Table Of ContentTHE NARRATIVE WORKS OF GÜNTER GRASS
GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
MONOGRAPHS
Wolfgang W.Moelleken, General Editor
Corresponding Editors
Dagmar Barnouw (Purdue University, West Lafayette)
Raimund Belgardt (Michigan State University, East Lansing)
Clifford A.Bernd (University of California, Davis)
Klaus H.Bongart (Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo)
Henrich Brockhaus (Western Washington State College, Bellingham)
Donald G.Daviau (University of California, Riverside)
Ernst S.Dick (University of Kansas, Lawrence)
Jürgen Eichhoff (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
John M.Ellis (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Richard Exner (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Evelyn S.Firchow (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)
Ingeborg Glier (Yale University, New Haven)
Reinhold Grimm (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Shaun F.D.Hughes (Harvard University, Cambridge)
Ray M.Immerwahr (University of Western Ontario, London)
Christiane Keck (Purdue University, West Lafayette)
Helmut Krausse (Queen's University, Kingston)
Herbert L.Kufner (Cornell University, Ithaca)Robert E.Lewis (University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati)
Walter F.W.Lohnes (Stanford University, Stanford)
Karl Menges (University of California, Davis)
Herbert Penzl (University of California, Berkeley)
Helmut Pfanner (University of New Hampshire, Durham)
Carroll E.Reed (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Paul Schach (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)
Peter Schaeffer (University of California, Davis)
Lester W.Seifert (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Hans Wagener (University of California, Los Angeles)
Donald Ward (University of California, Los Angeles)
Volume 12
Noel Thomas
The Narrative Works of Günter Grass
NOEL THOMAS
THE NARRATIVE WORKS
OF
GÜNTER GRASS
A CRITICAL INTERPRETATION
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
1982
© Copyright 1982-John Benjamins B.V.
ISSN 0378 4150 / ISBN 90 272 4005 1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher.
Table of Contents
Chapter I Die Blechtrommel (1959): from the per
spective of a child 1
Chapter II Katz und Maus (1961): guilt and
exploitation 86
Chapter III Hundejahre (1963): the German and
the Jew 120
Chapter IV örtlich betäubt (1969): evolution or
revolution 170
Chapter V Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (1972):
Grass versus Hegel 210
Chapter VI Der Butt (1977): the fairy-tale which
becomes reality 252
Chapter VII Das Treffen in Telgte (1979): a
celebratory novel 312
Chapter VIII Kopfgeburten oder die Deutschen sterben
aus (1980): an election manifesto à
la Grass 348
Conclusion 370
CHAPTER I
Die Blechtrommel: from the perspective of a child
Introduction
When in 1959 Die Blechtrommel was first published
it burst onto the literary scene like a bombshell, oc
casioning loud cries of horror, disgust, enthusiasm and
admiration, according to the individual attitude of the
critic concerned. Hans Magnus Enzensberger was quick to
point out the uniqueness of Grass and of his first novel:
"Dieser Mann ist ein Störenfried, ein Hai im Sardinen
tümpel, ein wilder Einzelgänger in unserer domestizierten
Literatur, und sein Buch ist ein Brocken wie Döblins Ber
lin Alexanderplatz, wie Brechts Baal, ein Brocken an dem
Rezenzenten und Philologen mindestens ein Jahrzehnt lang
zu würgen haben, bis es reif zur Kanonisation oder zur
1
Aufbewahrung im Schauhaus der Literaturgeschichte ist."
Enzensberger was unduly optimistic in quoting ten years
as the minimum period of time which critics and academics
would require in order to come to terms with the novel.
The process of digestion is still underway and until di
gestion is complete, canonisation or storage still belongs
2 THE NARRATIVE WORKS OF GÜNTER GRASS
to a somewhat remote future. Theories abound as to how
the novel should be approached and how it should be inter
preted. No single interpretation provides the ultimate
truth which would allow the final categorisation to take
place. One has rather the impression that each new ven
ture into the still partially uncharted interior of the
novel complements but does not necessarily invalidate
other previous pronouncements. The process of digestion
is a literary communion in which all participate, from
which one day a collective assessment will emerge and per
mit the novel to have an appropriate resting place in the
literary museum.
The Film of Die Blechtrommel
However, the production of Volker Schlöndorff's film
of Die Blechtrommel, twenty years after the publication
of the novel, allows a slightly different approach to the
novel and permits us to re-emphasize some of the state
ments which Grass himself has made and which sometimes
are partially or completely ignored by those who seek to
reduce the novel to a single, all-embracing formula. In
comparing film and novel we shall also become aware of
the correctness of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's response to
the novel dating from the year 1959. What is more impor
tant, however, is that in relating the film to the novel,
DIE BLECHTROMMEL: FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A CHILD 3
tne distinctive qualities of the two artistic products
may emerge with greater clarity. Before commencing this
comparison it is worth recalling that Grass had confi
dence in Schlöndorff's capacity to adapt material in
keeping with the aesthetics of the film-producer: "erst
als ich merkte, daß der Schlöndorff in der Lage ist, die
Syntax des Schriftstellers in die Optik der Kamera zu
2
übersetzen, da war die Sache für mich geklärt." (p.2 4).
As a result of such confidence he felt justified in
accepting Schlöndorff as a producer who could convert
the novel into film.
One of the fundamental differences between the novel
and the film is the change in narrative perspective. In
the novel Oskar writes his memoires in the years from
1952 to 1954 and in so doing covers the lives of his im
mediate ancestors and thirty years of his own life,
having been born in September 1924 and completing his
autobiography on his thirteenth birthday in September
1954. Oskar tells the story of himself, the child who at
the age of three consciously refuses to enter the adult
world, and accordingly causes an accident, a fall down
some cellar steps which arrests his growth. Oskar pre
tends to view the world through the eyes of a three-year-
old child: his intellectual faculties remain unimpaired
but he ceases to grow physically. The narrative perspec-
4 THE NARRATIVE WORKS OF GÜNTER GRASS
tive acquires a further complication by the fact that
Oskar writes his life-story as an inmate of a lunatic
asylum, having been confined there because he is suspected
of murder. The opening sentence of the novel casts its
shadow over the whole narrative: "Zugegeben: ich bin
Insasse einer Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, mein Pfleger beo-
3
bachtet mich, läßt mich kaum aus dem Auge..." (p. 9). In
the film this qualification does not exist. The author,
producer and scriptwriter were in agreement that the si
tuation of the narrator should be sacrificed: "Es hätte
sonst eine ständige Rückblende gegeben, umständlich und
dreimal um die Ecke; was man mit einem Semikolon beim
2
Schreiben machen kann, wird im Film umständlich." (p.2 3).
This change in the position of the narrator is the basic
difference between the film and the novel-- apart from
the obvious, more fundamental fact that the film and no
vel are two different artistic media. In the film every
thing is viewed through the eyes of the child, as though
he were experiencing the events at the time. The viewer
is presented with a series of tableaux or episodes with
Oskar acting as commentator, "doch nicht um Informationen
zu geben, sondern um seine Gedanken zu sich und dem Ge-
2
schehen zu formulieren." (p. 38).
In the novel many of the difficulties which the reader
experiences in interpreting it stem from the fact that
