Saturday, August 04, 2012

Metamorphosis 12 - The Tin Drum

Wow, i'm really getting behind! The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass was a pleasant surprise. Who knew that a novel beginning with a Polish peasant girl harvesting potatoes would turn out to be so engrossing...

In this partially autobiographical story, our protagonist Oskar is growing up during the war in a city which is on the border, geographically and politically, between Germany and Poland. He's not always a likable person, but in the end we are hoping for the best for him.

The edition I read was from a new translation... apparently when it was originally translated from German back in the 50s, they took out some of the more naughty bits, although what's been put back in is really pretty tame by today's standards.