BOOKS
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is in Gunter Grass a great, metaphysical anger. But the anger comes at
us in trappings of humor, eroticism, absurdity, poker-facedness-it
is,
in short, a Mardi-Gras anger-and is not readily recognizable for what
it is. But its impact on sensitive readers is all the greater for that.
While adopting this French orientation,
The Tin Drum
manages to
improve on its models. Explaining German romanticism to French
readers, Heine wrote: "A French madness is nowhere near so mad as a
German one; for in the latter there is, as Polonius would say, method.
With unrivaled pedantry, with terrifying conscientiousness, with thorough–
ness such as a French lunatic cannot even conceive of, this German
frenzy was practiced."
The Tin Drum
is also nourished by German
romanticism. Oskar is the obverse of E.
T.
A. Hoffmann's Klein Zaches,
another mischievous dwarf. Zaches has the magic gift of receiving the
reward due any great action performed by anyone in his presence;
conversely, Oskar has genuine talents of sorts, but they are sinister, and,
directly or indirectly, lead those around him to disaster. The stealing
of the Good complements the palming off of Evil. But whereas in
Klein Zaches
justice triumphs, in
The Tin Drum
injustice goes its
merry way. It does not exactly triumph- there are no more triumphs
in our day, not even triumphs of injustice- but it does go on.
The Tin Drum
is the story of Oskar Matzerath, born in the
Twenties, whose mother was a Danzig woman, and whose father was
either her German husband or her Polish lover. The infant is gifted
with an adult brain at birth, and resolves not to grow up to be a
shopkeeper like the elder Matzerath. Aged three, Oskar throws himself
down some stairs and arrests his growth; he refuses to go to school or talk
properly but becomes a fiendish artist on the toy drums his mother
keeps him supplied with. When a new drum is not forthcoming, he
discovers that he can shout glass to pieces even at great distances, which
proves a useful method of petty blackmail and, later, of other mischief–
making. As Oskar grows older, he becomes the cause of the deaths of
his mother and both presumptive fath ers, and of several other people
to boot. Not so much the cause of death as its catalyst, and who can
assess the responsibility of a catalyst? So Oskar gets away with murder.
The story covers the rise of Nazism, the war, the collapse of
Germany, but all only as reflected in Oskar's existence. He has many
picaresque and demonic adventures : he becomes an "artiste" entertain–
ing troops in Normandy, a "reincarnation" of Jesus who leads a gang
of likable JD's into destruction, his brother's father if not his keeper
(by having a child by his stepmother), and so forth. After the war, he
sees fit to grow a little, but in so doing develops a hump. He is relocated
