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xterminal's review
4.0
Günter Grass, Dog Years (Fawcett Crest, 1963)
John Reddick, The Danzig Trilogy of Günter Grass (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974)
[originally posted 22Mar2000]
First: If you decide to tackle the Danzig Trilogy, Reddick's critical analysis is indispensable. I suggest tackling it the same way I did: read The Tin Drum, start Reddick's book at the same time you start Cat and Mouse (Reddick reads faster than Grass, and you'll get through a lot of Reddick while tackling Grass), and when you've caught up, read Reddick's section on Dog Years and the actual novel concurrently.
Those of you who feel the revelation of anything having to do with a book before you get to that part in the book is a spoiler should probably avoid this technique; Reddick reveals the major "mystery" in Dog Years towards the end of his section on Cat and Mouse. However, one cannot really consider Dog Years a mystery, despite the various things that happen within it; while there are some elements to it that keep the reader guessing, Dog Years is, more than anything, a savage satire on Germany during the WW2 years. And as such, finding out the main mystery-that's-not-a-mystery should not detract at all from one's appreciation of the book itself.
Dog Years can also stand on its own, without being read as a part of the Danzig Trilogy, but the reader's appreciation of many facets of this novel-- most notably Edouard Amsel's character and the satire itself—are more easily appreciated when you have The Tin Drum and Cat and Mouse under your belt as comparisons. Amsel, the main protagonist of Dog Years, stands as a direct comparison to both Oskar and Mahlke, and his character is more easily understood when those two have already been assimilated by the reader.
The plot of Dog Years is a simple enough one; it charts, through the use of three narrators, the friendship of Edouard Amsel and Walter Matern from grade school through their early thirties. Amsel, the intellectual one, is picked on constantly by his classmates (including Matern) until one day, for no apparent reason, Matern befriends Amsel and chases away the others. It's a typical buddy-relationship in that Amsel is the brains and Matern is the brawn, but we don't get the bonding we've come to expect from seeing too many Hollywood buddy films. The relationship between Matern and Amsel is far more complex than that, and Reddick has done a passable job of interpreting it, one which I won't attempt to recreate here (it would be ludicrous to attempt something that complex in such a forum as a review). In an odd lapse, though—especially given how much emphasis Reddick has put on Grass' enmity and satire of the Roman Catholic Church in the previous two books-- Reddick seems to have overlooked one of the most obvious interpretations of Amsel's character (and also that of the more minor protagonist Jenny Brunies), as a christ figure. In the novel's central scene, both Amsel and Brunies (who are both made out, in the first half of the novel, to be almost comically fat) undergo a transformation that transforms Brunies into a ballet sensation and Amsel into another character entirely, the omnipotent Goldmouth; while there is no physical crucifixion here, the path taken by Amsel's character through the rest of the novel certainly implies the path of christ after the resurrection, until his assumption into, in this case, Berlin. For the next hundred or so pages, Goldmouth is never actually seen, only referred to in the good deeds he does for others, and he achieves an almost legendary status among the rank and file for his goodness, his power (in postwar Germany, his power is in his connections; who he knows), and the fact that no one really sees him much, but everyone is aware of his presence and his acts. However, Reddick, in his attempt to (successfully) parallel Amsel's character with that of Grass himself, never examines this aspect of Amsel.
This lack also leads to Reddick drawing the conclusion that Dog Years is the weakest of the three books, while still proclaiming that as a whole they rank as the finest piece of modern German literature extant today. I feel Reddick is giving Dog Years short shrift here; while the book does, in fact, have its faults, they are faults shared by the other two novels as well, and I came away from Dog Years thinking that, to the contrary, it was the strongest and most absorbing of the three. While it was more difficult than the other two, it was also more rewarding and more absorbing; it's not often I'll put in three months on one novel, but at no time did I feel that it ever stopped moving me along, and at no time did I ever feel that it was time to put the book down for good.
Keeping this seeming oversight of Reddick's in mind, I still have to recommend his book as a perfect accompaniment to Grass' most famous three novels, and all four of them deserve the attention of every serious student of literature.
Dog Years: **** 1/2
The Danzig Trilogy of Gunter Grass: ****
John Reddick, The Danzig Trilogy of Günter Grass (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974)
[originally posted 22Mar2000]
First: If you decide to tackle the Danzig Trilogy, Reddick's critical analysis is indispensable. I suggest tackling it the same way I did: read The Tin Drum, start Reddick's book at the same time you start Cat and Mouse (Reddick reads faster than Grass, and you'll get through a lot of Reddick while tackling Grass), and when you've caught up, read Reddick's section on Dog Years and the actual novel concurrently.
Those of you who feel the revelation of anything having to do with a book before you get to that part in the book is a spoiler should probably avoid this technique; Reddick reveals the major "mystery" in Dog Years towards the end of his section on Cat and Mouse. However, one cannot really consider Dog Years a mystery, despite the various things that happen within it; while there are some elements to it that keep the reader guessing, Dog Years is, more than anything, a savage satire on Germany during the WW2 years. And as such, finding out the main mystery-that's-not-a-mystery should not detract at all from one's appreciation of the book itself.
Dog Years can also stand on its own, without being read as a part of the Danzig Trilogy, but the reader's appreciation of many facets of this novel-- most notably Edouard Amsel's character and the satire itself—are more easily appreciated when you have The Tin Drum and Cat and Mouse under your belt as comparisons. Amsel, the main protagonist of Dog Years, stands as a direct comparison to both Oskar and Mahlke, and his character is more easily understood when those two have already been assimilated by the reader.
The plot of Dog Years is a simple enough one; it charts, through the use of three narrators, the friendship of Edouard Amsel and Walter Matern from grade school through their early thirties. Amsel, the intellectual one, is picked on constantly by his classmates (including Matern) until one day, for no apparent reason, Matern befriends Amsel and chases away the others. It's a typical buddy-relationship in that Amsel is the brains and Matern is the brawn, but we don't get the bonding we've come to expect from seeing too many Hollywood buddy films. The relationship between Matern and Amsel is far more complex than that, and Reddick has done a passable job of interpreting it, one which I won't attempt to recreate here (it would be ludicrous to attempt something that complex in such a forum as a review). In an odd lapse, though—especially given how much emphasis Reddick has put on Grass' enmity and satire of the Roman Catholic Church in the previous two books-- Reddick seems to have overlooked one of the most obvious interpretations of Amsel's character (and also that of the more minor protagonist Jenny Brunies), as a christ figure. In the novel's central scene, both Amsel and Brunies (who are both made out, in the first half of the novel, to be almost comically fat) undergo a transformation that transforms Brunies into a ballet sensation and Amsel into another character entirely, the omnipotent Goldmouth; while there is no physical crucifixion here, the path taken by Amsel's character through the rest of the novel certainly implies the path of christ after the resurrection, until his assumption into, in this case, Berlin. For the next hundred or so pages, Goldmouth is never actually seen, only referred to in the good deeds he does for others, and he achieves an almost legendary status among the rank and file for his goodness, his power (in postwar Germany, his power is in his connections; who he knows), and the fact that no one really sees him much, but everyone is aware of his presence and his acts. However, Reddick, in his attempt to (successfully) parallel Amsel's character with that of Grass himself, never examines this aspect of Amsel.
This lack also leads to Reddick drawing the conclusion that Dog Years is the weakest of the three books, while still proclaiming that as a whole they rank as the finest piece of modern German literature extant today. I feel Reddick is giving Dog Years short shrift here; while the book does, in fact, have its faults, they are faults shared by the other two novels as well, and I came away from Dog Years thinking that, to the contrary, it was the strongest and most absorbing of the three. While it was more difficult than the other two, it was also more rewarding and more absorbing; it's not often I'll put in three months on one novel, but at no time did I feel that it ever stopped moving me along, and at no time did I ever feel that it was time to put the book down for good.
Keeping this seeming oversight of Reddick's in mind, I still have to recommend his book as a perfect accompaniment to Grass' most famous three novels, and all four of them deserve the attention of every serious student of literature.
Dog Years: **** 1/2
The Danzig Trilogy of Gunter Grass: ****
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