Representation, Subversion, and Eugenics in Günter Grass’s ‘The Tin Drum’ by Peter O. Arnds

Abstract

594 Reviews and Grass: known for their long-standing criticism of the Federal Republic, they feel the need to distance themselves from any 'instrumentalization of German shame' which detracts from contemporary acts of inhumanity. Walser distinguishes between shame and guilt, accepting the former but rejecting the latter for today's generation, a distinction which might have been brought out more clearly. One final comment: while Weninger brilliantly maps out the attempt by post-war Germans to come to terms with their criminal past, he does not draw sufficient attention to the fact that the new Jewish lobby inGermany is still reluctant to stretch out a hand of reconciliation. This too is an element of Germany's unresolved past. OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY HANS J. HAHN Representation, Subversion, and Eugenics inGiinter Grass's 'The Tin Drum'. By PETER 0. ARNDS. (Studies inGerman Literature, Linguistics and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2004. X+ I78 Pp. $70; ?50. ISBN I-57II3-287-2. This lively and exciting book is the first monograph on Die Blechtrommel or The Tin Drum since Edward Diller's A Mythic Journey: Guinter Grass, 'The Tin Drum' (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, I974), which made even more imagina tive use of sparse textual evidence. Peter Arnds certainly breaks some new ground, in particular with regard to the challenging links he makes between Oskar Matzerath's misshapen physique and 'Nazi Body Politics'. His explanation for the promiscuous behaviour of Oskar's 'arme Mama' is illuminating too, as he allies it to the com pensatory actions of the vegetarian and homosexual fitness fanatic, Greff, who is desperate to cover up his sexuality by conforming to the regime's athletic ideal. The book is extremely wide-ranging and covers the fields of history, politics, and litera ture; it abounds with potted histories on a variety of topics, which students of the novel with or without knowledge of German (all quotations are given in the orignal and in translation) will no doubt find useful. Arnds's critical judgement, however, is open to question on numerous counts. He bases his argument for considering Oskar as a potential victim of the Nazi euthanasia programme on an episode which takes place on the eve of the fall of Danzig, when Oskar's father receives papers from the authorities requesting his handover. Up to that point Oskar has been treated by the Nazis as the three-year-old he pretends to be, and his status as regards 'Nazi Body Politics' has been raised obliquely, if indeed at all. Arnds makes generous use of other, perhaps even more incidental, references, such as Tom Thumb. His argument for claiming Oskar as a gypsy on the grounds that he travels is unsustainable. There are other jarring comments, such as this on Oskar's apprenticeship to amonumental mason immediately after the war: 'While for Greff, swimming in ice-cold water is a form of "self-flagellation", the image of a hunchbacked dwarf working with granite serves as amacabre parody for the torture the so-called Untermenschen were forced to endure in the labor camps' (p. 128). The link exists in his imagination only. Arnds isby no means the first critic to linkGrass's first novel with the picaresque of Grimmelshausen, Goethe's Bildungsroman, thewritings of Bakhtin, and the tradition of the 'Fool, Harlequin, and Trickster', though he writes each time as if he were. The critical writing on Die Blechtrommel is by now extremely rich, spanning as it does forty-five years and most major Western languages, but Arnds does not acknowledge even the best-known monographs or most pertinent dissertations in English (e.g. Anne L. Mason, The Sceptical Muse: A Study of Guenter Grass's Conception of the Artist (Bern: Peter Lang, 1974); Lestor N. Caltvedt, 'OskarMatzerath: A Modern Version of the Fool' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Northwestern University, I973)). MLR, IOI.2, 2006 595 Received opinion, on the other hand, he often accepts without question (Ernestine Schlant, The Language of Silence (New York and London: Routledge, i999)). One puts the book down feeling it has been in the end amissed opportunity. UNIVERSITY OF KENT JULIAN PREECE Bildgeddchtnis: Zur poetischen Funktion der Sinneswahrnehmung im Prosawerk Jto hannes Bobrowskis. By ANDREAS DEGEN...