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A review by vg2
Crabwalk by Günter Grass
2.0
There were aspects of this book that I both enjoyed and appreciated. The very fact that Gunter Grass based his novel around the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was a reason to pick it up; regardless of the world situation at the time, this was a terrible tragedy of a huge magnitude, and the sections surrounding the ship, it’s naming and the death-trap it became were fascinating, if awful.
Had this been a tale entirely about the vessel, I would have devoured it. Unfortunately, it was the dominant story of Paul, a man born to a survivor, that did not work for me. Paul is both passive and vaguely pathetic, and whilst I see what Grass is trying to portray by this choice - the middle generation who are terrified of identity, shouldering the guilt of their parents and reconciling the divisions, both physical and ideological, of the country, it didn’t make seeing through his eyes any more enjoyable. As he dives deeper into the right-wing corners of the internet in search of his son, the conclusion is equal measures predictable and slightly too unbelievable, lacking in the complexities that the early part of the book promised.
Finally, the language itself grated at times, and I suspect that the translation isn’t a brilliant one.
A great concept that, unfortunately, didn’t quite deliver.
Had this been a tale entirely about the vessel, I would have devoured it. Unfortunately, it was the dominant story of Paul, a man born to a survivor, that did not work for me. Paul is both passive and vaguely pathetic, and whilst I see what Grass is trying to portray by this choice - the middle generation who are terrified of identity, shouldering the guilt of their parents and reconciling the divisions, both physical and ideological, of the country, it didn’t make seeing through his eyes any more enjoyable. As he dives deeper into the right-wing corners of the internet in search of his son, the conclusion is equal measures predictable and slightly too unbelievable, lacking in the complexities that the early part of the book promised.
Finally, the language itself grated at times, and I suspect that the translation isn’t a brilliant one.
A great concept that, unfortunately, didn’t quite deliver.