettura.
Perlomeno questo è successo a me...
Una fatica lunga 590 pagine (con l’impressione di averne lette il doppio!) che non manca di episodi in cui il racconto si fa anche nauseante.
Oskar decide di fermare la sua crescita a tre anni dichiarando guerra al mondo adulto e riservandosi una deformità futura che non si rivelerà solo nel corpo ma anche nella psiche con buona dose di ossessioni e depravazioni.
Il tutto scandito dal suono di un tamburo (ovviamente).
Il grottesco in questo romanzo è dovunque con una forma di assurdità costante.
C'è, tuttavia, l'altra faccia della moneta e sembrerà incoerente affermarlo ma e nonostante tutto ciò (la fatica, la mancanza di appigli ecc.) questa è innegabilmente una grande opera.
Ci sono passaggi veramente memorabili (personalmente ho apprezzato, in particolar modo il capitolo intitolato: “Fede, speranza e carità”) ma è, soprattutto, la complessità metaforica a renderlo un grande Romanzo.
Oskar segue un percorso di genialità perversa che sembra riflettere la storia del popolo tedesco nei suoi successi così come nelle sue terribili tragedie.
Questo "nano per scelta ", semina attorno a sé una serie di morti(in modo apparentemente accidentale) tanto da sentirne, poi, il peso sulla coscienza.
Il senso di colpa è proprio uno di quegli elementi che rende Oskar il riflesso del suo stesso popolo:
” Non mi posso nascondere, nemmeno quando sono più in vena di lamentele, che è stato il mio tamburo, anzi sono stato io stesso, il tamburino Oskar, a portare alla tomba prima la mia povera mamma, e poi Jan Bronski, mio zio e padre.
Ma, come accadrebbe a chiunque, nei giorni in cui un senso di colpa sgarbato e impossibile da scacciare mi abbatte sui guanciali del mio letto di manicomio, cerco di appigliarmi alla mia ignoranza, che allora venne di moda, e che ancora oggi molti si portano in giro.
Oskar, l’astuto ignorante Oskar, vittima innocente della barbarie polacca (…)
[Però nonostante sia una sostenitrice delle riletture questo no, non lo rileggerei...]
Con grande piacere dichiaro terminata questa sfiancante lettura.
Ci sono stati momenti che avrei voluto gridare sperando di trovare in me una tonalità “libricida”.
Un fiume di parole e di scene assurde.
I passaggi, continui e repentini (sovente all’interno della stessa frase!), dalla prima alla terza persona rendono Oskar voce narrante e, al contempo, oggetto del discorso.
Oskar, pertanto, gestisce il suo stesso sdoppiamento e mentre spezza se stesso fa altrettanto con la dovuta concentrazione della lettura.
Perlomeno questo è successo a me...
Una fatica lunga 590 pagine (con l’impressione di averne lette il doppio!) che non manca di episodi in cui il racconto si fa anche nauseante.
Oskar decide di fermare la sua crescita a tre anni dichiarando guerra al mondo adulto e riservandosi una deformità futura che non si rivelerà solo nel corpo ma anche nella psiche con buona dose di ossessioni e depravazioni.
Il tutto scandito dal suono di un tamburo (ovviamente).
Il grottesco in questo romanzo è dovunque con una forma di assurdità costante.
C'è, tuttavia, l'altra faccia della moneta e sembrerà incoerente affermarlo ma e nonostante tutto ciò (la fatica, la mancanza di appigli ecc.) questa è innegabilmente una grande opera.
Ci sono passaggi veramente memorabili (personalmente ho apprezzato, in particolar modo il capitolo intitolato: “Fede, speranza e carità”) ma è, soprattutto, la complessità metaforica a renderlo un grande Romanzo.
Oskar segue un percorso di genialità perversa che sembra riflettere la storia del popolo tedesco nei suoi successi così come nelle sue terribili tragedie.
Questo "nano per scelta ", semina attorno a sé una serie di morti(in modo apparentemente accidentale) tanto da sentirne, poi, il peso sulla coscienza.
Il senso di colpa è proprio uno di quegli elementi che rende Oskar il riflesso del suo stesso popolo:
” Non mi posso nascondere, nemmeno quando sono più in vena di lamentele, che è stato il mio tamburo, anzi sono stato io stesso, il tamburino Oskar, a portare alla tomba prima la mia povera mamma, e poi Jan Bronski, mio zio e padre.
Ma, come accadrebbe a chiunque, nei giorni in cui un senso di colpa sgarbato e impossibile da scacciare mi abbatte sui guanciali del mio letto di manicomio, cerco di appigliarmi alla mia ignoranza, che allora venne di moda, e che ancora oggi molti si portano in giro.
Oskar, l’astuto ignorante Oskar, vittima innocente della barbarie polacca (…)
[Però nonostante sia una sostenitrice delle riletture questo no, non lo rileggerei...]
August 11, 2015
"Granted: I'm an inmate in a mental institution."
This opening line prepared me only a little to what was to come: a challenging, weird, unbelievable and extraordinary story.
Oskar's drums and his drumming may still "haunt" me for some time after finishing his story. I am lost for more words here but one: recommended!
This opening line prepared me only a little to what was to come: a challenging, weird, unbelievable and extraordinary story.
Oskar's drums and his drumming may still "haunt" me for some time after finishing his story. I am lost for more words here but one: recommended!
December 13, 2025
Read this once when I was 19 and again when I was 46. My memory is crap, and I remember very little of my life, yet I have a strong visceral memory of my first read at Christmas in 1998 with my parents in their house in the mountains of north wales. I remember the four skirts and the potato field, the heart cut into glass, the eels, the nazi party pin sticking in the throat, the onion cellar…I read this, Midnights Children and 100 Years of solitude all in that same year and it set my up on literary pathways I am still joyfully exploring today.
This reread reinforced just how great a novel it is, and just how important and relevant (particularly in our fascistic, populist, god-awful times).
This reread reinforced just how great a novel it is, and just how important and relevant (particularly in our fascistic, populist, god-awful times).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,496 reviews