Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An entire gullible nation believed faithfully in Santa Claus . But Santa Claus was really the Gasman.
--
The grim portrait of Beethoven hanging over the piano...was removed from it's nail, and an equally grim portrait of Hitler was hung on the same nail...Mama...insisted that Beethoven be placed, if not over the sofa, at least over the sideboard. This resulted in the grimmest of confrontations: Hitler and the genius hung opposite each other, stared at each other, saw through each other, yet found no joy in what they saw.
--
The grim portrait of Beethoven hanging over the piano...was removed from it's nail, and an equally grim portrait of Hitler was hung on the same nail...Mama...insisted that Beethoven be placed, if not over the sofa, at least over the sideboard. This resulted in the grimmest of confrontations: Hitler and the genius hung opposite each other, stared at each other, saw through each other, yet found no joy in what they saw.
I began reading this from a sense of duty. I’m living in Germany, so I thought I should read “an important modern German novel”. But it was so much more whimsical than I expected. I didn’t even know Germans wrote magic realism. It has a lot in common with Gabriel García Márquez, but the writing style is looser, more fluid, moving back and forth between strict narration and inner-world musing. It never loses its center or becomes boringly inaccessible, because the story is so firmly wedded to its central character: Oskar, who chooses to stop growing rather than to become a clerk in a store.
This is basically a novel about power. Oskar’s power is in his self-awareness, and in the magic he creates with his drum. With his drum, he tells stories, revives memories, takes people back to their childhoods, invokes the things they fear most. But because of who he is – a three-foot-tall man beating on a tin drum – he is mostly treated like a child, and he sees everything with the clarity of a child.
It’s set in Germany during the years around World War II, and the political story is woven into Oskar’s story as well. There are questions about what it means to be human, which of course means that Jesus has to come into the story here and there. But in this novel, Jesus is just as surreal as Oskar. Altogether, it’s strange, vivid, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, always thought-provoking.
This is basically a novel about power. Oskar’s power is in his self-awareness, and in the magic he creates with his drum. With his drum, he tells stories, revives memories, takes people back to their childhoods, invokes the things they fear most. But because of who he is – a three-foot-tall man beating on a tin drum – he is mostly treated like a child, and he sees everything with the clarity of a child.
It’s set in Germany during the years around World War II, and the political story is woven into Oskar’s story as well. There are questions about what it means to be human, which of course means that Jesus has to come into the story here and there. But in this novel, Jesus is just as surreal as Oskar. Altogether, it’s strange, vivid, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, always thought-provoking.
wacky but elegant. feels like I read something holy. I’m unworthy of rating this.
DNF at 34%.
Dieses Buch war das anstrengendste Buch, was ich jemals versucht habe zu lesen. Günter Grass ist einfach nichts für mich. Seine Ideen mögen nicht schlecht sein, einige Passagen vielleicht wirklich lesenswert... Aber es lohnt sich einfach nicht mehr für mich, etwas von ihm zu lesen. Ich mag seinen Schreibstil einfach nicht. Es geht nicht. Das hier ist das erste Buch, welches ich inoffiziell abbreche. Und das will schon was heißen. Schließlich habe ich mich ja auch durch [b: Emilia Galotti|12196351|Emilia Galotti|Max Winkler Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|17168786] gequält.
Dieses Buch war das anstrengendste Buch, was ich jemals versucht habe zu lesen. Günter Grass ist einfach nichts für mich. Seine Ideen mögen nicht schlecht sein, einige Passagen vielleicht wirklich lesenswert... Aber es lohnt sich einfach nicht mehr für mich, etwas von ihm zu lesen. Ich mag seinen Schreibstil einfach nicht. Es geht nicht. Das hier ist das erste Buch, welches ich inoffiziell abbreche. Und das will schon was heißen. Schließlich habe ich mich ja auch durch [b: Emilia Galotti|12196351|Emilia Galotti|Max Winkler Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|17168786] gequält.
The only time I didn't want to punch the little fucker in the face was when he was talking about The Onion Cellar, and even towards the end of that chapter he was asking for it.
My only complaints with this one were I thought the last portion felt rushed and there were times when I thought the narrator's more symbolic aspects (as a beacon, pointing out absurdities in modern life) were a little overdone. Other than that, the book is funny and grotesque, with some vaguely magical realist elements thrown in and a bit of European circus vibe in some scenes (I think including a somnambulist dwarf woman did it).
Bizar verhaal, het idee dat het leven absurd is en de geschiedenis zich voortdurend herhaalt. Af en toe weinig politiek-correct. Mannen schijnen het humoristisch te vinden, ik zie het niet.
This has been on my TBR list for a while and I belong to a Goodreads group that has a book challenge where you choose an author whose first and last names start with the same letter, so it looked like a win-win situation. Right? And then this gorgeous cover and the fact that a publisher went to the effort to issue a new translation for the book's 50th anniversary (and don't get me started on that fabulous Rushdie quote on the back of the book jacket). Expectations were high. Call me the Eager Reader.
Twenty pages in and I was bored. I kept hoping it would grab me or offend me or make me feel something other than trapped in a 565 pg. obligatory reading prison. Oskar, the main character, wills himself into appearing physically as a three year old throughout World War II (and thus, most of the book), has an addiction to drumming, a fetish for nurses, and the kind of megalomania that allows him to remain an obnoxious dick who occasionally passes himself off as Jesus or Satan (the former occurring more frequently than the latter).
There's a lot going on in this book historically, satirically, and with language. And yet, I simply found it mostly boring. That in itself seems an amazing feat to do when writing about an adult 3 yr. old drumming his way through WWII. There were a handful of parts I found rather comical, but they were few and far between (which is a quality better suited to bouts of venereal disease).
Twenty pages in and I was bored. I kept hoping it would grab me or offend me or make me feel something other than trapped in a 565 pg. obligatory reading prison. Oskar, the main character, wills himself into appearing physically as a three year old throughout World War II (and thus, most of the book), has an addiction to drumming, a fetish for nurses, and the kind of megalomania that allows him to remain an obnoxious dick who occasionally passes himself off as Jesus or Satan (the former occurring more frequently than the latter).
There's a lot going on in this book historically, satirically, and with language. And yet, I simply found it mostly boring. That in itself seems an amazing feat to do when writing about an adult 3 yr. old drumming his way through WWII. There were a handful of parts I found rather comical, but they were few and far between (which is a quality better suited to bouts of venereal disease).
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I have a love/hate relationship with this book and it is a tough one to rate. I'm really glad that I finished it (I left it once at 50% and came back to see it through) but I would not recommend it to my friends. I appreciate the abstract, but found myself wishing for it to be over many times. Things I liked about Oskar's crazy character on one page were things that also drove me nuts on another. I think this may be the most confusing and unhelpful review of a book I have ever written, but I also think Gunter Grass wanted it that way. :/