Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Kbh. Gyldendals Bogklub 1979 bind 3 af 3 bd.
Description
Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II,The Tin Drumis the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world.Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim.
Media reviews
"Le tambour" ("Die Blechtrommel") est un roman de l'auteur allemand Günter Grass, publié en 1959. Il s'agit du premier volet de la Trilogie de Dantzig de Grass et il est considéré comme l'une des œuvres les plus importantes de la littérature allemande d'après la Seconde Guerre
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mondiale.
L'histoire est racontée par Oskar Matzerath, un garçon né à Dantzig (aujourd'hui Gdańsk, Pologne) en 1924, qui décide à l'âge de trois ans d'arrêter de grandir physiquement. Malgré sa petite taille, Oskar possède une voix puissante et une capacité extraordinaire à briser le verre avec ses cris aigus. Le roman suit la vie d'Oskar depuis son enfance peu conventionnelle jusqu'aux événements tumultueux du XXe siècle.
Avec en toile de fond la montée du nazisme, la Seconde Guerre mondiale et l'après-guerre, l'histoire d'Oskar se confond avec celle de l'Allemagne. Son point de vue unique lui permet de commenter de manière satirique et symbolique les changements sociétaux et politiques qui se produisent autour de lui.
"Le tambour" explore les thèmes de l'identité, de la culpabilité et de l'impact des événements historiques sur les individus. Grass utilise le réalisme magique et l'allégorie pour créer un récit riche et complexe qui saisit l'absurdité et la brutalité de l'histoire européenne du XXe siècle. Ce roman a reçu le prix Nobel de littérature en 1999, en reconnaissance de l'œuvre littéraire de Günter Grass et de sa contribution à la littérature allemande de l'après-guerre. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member MichielVl
This is just a wonderful book. Marvelous sentences, seemingly endless inspiration from Grass and in between some history, all mixed together with absurd surrealism which adds a comical touch to this masterpiece. Watch the movie too, I never thought one could actually make a decent movie out of
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this, but Volker Schlöndorff did a pretty good job! Show Less
LibraryThing member Helena81
It's hard to know where to begin. I just finished The Tin Drum, and I'm blown away by Grass's skill. His playful prose, use of allegory and metaphor, and ever-present humor (often through the grotesque) is both impressive and entertaining. I relished the inventive twists and turns of the plot
As an aside, another reviewer wrote of how involved we are in Oskar's story, yet always mistrust him. This precisely sums up my feelings about our odd narrator.
I'd give The Tin Drum 4.5, but I don't give half stars!
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itself. However, despite some grounding in twentieth-century European history, I am left with the distinct impression that I missed a great deal. This book is like an iceberg--you can enjoy what's above the surface well enough, but if you look deeper there's plenty more to be discovered. I hope some day to return to the The Tin Drum, knowing its narrative arc, and lose myself in the artful prose and linguistic complexities of the novel.As an aside, another reviewer wrote of how involved we are in Oskar's story, yet always mistrust him. This precisely sums up my feelings about our odd narrator.
I'd give The Tin Drum 4.5, but I don't give half stars!
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LibraryThing member clfisha
A lyrical and captivating, humorous, beautiful and grotesque German classic with a new English translation (2010 see below) that makes the original shine.
Oskar, our unreliable narrator, recounts his life from his bed in the mental hospital. And oh what a life. A life where he decided to stop
It is a book that encompasses life, a book that gently takes you by the hand and wraps its beautiful language, its musical beat around you and never lets go. It could be seen to be shocking but it is never dull. Political and allegorical it maybe, a social commentary on Germany during and after the war (WWII) but it's also a superb story and I enjoyed it as such. Theme's hover gently, connections draw together the text, long sentences flow and crash into short ones. The characters dance in Oskar's story too, fully alive. There is never a dull moment, even for the tiny degenerations into insanity.
I've also been told it makes a good impression to begin modestly by asserting that novels no longer have heroes because individuals have ceased to exist, that individualism is a thing of the past, that all human beings are lonely, all equally lonely, with no claim to individual loneliness, that they all form some nameless mass devoid of heroes. All that may be true. But as far as I and my keeper Bruno are concerned, I beg to state that we are both heroes, quite different heroes, he behind his peep hole, I in front of it; and that when he opens the door, the two of us, for all our friendship and loneliness, are still far from being some nameless mass devoid of heroes.
One of the better books I have read and if your are in the mood for long immersement in deep waters may I highly recommend this but please go for the new English translation.
Comment on the new translation
The translators afterword is fascinating on the trade of a translator but also sheds to light the difference they can make, on the aims of a translator: "Do we owe our allegiance to the reader or to the author?" I.e. do they make it more accessible in language or culture to target audience. I know my preference but it's an interesting point.
Here he has worked very closely with the author to bring the text in line with the original. Long sentences, originally were broken up for easy digestion and these were restored, as was the rhythm and certain themes (i.e. left handiness). I really can't imagine this book being as good with an earlier translation so I urge you to seek it out.
Oskar, our unreliable narrator, recounts his life from his bed in the mental hospital. And oh what a life. A life where he decided to stop
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growing at 3 and only ever to drum. A life where he could singshatter glass. A life of love, death, blasphemy and sex. Where he was a stone cutter, a jazz musician, a nude model, the head of a deviant gang. It is a book that encompasses life, a book that gently takes you by the hand and wraps its beautiful language, its musical beat around you and never lets go. It could be seen to be shocking but it is never dull. Political and allegorical it maybe, a social commentary on Germany during and after the war (WWII) but it's also a superb story and I enjoyed it as such. Theme's hover gently, connections draw together the text, long sentences flow and crash into short ones. The characters dance in Oskar's story too, fully alive. There is never a dull moment, even for the tiny degenerations into insanity.
I've also been told it makes a good impression to begin modestly by asserting that novels no longer have heroes because individuals have ceased to exist, that individualism is a thing of the past, that all human beings are lonely, all equally lonely, with no claim to individual loneliness, that they all form some nameless mass devoid of heroes. All that may be true. But as far as I and my keeper Bruno are concerned, I beg to state that we are both heroes, quite different heroes, he behind his peep hole, I in front of it; and that when he opens the door, the two of us, for all our friendship and loneliness, are still far from being some nameless mass devoid of heroes.
One of the better books I have read and if your are in the mood for long immersement in deep waters may I highly recommend this but please go for the new English translation.
Comment on the new translation
The translators afterword is fascinating on the trade of a translator but also sheds to light the difference they can make, on the aims of a translator: "Do we owe our allegiance to the reader or to the author?" I.e. do they make it more accessible in language or culture to target audience. I know my preference but it's an interesting point.
Here he has worked very closely with the author to bring the text in line with the original. Long sentences, originally were broken up for easy digestion and these were restored, as was the rhythm and certain themes (i.e. left handiness). I really can't imagine this book being as good with an earlier translation so I urge you to seek it out.
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LibraryThing member hemlokgang
This novel ranks among the most brilliant pieces of fiction that I have ever read. A 589 page metaphor for the pain and shame of the German people from the period of WWII. Oskar, the self stunted midget who expresses himself via his tin drum and shatters glass with his voice with a precision not to
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be believed (Kristallnacht) and who hides in his 3 year old body to avoid taking responsibility for his choices is the epitome of the anarchist. He drums the psyche of the Rasputin and the Goethe in every German. The satiric humor is absolutely brilliant. I caught myself laughing and then self-recriminating because it wasn't funny at all! I will never forget the imagery of Oskar craving the safety of hiding beneath the four skirts of his grandmother, his sexual awakening, and his love of nurses. The themes in this book include: the dichotomy of human beings, fear, shame, love, and the very human struggle to survive our own human frailities. Show Less
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
1042 The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass translated from the German by Ralph Manheim (read 25 Jan 1970) Obviously I am not with it. I've just read this book, also on Time's list of Notable Books of the Sixties, the complete list of which I have set out in my review of The First Circle, by Solzhenitsyn
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here on LibraryThing. This book tells a story of a dwarf born in Germany about 1923, and of his life to age 30, when he is in a West German mental hospital. His name is Oscar, and he is of course insane. I suppose all is very symbolic, but it symbolized bad taste and crudity to me. The whole theme just strikes me as not worth reading about. It is an ugh book, and I just think it is ridiculous to call it notable. But obviously, the book has, since it appeared in 1959, in Germany, excited much critical comment. It is boorish and ishish and ughey. Show Less
LibraryThing member Bookmarque
Well this was not what I expected. It’s a very meandering story with very little discernable plot. Things just sort of happen but nothing definitely leads from one event to another. Things are pretty random. I think a good editor would be able to clean it up. There’s too much detail. What
Then there’s the narrator, Oskar. I couldn’t stand him. He was a whiny, insane little brat. I hoped for him to come to a worse end than he did - accused of a murder and sent to a home for the criminally insane. In one sense, it’s the best place for him. In another, I would have liked to have seen him dead. The narration is weird. He drifts from the third person to the first person constantly. Sometimes from one sentence to the next. I think it is some kind of dual personality or something. On one hand, you know he killed the woman but on the other, there is an innocent part of Oskar that really doesn’t know how he got into this mess.
But I still couldn’t stand the little asshole. With that stupid drum and his incessant screaming that would break glass. I wanted someone to cut his throat out and his hands off and just let him sit there powerless. Instead he wanders aimlessly through the story from one weird situation to another. All the while there are people creating and maintaining homes for him along the way. Only when he goes into first show business with a traveling freak show and then when he takes up tomb stone carving, does he ever support himself.
I thought there would be more commentary about the war and about the Nazis and how the country was changed, but there wasn’t. It was all oblique. Things happened like the burning of a synagogue or the trampling of a Polish post office, but that was about all.
The whole business with his oversexed mother was also bizarre. She had Jan Bronski on one side and Albert Matzerath on the other and her in the middle with her freakish kid. Oskar always knew what she was up to but wasn’t judgmental about it. He didn’t notice or remark on the fact that no one else noticed or remarked on his mother’s weird situation. The bit about the eels in the horse’s head was gross and it should have put his mother off them forever but then she goes overboard and starts eating so much fish and fish oil that she dies. Then the brat Oskar goes back and forth between his father and his presumptive father and can’t decide who to be. At one point he’s living with Matzerath and his housemaid Maria. They have some kind of weird relationship that borders on sexual. When Maria ends up pregnant, the horror Oskar is convinced it is his child even in the face of the evidence of catching Maria and Matzerath on the couch going at it like rabbits. Just how on earth his 3-year-old prick was supposed to impregnate anyone is a mystery. His son Kurt my ass.
Then when he’s taken out of Poland on the train he suddenly grows and develops a weird hump on his back. He becomes a freak art model after that and is probably portrayed as accurately as anyone had during the novel, as an evil, twisted, soulless freak. During this time he has ditched his stupid drum. And his voice had changed so he could no longer break glass with it out of spite and malicious intent.
In the end he takes a room at a boarding house and is obsessed with the nurse who lives down the hall. He sneaks into her room and goes through her things. One night he gets out of bed stark naked and tries to break in again. He finds her just coming home and wraps himself up in some kind of weird fiber mat and scares the hell out of her. She realizes who it is and leaves the house. He somehow tracks her down and kills her.
All in all it’s a very imaginative book but with little substance. I had no sympathy or liking for any of the characters. I can see why people try to call it literature because to make it dark and mysterious and symbolic can cleanse it of it’s many faults.
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little there is of a story gets bogged down in it and can barely stand up.Then there’s the narrator, Oskar. I couldn’t stand him. He was a whiny, insane little brat. I hoped for him to come to a worse end than he did - accused of a murder and sent to a home for the criminally insane. In one sense, it’s the best place for him. In another, I would have liked to have seen him dead. The narration is weird. He drifts from the third person to the first person constantly. Sometimes from one sentence to the next. I think it is some kind of dual personality or something. On one hand, you know he killed the woman but on the other, there is an innocent part of Oskar that really doesn’t know how he got into this mess.
But I still couldn’t stand the little asshole. With that stupid drum and his incessant screaming that would break glass. I wanted someone to cut his throat out and his hands off and just let him sit there powerless. Instead he wanders aimlessly through the story from one weird situation to another. All the while there are people creating and maintaining homes for him along the way. Only when he goes into first show business with a traveling freak show and then when he takes up tomb stone carving, does he ever support himself.
I thought there would be more commentary about the war and about the Nazis and how the country was changed, but there wasn’t. It was all oblique. Things happened like the burning of a synagogue or the trampling of a Polish post office, but that was about all.
The whole business with his oversexed mother was also bizarre. She had Jan Bronski on one side and Albert Matzerath on the other and her in the middle with her freakish kid. Oskar always knew what she was up to but wasn’t judgmental about it. He didn’t notice or remark on the fact that no one else noticed or remarked on his mother’s weird situation. The bit about the eels in the horse’s head was gross and it should have put his mother off them forever but then she goes overboard and starts eating so much fish and fish oil that she dies. Then the brat Oskar goes back and forth between his father and his presumptive father and can’t decide who to be. At one point he’s living with Matzerath and his housemaid Maria. They have some kind of weird relationship that borders on sexual. When Maria ends up pregnant, the horror Oskar is convinced it is his child even in the face of the evidence of catching Maria and Matzerath on the couch going at it like rabbits. Just how on earth his 3-year-old prick was supposed to impregnate anyone is a mystery. His son Kurt my ass.
Then when he’s taken out of Poland on the train he suddenly grows and develops a weird hump on his back. He becomes a freak art model after that and is probably portrayed as accurately as anyone had during the novel, as an evil, twisted, soulless freak. During this time he has ditched his stupid drum. And his voice had changed so he could no longer break glass with it out of spite and malicious intent.
In the end he takes a room at a boarding house and is obsessed with the nurse who lives down the hall. He sneaks into her room and goes through her things. One night he gets out of bed stark naked and tries to break in again. He finds her just coming home and wraps himself up in some kind of weird fiber mat and scares the hell out of her. She realizes who it is and leaves the house. He somehow tracks her down and kills her.
All in all it’s a very imaginative book but with little substance. I had no sympathy or liking for any of the characters. I can see why people try to call it literature because to make it dark and mysterious and symbolic can cleanse it of it’s many faults.
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LibraryThing member eas311
I was enthralled by this book. There is a scene where he remembers hiding in his grandmother's skirts. I was sold. The idea of willing oneself to stay young forever - how many of us have wanted to do that? And yet it doesn't work. Oskar is forever 3, except not really. His mind grows even as his
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body doesn't. And that disconnect, I think, is the saddest thing of all. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
The Tin Drum is a picaresque magical-realist social-satire fairy-tale (whew!). It influenced Hundred Years of Solitude and Midnight's Children, comparable works of length and complexity. It is a Pied Pipper leading Germany through and out of of WWII with a trickster drumming at the head. I can't
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say I enjoyed it that much as I never really liked magical realism or historically satirical novels. There is a lot obliquely happening that requires knowledge of European history to fully appreciate. I suppose one could enjoy it on the surface for the dark fairy-tale qualities, but that misses the novels bigger point: rationalism taken to an extreme becomes irrational, the novel is a satire of rationalism and ultimately an atonement for German politics and culture that lead to WWII. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
This is a very subjective rating: I don't much care for unreliable narrators, or for 'magical realism,' or for aimlessness. And this book does all three, which makes it hard for me to care. On the upside, there are some great scenes, and the writing (or the translation) is good enough that even I,
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with my strange appreciation for books that avoid shortcuts and prefer honest intellectual and emotional engagement, got through to the end and found it worth reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member melibrarian
I was so excited to finally read this book, but I can't finish it. Oskar is a narcissistic brat.
Oskar's likes: intentionally breaking glass with his piercing shrieks, incessantly banging on his tin drum, and comparing himself to Jesus (but in a boring way).
Oskar's dislikes: narrating from one
He may be self-absorbed because he's young, and his tin drum may symbolize something, but the author makes it impossible to care enough to investigate further. Maybe this would make a good short story, but as a 565 page novel, it's just tedious. Couldn't Grass throw a plot or sympathetic characters in somewhere? Or does it happen later? This won a prize? Can somebody tell me why?
Oskar's likes: intentionally breaking glass with his piercing shrieks, incessantly banging on his tin drum, and comparing himself to Jesus (but in a boring way).
Oskar's dislikes: narrating from one
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point-of-view, not obsessing over his stupid tin drum.He may be self-absorbed because he's young, and his tin drum may symbolize something, but the author makes it impossible to care enough to investigate further. Maybe this would make a good short story, but as a 565 page novel, it's just tedious. Couldn't Grass throw a plot or sympathetic characters in somewhere? Or does it happen later? This won a prize? Can somebody tell me why?
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LibraryThing member LynnB
This is the story of Oskar Matzerath, who we meet at the age of 30 in an institution for the criminally insane. This is also the story of family, national identity, and what makes us human.
Oskar is the grandson of a Kashubin woman who wears four identically-coloured skirts once and a missing,
Oskar is the prototype of an unreliable narrator, but we are told he chose to stop growing at age 3. He plays his tin drum compulsively and has a voice that can shatter glass. He is obsessed with nurses and compares himself with Jesus.
As the story unfolds, we meet a large number of strange and eclectic characters. We follow Oskar through his life from age 3 to 30 as he works as an engraver, artists' model and performer. At the end, we discover what crime has gotten him institutionalized.
I was intrigued by this story and the characters who populate it. There are a number of very vivid scenes that will stay with me for a long time and I was constantly wondering what direction Oskar and the plot would take next.
Oskar is the grandson of a Kashubin woman who wears four identically-coloured skirts once and a missing,
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presumed either dead or a millionaire in America, arsonist. His mother is married to Alfred but in love with her cousin, who Oskar believes may be his real father. Oskar is the prototype of an unreliable narrator, but we are told he chose to stop growing at age 3. He plays his tin drum compulsively and has a voice that can shatter glass. He is obsessed with nurses and compares himself with Jesus.
As the story unfolds, we meet a large number of strange and eclectic characters. We follow Oskar through his life from age 3 to 30 as he works as an engraver, artists' model and performer. At the end, we discover what crime has gotten him institutionalized.
I was intrigued by this story and the characters who populate it. There are a number of very vivid scenes that will stay with me for a long time and I was constantly wondering what direction Oskar and the plot would take next.
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LibraryThing member MorganGMac
Sections of the prose were masterful, maybe even brilliant, but I just didn't particularly like the character or the plot. The 600 pages should have been slashed down to 400 max because long segments were entirely not useful for displaying the author's talent or for developing plot or characters. I
Oskar narrates most of the story from his mental hospital. He says he purposefully stunted his growth at the age of 3 by throwing himself down the cellar because he wants to forever remain a 3-year-old drummer. He has constantly twisting relationships with his father, mother, step mother, step brother, and various friends, most of them somehow involving sex. The story of Oskar's life is a surrealistic journey through the mind of a little man you don't quite trust.
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will say that Grass has quite a superb knack for the grotesque. (I really do mean that as a compliment, he had some fantastic prose moments.) Some of his images may be forever etched in my brain, with bile waiting in the back of my throat. The midget/dwarf/little person protagonist offers an interesting perspective to his tangent-filled autobiography, especially since he lived in Germany during the early 20th century, but all-around, he's not an enjoyable person to be so close to for 600 pages. Oskar narrates most of the story from his mental hospital. He says he purposefully stunted his growth at the age of 3 by throwing himself down the cellar because he wants to forever remain a 3-year-old drummer. He has constantly twisting relationships with his father, mother, step mother, step brother, and various friends, most of them somehow involving sex. The story of Oskar's life is a surrealistic journey through the mind of a little man you don't quite trust.
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LibraryThing member bodachliath
What more is there to say about one of the most famous novels of the twentieth century? A bold, ambitious and funny picaresque that follows its unreliable narrator from 20s Danzig to the West Germany of the 50s, this is a book with much in common with Latin American magic realism. According to his
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own account, the narrator Oskar Matzerath decides to stop growing on his third birthday, preferring to play his tin drum and sing-shatter glass, while blaming himself for the premature deaths of many of those closest to him. Full of striking imagery and insight, this new translation aims to be more faithful to Grass's linguistic innovations and rhythms. Show Less
LibraryThing member robertg69
chaotic story
LibraryThing member leslie.98
3.5 stars rounded up. I ran out of steam with this so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt by rounding up.
There is a lot to think about in this and I don't think that I understood some of it (much of it?). It is too bad that this is a library book as it would be good to go back and reread or
I really struggled with one fundamental feature of the novel -- Oskar's supposedly voluntary non-growth, allowing him to remain in a 3-year-old body. I don't know what it is supposed to symbolize but its unreality bothered me throughout the book. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief and let it be...
There is a lot to think about in this and I don't think that I understood some of it (much of it?). It is too bad that this is a library book as it would be good to go back and reread or
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ponder certain passages again when a little time has passed. I really struggled with one fundamental feature of the novel -- Oskar's supposedly voluntary non-growth, allowing him to remain in a 3-year-old body. I don't know what it is supposed to symbolize but its unreality bothered me throughout the book. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief and let it be...
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Captivating novel of humanity caught in the maelstrom of war. Grass' ability to find lust and humor in the "thick of battle" [so to speak] is memorable. By turns gritty and hysterical, the surreal aspects only serve to complement the whole. Grass encourages us to reject apathy at all costs.
LibraryThing member booklove2
I just had to read this book after watching the bizarre movie a while back. The book kept calling to me, especially as it was on the '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die' list. Sometimes you just need to pick up the book that is calling to you! The movie won an Academy Award for best foreign
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film, while this book couldn't have kept Gunter Grass from winning the Nobel prize. The German translation here is so readable, so interesting and so well written. Little Oskar, seemingly born with an adult brain, decides to stop growing at age three and remains three feet tall, inseparable from his tin drum and can scream glass to oblivion. Oskar is one of those characters impossible to forget, while there are so many characters around him are like that as well. I wouldn't cut any bit of this story out of the book. It was all equally interesting and necessary... there probably could have been more. It seems every ten pages there was an entirely new scenario, a fascinating challenge for Oskar to get through. Though this book took place during WWII, it seemed it wasn't really present until the very second someone died, which was a bit odd. Up until about page 395 the movie contains almost everything in the book except for a few details, including that Oskar is narrating his tale from a mental institution. So there is about 200 more pages that does not exist in the movie. It's a bit nice that way: the movie staying almost entirely the same up until the last 2/5's of the book. Accurate while also including a something extra to the story. I'd say if you see the movie you must read the book and if you read the book you must see the movie. 'The Tin Drum' must be at the top of both German books and movies. I kind of already miss reading it already... Show Less
LibraryThing member mlbelize
This is going to be the very, very short version as one would have to write pages to do justice to this book and I'm just not up to it. In a nutshell..Oskar is born with the understanding of an adult. He hears a conversation between his mother and her husband in which the husband says Oskar will
The book is brilliant and really deserves 5*s, this reader, however, is less brilliant and did not always understand the references made and for that reason alone I dropped it to 4*s. I found it the type of book that is not a sit down and read it straight through book but one that required me to stop every 40 or 50 pages to try to digest what I had just read, it made me think and work for my enlightenment and the rewards were worth it. Having knowledge of the historical events of this time period would certainly be of value and enhance your reading pleasure. An excellent book and I apologize to the author for penalizing his work for my own shortcomings.
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grow up and take over the family grocery store. The mother says when Oskar is three he will get a drum. The horror! A life running the grocery store is not to Oskar's liking but he likes the idea of the drum. At the age of three he determines he will never be a politician, run a grocery store or grow up, so he stops growing and takes up the drum. He drums through school, the occupation of Poland by the Germans, the liberation by the Russians and all other societal upheavals. He drums his life, who was his father, his mother's husband or her lover and second cousin? Oskar likes to think the cousin. He drums his love of Maria and the boy he may have fathered with her, he drums his involvement with a youth street gang and all other events in his life until the day comes when he determines that he must give up his drums and grow up.The book is brilliant and really deserves 5*s, this reader, however, is less brilliant and did not always understand the references made and for that reason alone I dropped it to 4*s. I found it the type of book that is not a sit down and read it straight through book but one that required me to stop every 40 or 50 pages to try to digest what I had just read, it made me think and work for my enlightenment and the rewards were worth it. Having knowledge of the historical events of this time period would certainly be of value and enhance your reading pleasure. An excellent book and I apologize to the author for penalizing his work for my own shortcomings.
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LibraryThing member 33racoonie
Rather enjoyed the story without understanding what on earth the tin drum represented or what the decision to stay little was all about. Maybe I'll go back and read what others say about the book. It feels like I missed something when listening.
LibraryThing member TheAlternativeOne
By far the oddest of the books reviewed here The Tin Drum is a direct contrast between art and war. The underlying theme is that art has the power to overcome the inhumanities of war in society. The theme of performance, music and art permeates throughout the novel.
The Tin Drum is the fictional
Much like the Russian masters Oskar’s autobiography is also the biography of his family and its history and the book delves into the manic lives of the people who affect his life. His mother, her husband Alfred, his mother’s lover and many others who cross paths are all tragic characters of the first degree.
With convoluted interwoven relationships, extramarital affairs, traveling troupes of dwarf clowns, front line battle antics, criminal anti-establishment youth gangs, jazz music, fortune and fame, tombstone engraving, the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, music recording deals, murder, a dismembered finger, and an insane asylum this story has something for everyone. You must read it to get the full effect… Try as I might, my words could never suffice.
The Tin Drum is the fictional
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autobiography of Oskar Matzerath and is a masterpiece of surrealism and characterization and is an exact counterpoint to City of Thieves. Oskar, at the age of three, voluntarily wills himself not to grow up after receiving a tin drum for his birthday. He develops a strained high-pitched singing voice that he uses in various ways; breaking glass, defending his drum (which he is never without), breaking and entering, tombstone inscribing, and entrancing his audience.Much like the Russian masters Oskar’s autobiography is also the biography of his family and its history and the book delves into the manic lives of the people who affect his life. His mother, her husband Alfred, his mother’s lover and many others who cross paths are all tragic characters of the first degree.
With convoluted interwoven relationships, extramarital affairs, traveling troupes of dwarf clowns, front line battle antics, criminal anti-establishment youth gangs, jazz music, fortune and fame, tombstone engraving, the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, music recording deals, murder, a dismembered finger, and an insane asylum this story has something for everyone. You must read it to get the full effect… Try as I might, my words could never suffice.
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LibraryThing member melydia
What a strange book. I'm not sure how else to describe the life story of a midget with a neurotic attachment to his toy drum and a voice that can shatter glass. Add in the fact that most of it takes place in Germany during WWII and it's all narrated from a bed in a mental hospital, and you have one
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truly bizarre tale. It took me an unusually long time to read this book. It wasn't bad, just very dense and difficult to read a lot of at a time. In fact, the absurdity was quite funny in places, but maybe I just have a strange sense of humor. The passages I read out loud baffled my husband. In short, I have absolutely no idea why this book is considered a classic in some circles, but I'm glad I read it. It's definitely one story I won't be forgetting anytime soon. Show Less
LibraryThing member snash
The story of Oskar, the boy who refused to grow up, is so full of allegories and metaphors that it would be impossible to catch them all upon an initial reading but amongst other things it touches upon dichotomy in humans, desire to avoid responsibility, the horror of the adult world, and the
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impossibility of maintaining innocence. Through all the layers of meaning, it's a readable tale. Show Less
LibraryThing member jacoombs
Very funny. Easy to see why it's the classic of late XXth century German literature. Don't know whether it needed a "new" translation, but this one works.
LibraryThing member mldavis2
It is easy to see why this was a Nobel prize winner. Mixing absurdity and inversion of sanity, the protagonist alternates between first and second person narrative. There is obvious and not-so obvious metaphorical description, and I'm sure much is lost both in translation from the original German
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and for non-German readers not intimately familiar with the subtleties of WWII German society. It is not an easy read but should reward a patient reader of advanced fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member Muscogulus
A novel about a kid with a tin drum who grows up, or rather doesn’t, in Germany during the Third Reich.
Have you ever seen a rostrum from behind? All men and women — if I may make a suggestion — should be familiarized with the rear view of a rostrum before being called upon to gather in front
For Oskar — the blue-eyed boy who stunts his own growth, breaks church windows with his screams, and never stops beating his toy drum — read “Nazi Germany.” Well, it isn’t really that simple, of course. Just read it.
Have you ever seen a rostrum from behind? All men and women — if I may make a suggestion — should be familiarized with the rear view of a rostrum before being called upon to gather in front
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of one. Everyone who has ever taken a good look at a rostrum from behind will be immunized ipso facto against any magic practiced in any form whatsoever on rostrums. Pretty much the same applies to rear views of church altars; but that is another subject.For Oskar — the blue-eyed boy who stunts his own growth, breaks church windows with his screams, and never stops beating his toy drum — read “Nazi Germany.” Well, it isn’t really that simple, of course. Just read it.
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Awards
Meilleur livre étranger (1962)
PEN Translation Prize (Winner — 1964)
Nobel Prize in Literature (1999)
Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation (Winner — 2009)
Schlegel-Tieck Prize (Winner — 2010)
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1959-08
Physical description
155 p.; 20 cm
ISBN
8701000314 / 9788701000314
Local notes
Omslag: Günter Grass
Omslaget viser en stiliseret tegning af en dreng med en bliktromme
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra tysk "Die Blechtrommel" af Per Øhrgaard
Omslaget viser en stiliseret tegning af en dreng med en bliktromme
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra tysk "Die Blechtrommel" af Per Øhrgaard
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Series
Pages
155
DDC/MDS
| 833.914 |