Die Blechtrommel Research Articles

Rečenična dopuna u formi zavisne rečenice i infinitivske konstrukcije

Syntax, as an important part of grammar, deals with the analysis of sentences and their elements. Many grammarians have paid great attention to sentence complements which, according to the dependent model of grammar, represent a very important part of a sentence. The structure or syntax of a sentence in German is probably the most complex topic in German grammar. One of the grammarians who devoted himself to this field of grammar was Ulrich Engel. Using the dependent model of grammar, Engel managed to bring the syntax of the German language closer to many Germanists in a simple way, and not only in the Germanspeaking area. Infinitive construction and dependent sentences are forms with the help of which certain sentence additions can be realized. Using the model of dependent grammar, this paper explains the process of realization of sentence addition, using examples from a specialized corpus, i.e., the first two chapters of the work Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) by Günther Grass, and the analysis of the content led to key answers.

Grass’s Die Blechtrommel and Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translating the Picaresque into a German Context after 1945

When Grass was working on Die Blechtrommel in Paris, Paul Celan recommended he read Gottlob Regis’ translation of Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel. By drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnival this article analyses Grass’s indebtedness to the French author for the purpose of attacking the political climate of his time. The focus is on body images, Grass’s criticism of the state and the church, instances of misogyny, the human/animal divide, questions of genre and parody, as well as Grass’s critical stance vis à vis post-war political avowals of reason as a stratagem of self-distancing from the irrationalism of the Third Reich. The article demonstrates that hybridity relates to more than the Bakhtinian grotesque body of the protagonist, but is closely linked to mimicry, mockery, and ultimately subversion as key feature of human / animal liminality in the postmodern satirical novel with its roots in the European picaresque.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s Réflexions Sur La Question Juive (1946) as Blueprint for Grass’s Jewish Figures: From Hundejahre (1963) to Im Krebsgang (2002)

Grass’s depiction of Jewish characters becomes more abstract after Die Blechtrommel, corresponding in fact with schema outlined by Sartre in a key essay on anti-Semitism and constructions of Jewishness, which was re-issued in German translation in 1960. The possible influence of Sartre’s thought on Grass may have been overlooked in research because Grass championed Camus at Sartre’s expense, presenting the pair as opposite types. Arguably, Grass did this for strategic reasons as he first reacted against his senior French counterpart and they played similar public roles in their respective countries up to Sartre’s death in 1980. Both visited Israel, for example, for the first time in March 1967. In Grass’s fiction, Albrecht and Eddi Amsel in Hundejahre, Hermann Ott in Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke, the rats in Die Rättin, and Wolfgang Stremplin in Im Krebsgang can all be understood in terms presented and popularized by Sartre.

Return of the Picaresque: Günter Grass’s Self-Positioning with Regard to World Literature and its Effect on his International Reception

Günter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel presented a radical break with established conventions of post-war German writing. While its early critical reception in Germany tended to concentrate on this rupture, the novel was internationally read in the context of an older European tradition. Comparisons with an international literary canon were used to make the novel and its dubious hero more palatable to a potentially sceptical readership. References to major writers from Rabelais to Joyce and to the picaresque tradition in particular appear in reviews from France to Finland. By positioning Grass’s novel in the framework of the European canon the early reception established a pattern that in the long run influenced Grass’s own writing. In his subsequent work reference to canonical traditions becomes ever more visible as he unfolds dialogues with major authors of the past. By identifying with these authors Grass positioned himself as one among equals in the literary Parnassus. Having established his own international reputation and thereby contributed to enhancing the reputation of post-war German writing as a whole, his later writing increasingly paid tribute to a specifically German literary heritage.

Testing the retranslation hypothesis for audiovisual translation: the films of Volker Schlöndorff subtitled into English

ABSTRACTThis article uses the Descriptive Translation Studies framework to examine the English subtitles for two German films directed by Volker Schlöndorff: Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum [The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum], directed in 1975, and Die Blechtrommel [The Tin Drum], from 1979, with a view to testing the earliest formulation of the retranslation hypothesis. Using the concept of translational norms as one of its main heuristic tools, this research examines an audiovisual corpus consisting of five different sets of DVD subtitles from the two films: three from Die Blechtrommel, dating from 1995, 2002 and 2010, and two from Katharina Blum, dated 2003 and 2009, thus spanning the era from the advent of digitisation and the beginning of DVD to the rise of TV and film streaming services. The data is analysed to investigate the orientation, in terms of source culture or target culture, of the translation strategies that have been activated by the subtitlers when encountering culture-specific references, and then to pinpoint any diachronic trends that come to the fore. The analysis concludes that the retranslation hypothesis does not apply in this corpus; possible reasons for this finding are discussed.

Ästhetischer Eigensinn als Literaturwissenschaftliche Analysekategorie: Eine Anwendung Auf Die Blechtrommel als Literarisches Gegengedächtnis

Oskar Negt's and Alexander Kluge's Geschichte und Eigensinn (1981) is a treasure trove of ideas for cultural, literary, and interdisciplinary studies. With its highly stimulating, but not easily accessible content, the daunting tome of 1283 pages is still waiting to be fully appreciated, a message in a bottle left to posterity. Its publication in English as History and Obstinacy (2014) shows that the process of its discovery is well underway. This paper gives an introduction to Negt's and Kluge's concept of obstinacy (Eigensinn) and its aesthetic implications. Besides, it makes use of Viktor Šklovskij's theory of defamiliarization to describe the obstinate behaviour of literary texts. The main aim of the paper is to theoretically outline aesthetic obstinacy (ästhetischen Eigensinn) as a tool for literary analysis and to put it to the test in a close reading of the famous chapter ‘Glaube Hoffnung Liebe’ about the horrifying events of ‘Kristallnacht’ in Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (1959). Of particular interest is the question of how the obstinate narrative devices are used to express a counter-memory that challenges postwar West German obliviousness towards the Nazi past.

"Le mani in mezzo al cibo, tutte mani cortesi". Tre pasti solidali in Ingeborg Bachmann, Günter Grass e Friedrich Dürrenmatt

The paper focuses on a particular kind of literary representations of food, namely the “solidarity meals” described by Alois Wierlacher. They are analysed in three prose works: Ingeborg Bachmann’s Der Fall Franza (1965-1966), Gunter Grass’ Die Blechtrommel (1959) and Friedrich Durrenmatt’s Die Panne (1956.) These literary representations foster the recognition of a utopian dimension of brotherhood, and at the same time they show ex negativo the society in which the characters live.

Three Jews in Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum

In the novel The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel, 1959) Günter Grass depicts three periods of German history: pre-war time, World War II, and post-war time. In all the segments of the novel, there is a Jewish character: in the first part it is the toy dealer, Sigismund Markus; in the second, Mr Feingold; and in the third it is Ferdinand Schmuh. The aim of this paper is to determine similarities and differences among these characters, bearing in mind the changes in socio-political situation, as well as the status of Jews in the world of petite bourgeoisie. Sigismund Markus was in love with Oskar's mother, and he was loyal to her, even though she was cheating her husband with another man. He warned her of the changing circumstances and he himself decided to get baptised, in order to survive in the new society. However, he was attacked in Crystal Night then he killed himself in order to avoid the destiny which the Nazis have planned for him. The second Jew in the novel is a survivor, Mr Feingold. Although his entire family has been killed in the concentration camp Treblinka, he is eager to help and to protect Maria, Oskar and Kurt. He helps Oskar during the fever and eventually proposes to Maria, but Maria is now ready to leave Gdansk, so Mr Feingold was turned down, just like Markus few years back. Symbolically, the devoted love of the Jews for the Germans and for Gdansk has been refused, as well as hope for a fresh start for the Jews and Germans. While Markus and Feingold show love and respect for women and understanding for Oskar, Schmuh is embittered because Germans have not learnt to mourn and are incapable of crying. He is giving them an opportunity to learn it by serving them onions which makes them shed tears and open their hearts. However, this is only temporary; they do not really change; so Schmuh vents his negative feelings in cursing toilet women and regularly killing twelve sparrows in an afternoon. As he once exaggerated and killed one too many, sparrows attacked his car and he died in the accident. Symbolically, sparrows represent the people and their frivolity, so this killed the last Jew in the novel. Although all three men strive to become a part of the world of petite bourgeoisie, as outsiders they remain on its margin, capable to see the reality behind the borderlines of this narrow milieu and to perceive the broader picture, yet incapable to leave it despite the evident danger. The unrequited love and compassion of the Jews towards the Germans have evolved to anger and bitterness because of their inability to show emotions and mourn over the past. This eventually ruins every chance of establishing mutual love and respect between the Jews and the Germans.

"Ist die Schwarze Köchin da? Jajaja . . .": Mimesis and Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel

Die Blechtrommel (1959) has inspired widely divergent readings, not least in respect of the aesthetic grounds that the novel offered for the social hope in the wake of Auschwitz. This article re-visits it against the backdrop of Grass’s own recognition of the post-war author’s—personal and collective—sense of complicity; and in that connection it considers how Die Blechtrommel embodies the dialectic of hope and despair more broadly characteristic of Grass’s sense of post-war literary and political engagement. Its contention is that Theodor W. Adorno’s conception of “Mimesis,” as it is developed in Dialektik der Aufklarung (1944) and Asthetische Theorie (1970), can provide a compelling account for Grass’s aesthetic and ethical achievement. The article examines the senses in which Oskar embodies the dynamic of Mimesis, staking as he does a subversive ethical claim for his notorious drumming and sing-shattering. It then turns to showing how Grass’s portrayal of the “bodily” reveals it as a meeting point of complicity, shame, and guilt—but also a faintly utopian site for a new social order. By thinking through these insights precisely with Mimesis in mind, we might begin to do justice to the elusive moment of hope in Grass’s work.

The Holocaust for Beginners: Yankev Glatshteyn's <i>Emil un Karl</i> and Other Wartime Works for Young American Yiddish Readers

Once a topic thought inappropriate for children, the Holocaust is now presented to them in a proliferation of undertakings: state-mandated educational programs beginning in elementary school, special exhibitions for young visitors in Holocaust museums, and the burgeoning genre of children's Holocaust literature, which now boasts hundreds of titles. (1) Long before Holocaust education was widely endorsed for young people, childhood had begun to figure strategically in the form of young protagonists in major works of Holocaust literature such as H. G. Adler's novel Panorama (1968), Gunter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) (1959), and Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird (1965). (2) More recently, literary works engage childhood through provocative use of the idioms of storytelling for the young; for example, David Grossman's 1986 novel Ayen erekh: ahavah (See Under. Love) evokes children's literature, while Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale (1986) employs the juvenile genre of comics. The disparity between childhood, conceived as the age of innocence, and genocide, understood as the fundamental collapse of civil society, is a productive opening for the creation of avant-garde literary works on the Holocaust, including the occasional work of fiction for young readers, such as Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (2005). A remarkable precedent for this confluence of the Holocaust, the sensibility of the child, and the literary avant-garde can be found in works written in the early 1940s by one of the leading modernist American Yiddish poets of the twentieth century, Yankev Glatshteyn (1896-1971), especially his novel Emil un Karl (Emil and Karl) (1940). Written for young adult readers, Emil un Karl was published in New York only months after World War II had begun and more than a year before the United States entered the conflict. A pioneering work of Holocaust fiction, the novel comes from the pen of a major Jewish writer who achieved considerable acclaim for his postwar poetry on the Holocaust. And yet, the novel has merited only a passing reference in most Glatshteyn scholarship. (3) Emil un Karl and two shorter pieces on the Holocaust that Glatshteyn wrote for young readers during the war years are noteworthy on several counts. As early examples of Holocaust literature, these works engage an event that not only had yet to be given this name (or its Yiddish equivalent, khurbn) but also was still unfolding as these works were written and published, in contrast with postwar writing on the Holocaust. This distinction is especially telling with regard to the preponderance of children's literature on the subject. This literature has been written well after a master narrative of the Holocaust as a discrete historical event was established--a narrative distinct from the history of European anti-Semitism, the Nazi era, or World War II. Indeed, in America the Holocaust was not secured as a prominent fixture of the national moral landscape until several decades after the war. Moreover, as the Nazi-led mass murder of Europe's Jews, Roma, and other civilian populations took place far from the United States and bore no direct connection to the lives of most of its citizens, the Holocaust has been valued here as a paradigmatic event as well as a subject of importance in its own right. In this capacity, the Holocaust informs American public discussions of other genocides, both earlier (for example, of American Indians) and later (such as the ethnic cleansing operations in the Balkans), as well as an array of morally challenging issues, including the abortion rights debate, the AIDS pandemic, the nuclear arms race, animal rights, and world hunger. Glatshteyn's writings on the Holocaust for young readers are revealing as among the first attempts to engage Americans in this remote event of unrivaled enormity. The works are also noteworthy as some of Glatshteyn's earliest efforts to address the Holocaust, which loomed large in his postwar career as a poet, essayist, and editor. …

Landmarks in the German Novel (1). (British and Irish Studies in German Language and Literature, 45) by Peter Hutchinson

298 Reviews Landmarks in theGerman Novel (1). Ed. by Peter Hutchinson. (British and Irish Studies inGerman Language and Literature, 45) Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang. 237 pp. ?32. ISBN 978-3-03910-927-2. Arising out of a lecture series at theUniversity of Cambridge, this is the firstof what will be two collections of essays devoted tomilestones or turning-points in the development of the novel in theGerman-speaking countries. This volume takes us up to 1959. How very German the German novel is.Werther, the firstbook dealt with here, immortalizes adolescent Angst, while the last,Die Blechtrommel, features a narrator forever stunted in both sensibility and stature. The trajectory from early Goethe to early Grass in itself speaks volumes about the Sonderweg of German literature and history. That iswhy the landmark novels of theGerman canon particularly need thekind of careful explication and historical contextualizing found in these excellent essays. All the contributors have conscientiously written to their brief, filling out the 'landmark' concept in terms of literarypedigree and genealogy, cultural ambience, and the subsequent influence of each novel. For those who do not read German, or (e.g. students?) do not have time to absorb these very long novels, the volume works well as a briefing in the German literary tradition, though a more general readership would surely have liked the quotations to be translated. The essays are well structured, and what is especially appealing about them is that each combines comprehensive scholarly information with a concise thesis that brings the novels into focus. Roger Paulin shows that the preoccupations (such as Empfindsamkeit) and epistolary techniques ofWerther enabled the creation of a paradigm, an instantly recognizable essence in the figure of the hero. Ritchie Robertson neatly places the reader in touch with the concept of the 'schone Seele' and provides interalia a lively analysis of the conceit of the 'Turmgesellschaft' in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Nicholas Boyle expertly hauls that strange book, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, back into the land of reason and reasonableness, seeing it as an anti-Romantic novel. Martin Swales has a more personal, informal tone in dealing with Der grixne Heinrich ('The depiction of his years at school is superb', p. 71), but succinctly presents Keller's novel as pointing forward tomodern literature and the 'strange concatenation of catastrophic subject matter and virtuosic linguistic mode' (p. 81) thatwas to come. Charlotte Woodford's thesis about Effi Briest is that, far from being a 'Naturkind', Effi is essentially a social construct, who knows no other way of experiencing reality than through social discourse. Elizabeth Boa identifies in Buddenbrooks, the ultimate Heimatroman in German literature, an 'intensely pleasurable disgust underlying themourning for a lostworld' (p. 115). Ronald Speirs provides an overview of the ideational background ofDer Zauber berg, and perceives itas taking the intellectual novel inGermany a step forward, from theBildungsroman towards theZeitroman. The chapter on Kafka's Der Procefi by Carolin Duttlinger adopts amore oblique approach, starting from the fragments which were excluded from theCritical Edition, and demonstrating that the novel MLR, 105.1, 2010 299 is grounded in tensions between openness and closure, unity and fragmentation' (p. 150). The editor's own chapter on Der Steppenwolf shows ittobe more landmark than novel, and he does not hold back from exposing thebook's weaknesses, while giving Hesse credit forhis rare ludic experimentation, where narrative discourse is flamboyantly and playfully foregrounded. Andrew Webber is interested in the 'psychotopography' of Biberkopf's Berlin in Berlin Alexander plat z, and makes the reader aware of themodernist multiplicity and lability of the novel by exploring some of Doblin's topographical references, such as the Alexanderplatz itself (a site of exchange, as Biberkopf is a 'figure of exchange', p. 179) and the abattoir. David Midgley is good on the similarlymulti-layered, complicated perspectives ofMusil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. The centre of his essay, perhaps, is the neat summary of a kind of circularity: "The sense ofwhat it means to be a "Mann ohne Eigenschaften" [. . .] acquires definition only in relation to the social world fromwhich Ulrich has set out to detach himself (p. 192). For a characterization ofMann's Doktor Faustus, and ofRobert Vilain's sensitive exegesis of thenovel, it would be hard to...

Günter Grass's 'Danzig Quintet': Explorations in the Memory and History of the Nazi Era from 'Die Blechtrommel' to 'Im Krebsgang' by Katharina HallConstructing Authorship in the Work of Günter Grass. (Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs) by Rebecca Braun

MLR, 104.3, 2009 921 G?nter Grass's 'Danzig Quintet': Explorations in the Memory and History of the Nazi Era from 'Die Blechtrommel' to 'ImKrebsgang. By Katharina Hall. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang. 2007. 215 pp. ?29. ISBN 978-3-03-910901-2. Constructing Authorship in the Work ofG?nter Grass. By Rebecca Braun. (Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs) Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2008. ix+i97pp. ?55. ISBN 878-0-19-954270-3. Grass's literary career, as it approaches its inevitable end, resembles the finale of a professional firework display. You never quite know which will have been the ultimate surprise and when it will be time to startapplauding. These two fine,bright books are both responses towhat must by now be nearly the entire spectacular event. In their complementary ways theyboth take the long view ofGrass's development, and if theywere both taken by surprise by the publication of Beim H?uten der Zwiebel, theydo theirbest not to show it. Katharina Hall's book links themost recent fiction by Grass, Im Krebsgang (an other,Die Box, has appeared since these studies were published), with his earlier fictions, theDanzig Trilogy (as it was baptized by JohnReddick in the sixties, enlist ing the erotic-aesthetic frisson of Lawrence Durreli's then controversial Alexandria Quartet), and ?rtlich bet?ubt, which, if it isnot set inDanzig, is significantly about remembering it.This makes up theDanzig Quintet, now seen as a lifelong project devoted to the subject ofmemory. (Given the popularity ofmemory studies in the humanities in recent decades, it isodd thatHall takes no account of the central con tributionmade to them by Janand Aleida Assmann.) The identification of these five texts (two novels, twoNovellen, and something inbetween) as a significant grouping is timely and persuasive. One critical gain is the re-evaluation of ?rtlich bet?ubt, which, as a transitional text, had come to be overlooked. More fundamentally, the shape ofHall's argument brings out how Grass's recent return to first-person narrative, to the travails of remembering, and to the kaleidoscopic effects of how autobiography and history interact, does indeed point up how immersed he had been fordecades in the contemporary world, and how far thathad taken him from his poetic wellspring in remembrance. Hall makes a strong distinction between memory as testimony and memory as representation. Her lucid analyses of Grass's texts are guided by this distinction, which she anchors in Freudian and especially Lacanian psychoanalytical categories. These are explained for the reader with exemplary patience and clarity in an early chapter, and successfully focus her strong line of argument. Memory as testimony is responsible and socialized: it is Symbolic. Memory as representation is Imaginary. It is ego-controlled but irresponsible. This enables Hall to classify the different memory practices employed byGrass in the elaboration of his fictions, and subtly to expound authorial emphasis and evaluation. The results are thoroughly illuminating, providing an anatomy ofGrass's ability towrite wayward magic' fiction at the same time as confronting guilt and shame more creatively and honestly thanmost other authors of his generation writing inGerman. One justwonders whether a Habermasian moral agenda (although Habermas is 922 Reviews not mentioned) has not been smuggled in behind the psychoanalytical terms, such thatSymbolic (as in: the ability todeal with complexity and lack) isalways good, and Imaginary (as in: coloured by the subject's drives) is always bad. The deployment of psychoanalytical terms drags with it therapeutic evaluations: you need to grow up and livewith difference; a dose of 'die schwarze K?chin' is good foryou.While an analyst needs to help his or her clients in certain situations tomake adjustments in relation to symbolic and imaginary identifications, and while Habermas should certainly be admired for his moral clarity in relation to the German historical identity,one thingGrass isnot writing about inhis fiction?not, in any case, in any simple way, inmy view?is moral psychology. Hall might be misunderstood to be asserting thathe is.On the other hand, her use of an analytical system deriving from Lacan should by no means be underestimated as a critical tool. Itworks very well. Nor indeed can one dismiss the imputation that, somehow, Grass's influence upon...

Günter Grass and his Critics: From 'The Tin Drum' to 'Crabwalk' by Siegfried MewsDer Fall Grass: Ein deutsches Debakel by Wolfgang Beutin

276 Reviews symbolic capital with regard toSchmidt's habitus ofself-stylization, thereis,rather sadly Imust admit, very little in thisvolume thatwe did not know already. KING'S COLLEGE LONDON ROBERTWENINGER Gunter Grass and his Critics: From 'The Tin Drum' to 'Crabwalk'. By SIEGFRIED MEWS. (Studiesin GermanLiterature, Linguistics andCulture: Literary Criti cism inPerspective) Rochester, NY: CamdenHouse. 2008. vii+426pp. $90; ?50. ISBN 978-1-57113-062-4. Der FallGrass:Eindeutsches Debakel. By WOLFGANG BEUTIN.Frankfurt a.M.:Peter Lang. 2008. 192 pp. ?18.50; ?12. ISBN 978-3-631-57004-3. Siegfried Mews's astoundingly well-researched critical overview ofGiinter Grass's reception isan essentialcompendiumforanybody workingon theauthor's prose fiction. Itilluminates theliterary-critical reception ofGrass inrespect ofall fifteen piecesof literary fiction and systematically analysessourcesranging from contem porarynewspaperreviewsin theGerman,US, and (to a lesserextent) UK and Frenchpress,through disparateresearch articles andchapters, tohighly specialized monographs. Consideration of the media responseto the2006 autobiography has been added in theepilogue. Mews discreetly sifts and evaluates hispress material andyetremains bothsubstantially more inclusive andmore critically focusedthan similar earlier studies(e.g.Blechgetrommelt: Gunter Grass inder Kritik, ed.by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Gottingen: Steidl,1997)), so that hisbook stands outas a valuable toolforresearch. Particularly in thecase of lesscelebrated works suchasKopfge burten oderDie Deutschensterben aus andUnkenrufe, Mews significantly corrects thepictureof their contemporary reception not justby recording positivereviews butalsobystressing thedifferent sympathies andpriorities brought tothe works in different geographical locations. Yet thisisonlythetipof theiceberg. Inextending, bothchronologically and spatially, Volker Neuhaus's critical overview ofacademic scholarship on each literary work (Giinter Grass (Stuttgart: Metzler,1992)),Mews systematically bringsback to lightforgotten insights expressedin earlyand not alwayseasilyaccessiblearticles, aswell asdelineating the major themes, issues, and stylistic concernsthat underpinacademicdebateup to thepresent. This isabove all tobe welcomed in respect ofGrass's 'DanzigTrilogy', which has inspired a myriadof criticalapproachesand vastlydiffering interpretations over theyears. Althoughtheindexisa little disappointing ina research companionof thiscalibre (termssuch as 'religion'/'Christianity', 'politics','narrator'/'narration', 'teaching'/ 'pedagogy','masculinity', and 'gender' were all absent,despitetheirinclusionas interpretative categoriesin thetext), Mews's sixty-page bibliography of secondary sources outclassesallothercontemporary compilations on theauthor. Nobody working on Grass in the future-at whatever level-can afford not to have a copy of this book to hand. However, it should be noted thatMews neither expresses anypersonal, overarching interpretations ofeithertheauthor orhiswork, which it is probably unfair to expect from a companion of this sort, nor develops MLR, 104.1, 2009 277 anyobviouscritique or theory regarding thecritical reception as a phenomenonin its own right. This isan element orchapter onemight more reasonably havehoped for, and somekindofwider interpretative framework mighthave helpedguard againsttheobviousproblemsinherent in Mews's eclecticsource material.Sources andvoicesbegin to mergeand competeinan at timesrather bewildering manner ifone triesto read thebook as a narrative aboutGrass's authorialsignificance, while theverynatureofGrass's relationship tohiscritics means that chapters can appearrepetitive. By thesametoken, onehardlyreadsan encyclopedia from cover tocover, but isoftenincredibly grateful thatitisthere. Mews's critical compendium of source materialfulfils justsucha function, and everylibrary withholdingsin contemporary German literature shouldhavea copy. No suchstatement can bemade about WolfgangBeutin'sDer Fall Grass:Ein deutsches Debakel.Thebook setsout tobe a 'schmale kritische Schrift', but itsoon revealsitself tobe aKampfschrift ofthe worstsort. Beutin's main argument appears tobe that Grass isa shoddy writer, withhitherto unrecognized right-wing tenden ciesandamuddledandself-contradictory political presencethat bringstheentirety ofpost-war German societyintodisrepute. He availshimself ofno recognizable critical apparatusinordertosetaboutsubstantiating theseclaims. Not onlydoes thebook lackanybibliography, Beutinmakes no reference toanyotherscholarly worksonGrass throughout, and this despitethefactthat he isnominally discussing Die Blechtrommel, ImKrebsgang, BeimHdutenderZwiebel, and the1968collection ofessays Uberdas Selbstverstandliche, which includes manyof the most frequently referenced politicalpiecesfrom that period.Politicalantipathy evidently motivates mostofwhathewrites: much,ofcourse,is made ofthe2006 Waffen-SS revelations, but Grass's support ofNATO involvement inKosovo in 1998 is also held against the author with tedious andoften misplaced frequency. A thoroughly confusedimage ofGrass as a political commentator emerges, based on theworst possible scholarly practice. Not onlydoesBeutinlimit himself almostexclusively toone smallvolume of speechesfromthe196os,entirely discounting thespecifics of thisdecade and quotingoutofcontextthroughout, he also statesas fact wild conspiracy theories abouthow the media and the German intellectual community propelled Grass to fame andhavesubsequently kepthiminthespotlight. His literary criticism amounts to two chapters inwhich he tries to correct Grass's grammar and style.Yet Beutin's own textisexceedingly poorly written, lurching fromtabular lists andbullet-point insertions to Bild-style sensationalist sentences, personalanecdote, and inappropri atepolitical polemics. The introduction losesitself entirely inabullet-point critique ofcontemporary...

The Methodology of Architectonic Truth-Finding in Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel)

Stephan Schaffrath, in his paper Methodology of Architectonic Truth-Finding in Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), discusses how Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum (Die negotiates the treacherous terrains that lie between positivism and nihilistic relativism by means of a truth-finding methodology. Schaffrath proposes that truth-finding methodology applies approximative, and therefore architectonic, approaches to conventional concepts of narration and history. Grass's novel breaks down and reassembles playfully the conventions of narration and history, not to negate or devalue them, but to reappraise them by means of an approximative truth-finding methodology, an approach that corresponds to Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the architectonic. An architectonic historical narrative is achieved here by re-creating consciously recent German history instead of a conventional historical narration that claims a certain degree of objectivity. Grass shows us that the genre of the novel can indeed convey history in a fictitious format (an otherwise standard recognition in the humanities today), yet be a useful and insightful medium to those who wish to learn about history in the sense of a factual genre. Grass achieves this by educating his readers about the fine line between fact and fiction as he interweaves a most intricate epistemological commentary into the narrative of his narrator. Stephan Schaffrath, Methodology of Architectonic Truth-Finding in Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) page 2 of 12 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 9.4 (2007):

Kleine Prosa: Theorie und Geschichte eines Textfeldes im Literatursystem der Moderne by Thomas Althaus, Wolfgang Bunzel, Dirk Göttsche

908 Reviews missed in theirwriting the firsttime round. Admittedly, this is rathermore difficult in the case ofHeimatmuseum, which, as Schaal himself notes, has never been mistaken foranything other than a novel about displacement. Schaal sees theoriginality ofhiswork-in a fairly well-tilled field-as lying ina shift of emphasis fromcontent to form: from flightand expulsion as a theme to thenarrative structures thatconstruct displacement as a personal and national experience. Each of the threemain chapters ends inpraise of the author's particular achievement in this respect: Grass succeeds in expressing the trauma of loss through the split between a narrating 'Ich' and a narrated 'er'; Lenz constructs a literary 'Heimatmuseum' that forsakes nostalgia in favour of critical understanding; andWolf constructs a narra tive journey back in time that effects a kind of therapy.The detail of the argument, however, ismore interesting than these broad conclusions. Schaal displays an impressive array of scholarship: a knowledge of classical tradi tions,baroque art, narratology, and theories of exile writing. One possible criticism is that, inhis drive to taxonomize with reference to authorities and antecedents, Schaal runs the twin risk of overcomplicating and oversimplifying. Well versed in the nar ratology of Genette and his successors, he sometimes agonizes over the 'diegetic' status of a narrative statement, where a more commonsensical approach might as sume that readerswill remain happily oblivious to all such logical anomalies provided that they serve some purpose. On other occasions, the taxonomic urge produces un helpful statements of theobvious such as 'Paris ist - uiber das gemeinsame Register "Frankreich" - metonymisch mit der Normandie verkniipft' (p. 69). In his analysis of Die Blechtrommel, Schaal might have investigated theways in which Oskar's mixed ethnicity (towhich Oskar alludes in several passages cited by Schaal) sets his storyapart from thedominantWest German myths ofmonoculturally German homelands. Similarly, Iwould have welcomed a clearer sense ofjust how little all three novels have to tellus about the lives of the Poles who settled inpreviously German towns.Does thewillingness to embrace thePolish 'other' thatSchaal thinks he detects inat least one of thenovels have any narrative consequences, or does Polish lifeamong the remnants ofGerman communities remain a narrative blank space? Like most German doctoral theses, thisone appears tohave gone fromdissertation to print without substantial revision.While itmight have benefited from editorial pruning, it isvery professionally presented, and the substantial bibliography, which includes some English-language titles,will provide a good starting-point for future work. UNIVERSITY OF EXETER CHLOE PAVER Kleine Prosa: Theorie und Geschichte eines Textfeldes imLiteratursystem derModerne. Ed. by THOMAS ALTHAUS,WOLFGANG BUNZEL, and DIRK GOTTSCHE. Tiibingen: Niemeyer. 2006. 360 pp. E88. ISBN 978-3-484-I0902-5. In hisKleine Prosa in Moderne undGegenwart (Miinster: Aschendorff, 2006; reviewed in MLR, I02 (2007), 94-I5), on a scale commensurate with the subject-matter it self,Dirk G6ttsche managed toprovide in just I44 pages a succinct, challenging and wide-ranging appraisal ofwhat, despite theauthor's brave 'Annaherung an eine The orie der Kleinen Prosa', may well prove tobe a genre which defies definition. In that fittinglyslender volume, inwhich he reviewed the 'family relationship' between the many varied forms of short prose, Gottsche also announced the imminent arrival of thevolume under review here, amulti-authored work based on a symposium held in Miinster in2005. Gottsche provides the linkbetween the two volumes, co-authoring the introductory 'Riinder,Schwellen, Zwischenraume: Zum Standort Kleiner Prosa MLR, 103.3, 2008 909 imLiteratursystem derModerne' and contributing an essay on contemporary pro duction of 'Kleine Prosa' by such authors as Botho Strauss and Gisela vonWysocki. The volume is tripartite in structure, dealing with theperiods 'Spataufklarung und Vormiirz ( 770-I 850)', the 'Klassische Moderne (i88o-i 930)', and 'Gegenwart (i 960 bis heute)'. In each section there are both theoretical essays and examinations of indi vidual authors such as Friedrich Schlegel, Alfred Lichtenstein, Franz Kafka, Robert Walser, Thomas Bernhard, and Alexander Kluge. Given its range, and even allowing for the absence ofwork on the central but often ratherneglected nineteenth century, thisbook representswithout doubt amajor con tribution to the understanding of a 'Textsorte' which has been central toGerman (and European) writing since the eighteenth century, and which could be regarded as seminal in the twentieth. It has not, however, attracted the...

Representing East Germany since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia by Paul Cooke

MLR, I02.2, 2007 585 Rhys Williams in an informative, albeit rather impressionistic, piece discusses the career overlaps ofWalser and Alfred Andersch, particularly in relation to theirwork for the Siiddeutscher Rundfunk. Keith Bullivant explores the possible influence of theGruppe 6i (e.g.Max von der Grun and Gunter Wallraff) onWalser's writing, showing that 'deformation throughwork' isa featureofhis novels. Andreas Meier's all toobrief chapter examines connections betweenWalser's novels and ideas outlined in Walser's 'Friedenspreisrede', while Roman Luckscheiter elegantly illuminates how Walser's concept of irony owes more toThomas Mann thanWalser might care to admit. One of the best chapters is byGerald A. Fetz, who tries to get to the bottom of Walser's notion ofHeimat and its links tonational feeling. Steve Plumb sounds out similarities betweenWalser's attitudes and those of the artistsAndre Ficus and Horst Janssen, while JaneWalling-keeping the focus on art-compares Marcel Proust's use of the motif of art inhisworks with thatof Walser inhis. In his exploration of links betweenWalser's novel Die Verteidigungder Kindheit (i99I) and Victor Klemperer's Nazi-period diaries, Arnold Heidsieck also discusses Proust-not least his belief in the possibility of recuperating an authentic past, an idea rejected byWalser only to be adopted by the author (arguably) inEin springenderBrunnen. Even the chapters on Ein springenderBrunnen seek to place it 'in perspective': Kathrin Schodel compares itwith Bernhard Schlink's Der Vorleser, while Helmuth Kiesel compares itwith Grass's Die Blechtrommel. Stefan Willer's engaging and insightfulchapter considers how Ein springenderBrunnen utilizes 'procedures of self dissociation' which also characterize Walser's narrative technique; andWilfried van derWill seeks to defend the novel against the charge that it 'ignores' the impact of National Socialism onWasserburg. Michael Hofmann, Robert C. Conard, Wilfried van derWill, Hans-Joachim Hahn, Matthias N. Lorenz, and Caroline Gay all dis cuss the 'Friedenspreisrede' and/or itsreception and short-term or long-term impact. Gay, in fact, implicitly reads it asmarking a caesura indiscourse on Nazism, whose post-i998 forms and shifts she carefully examines. But there is no real agreement among the contributors as towhat Walser's speech represented.Was ita revisionist attempt to exclude Jews fromcontemporary discourse on Nazism (thereby silencing the critical voices of thevictims), or rathera plea foran end to the ritualized memory ofNational Socialism in favour of amore sincere, conscience-based memory of the Nazi past?Was ita nationalistic attempt by a formerly left-wing author to discredit and silence theLeft by unfairly accusing itof imposing amemory regime, or a sincere appeal for amore pluralist discourse in the interests of authenticity?What, for that matter, is 'theconscience' for Walser? And what is the 'trulyauthentic'? This volume provides no answer, which is not surprising, for Walser's all-pervasive ironymakes him impossible topin down. NOTTINGHAMTRENT UNIVERSITY BILL NIVEN Representing East Germany since Unification: From Colonization toNostalgia. By PAULCOOKE. Oxford: Berg. 2005. 236pp. ?I6.99. ISBN 978-I-84520-i89-o. Nearly two decades after the collapse of theGDR, questions persist about how and where memories of theEast are tobe housed. Memory is,of course, problematic be cause it is always already mediated: one can hardly remember things as they actually were, but is instead forced to remember them 'moreor less', and only from today's per spective. Itwould be a shame ifallmemory of theGDR was effaced, yet by definition thepast isalready gone. Today's eighteen-year-oldswere only infantsat the timeof the Wende.What is thepoint of insisting on the relevance and importance of representing GDR experience ifsuchmemories are simply doomed tobe 'put touse' by thepresent? 586 Reviews Paul Cooke's book arrives at this dilemma from a number of differentangles. Fol lowing its methodological firstchapter, itsurveys how theGDR past has been treated by politicians, writers, filmdirectors, television, and the Web. Every bit ofhis enquiry isconducted with attention to theparadigm ofOstalgie, which has become shorthand for whether Germans ought tomiss theGDR and what about it isworth missing. As Cooke points out, notions of 'East Germanness' are key in shaping memories, and theyalso serve todetermine and define the self-image of contemporary Germans, even those who are by no means identifiedwith theGDR past. Cooke asserts that these questions are subject-matter forpostcolonial studies, and here...

Das lyrische Umfeld der 'Danziger Trilogie' von Günter Grass by Benedikt Engels

582 Reviews The stage was a slightly different story,but here, too, the cultural politics of the Third Reich leftlittle room for manoeuvre. Experiments, associated with the Weimar theatre,were banned, 'Schlegel-Tieck' was reinstated as the standard text, and a traditional style of acting was encouraged. Directors had some leeway.Gruindgens in Berlin, for instance, produced a Hamlet thatwent against the grain of 'official' interpretation and saw itselfas theproduct of an autonomous world of theatrical art, as did Jiirgen Fehling's Richard III. But fewwere prepared to stick theirnecks out even that far,and certainly none later admitted to anywrongdoing as guardians of theirart under Goebbels and Goring. Shakespeare, however, never makes lifeeasy for totalitarian or racist regimes. The comedies were staple fare throughout theperiod, but the Merchant of Venicewas im mediately identified as a problem play (Jessica's marriage to an Aryan, for instance) and was surprisingly littleperformed. Othello had tobe 'light-skinned' tobe accept able. The histories were banned after I940. The Roman plays contained scenes of tyrantsor demagogues and their fates. Symington's comprehensive and fair account makes it clear that Shakespeare, as ever,was an irritant,forcing people to adopt political stances where theywould have preferred to be apolitical and dividing their consciousness between duty to art and obedience to authority. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ROGER PAULIN Das lyrischeUmfeld der 'Danziger Trilogie' vonGiinter Grass. By BENEDIKT ENGELS. (Epistemata Literaturwissenschaft, 552)Wiirzburg: K6nigshausen & Neumann. 2005. 206 pp. ?34.8o. ISBN 978-3-8260-3I55-7. Grass's literarybeginnings lie in theearly I95os with a corpus ofpoetry.He published his firstcollection in theyear Benn and Brecht died, and has continued towrite and publish poetry in thehalf-century since. Yet Grass has never emerged as amajor poet of his generation. While Die Blechtrommel established his literary reputation as a no velist, response toGrass as a poet has been relativelymuted. Benedikt Engels's project isprompted by thismuted response and byGrass's own statement about the genesis of his epic works: 'alles,was ichbisher geschrieben habe, istaus lyrischen Momenten entstanden'. This study revisits theDanzig trilogy in reading a selection ofGrass's early poetry,which was collected inDie Vorzuige derWindhiihner and Gleisdreieck. It seeks to illuminate a 'Bilderwelt' and 'Metapherninventar' characteristic both of the threeprose narratives and of thepoetrywritten before and during theircomposition. Thus poems are selected on the basis of their 'proximity' toDie Blechtrommel,Katz undMaus, and Hundejahre. The aim is to show how the poetry becomes accessible via itsdialogue with these esteemed prose works. The incorporation of poems intoGrass's later novels, such as Der Butt, undoubt edly presents a lyric-epic dialogue; rather than examining this,Engels undertakes the more taxing search forsuch a dialogue in theearlier period. He indicates that themo tifs Grass repeatedly uses across the genre boundaries (which have been identifiedby others) are unused in literary tradition before Grass. Some of Engels's examples are perhaps more 'unused' (cooks, nose-bleeds) than others (birds, trumpets). He argues that placing the same 'new' images invery differentworks constitutes a strategy to undermine attachment ofmeaning to them and thereby defy ideological cant. Engels arranges analysis of thepoems into chapters foreach prose work. Usefully, the poems are always printed in full. Within theBlechtrommel chapter, we have the poem 'Der Saulenheilige' containing the line 'Ich bin der Zwerg, der die Rocke der altenWeiber zahlt', which recalls stuntedOskar under his grandmother's skirts.How ever, some six other roles are posited in thispoem, which have no resonance with Die MLR, I02.2, 2007 583 Blechtrommel. Such discrepancy, between the intertextual resonances of one line and theirmerely tangential importance within discussion of the poem as a whole, recurs throughout and isnever resolved. The chapter onKatz undMaus exposes furtherthe limits of the trilogy framework for a reading of the poems. Engels's argument for a dialogue between theNovelle and thepoetry restson a single poem, 'Racine lIiBtsein Wappen andern'; and theequation here of themultifaceted cat-and-mouse metaphor with the function of ratand swan images in thepoem isunconvincing. More fruitfulfor sustaining thehypothesis are thevarious lyric images linked toHundejahre (as already documented in theWerkausgabe commentary). Throughout, the study prioritizes Grass's own statements about hiswork and drawsmagisterially frompreceding Grass scholarship. Although modest in scope, itshould enhance...

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

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...

Janina Gesche (review)

MLR, 100.3, 2005 879 Erich Fried as a successful employee of the post-war BBC, who even had it written in his contract that he was allowed to write poetry during officehours. Lawrie credits the Corporation with giving Fried much-needed support during the early stages of his career. The subject of the BBC's post-war influence on the West German media is explored by Toby Thacker's research, showing how the wartime experience of using music for propaganda purposes influenced the practice of 'music control' in the British zone. Jens Briining's article goes even further and shows that the BBC was used as a model for re-establishing the radio services in Germany, while HansUlrich Wagner provides us with details ofthe radio careers of returning exiles in West Germany. However, there were also careers in the East German media which started with journalistic training at the wartime BBC: Kristin Rebien focuses on the most prominent example, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler. In this way, the volume shows the continuing influence of the interrelationship between former exiles and media and institutional structures in both Britain and Germany. Both countries' academic systems would do well to acknowledge this influence and support further research. The last section of the volume is taken up by the memories of Lorle Louis-Hoffmann, Alfred Starkmann, Wladimir Ostrogorski, Peter B. Johnson, and Merete Blatz, all one-time employees of the BBC German-language Service during its almost sixtyyear existence, which ended in 1999. University of Sussex Andrea Hammel Aus zweierleiPerspektiven ...: Zur Rezeption der Danziger Trilogie von Gunter Grass in Polen und Schweden in denJahren ig$8-iggo. By Janina Gesche. (Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen, 61) Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 2003.312 pp. SEK294. ISBN 91-22-0199i-x Janina Gesche enjoys two advantages over most other Germanists interested in Gunter Grass: she knows both Polish, her mother tongue, and Swedish, the lan? guage of the country where she has settled. With facility in the languages comes detailed knowledge of the literary relations of both countries with Germany. Gesche has exploited her position to write this dual case study of the reception of Grass's first three prose works in two of Germany's neighbours. The book is thorough, painstaking even, as itdeals mainly with thirtyyears of Polish and Swedish newspaper reviews and articles. Grass appears to have spawned no imitators among his fellow novelists in either country, in such stark contrast to the Anglo-Saxon world (see Henrik D. K. Engel's ultimately more rounded study, Die Prosa von Gunter Grass in Beziehung zur englischsprachigenLiteratur (Bern: Peter Lang, 1997)). There is, however, a major imbalance in Gesche's investigation. Whereas the his? tory of reactions to Grass in Poland, where his native Danzig now lies, is an important chapter in recent European cultural history, Grass in Sweden is not a subject which needs any elucidation. While in the model exponent of Scandinavian Social Democracy Die Blechtrommel,Katz undMaus, and Hundejahre were translated shortly after publication in German, then reviewed and bought by the reading public without any noteworthy side-effects, in Communist Poland Die Blechtrommel could not be officially published until 1983, although a translation had been ready since 1969. The novel offended the Soviet Union because of the shooting of Alfred Matzerath by a Red Army 'Kalmuck' and the rape of Lina Greffby several other Red Army soldiers, but it offended nationalist Poles farmore because of the apparently facetious account of the siege of the Polish Post Office on 1 September 1939. The son of the director of the Post Office threatened the publishers with legal action because Grass had used his father's real name. Grass himself, in contrast to some other German novelists such 880 Reviews as Siegfried Lenz, refused to alter passages of his text which caused offence. These all concerned Poland and things Polish, especially the firstmonth of the war, known to Polish schoolchildren as the heroic 'September'. What Grass's non-Polishreaders are unlikely to know is that the defence of the Danzig Post Office quickly entered na? tional mythology and that Grass was challenging the nationalists' narrative of recent Polish history by depicting Jan Bronski's last hours playing...

Stephanie Bird (review)

880 Reviews as Siegfried Lenz, refused to alter passages of his text which caused offence. These all concerned Poland and things Polish, especially the firstmonth of the war, known to Polish schoolchildren as the heroic 'September'. What Grass's non-Polishreaders are unlikely to know is that the defence of the Danzig Post Office quickly entered na? tional mythology and that Grass was challenging the nationalists' narrative of recent Polish history by depicting Jan Bronski's last hours playing Skat while dreaming he was reunited with his beloved Agnes. Yet Gesche's most rewarding section compares historical accounts of the siege with the version in Die Blechtrommel to reveal how closely Grass has stuck to the facts. The letter written to Hedwig Bronski informing her that her husband has been executed forbanditry is identical to that written to the next of kin ofthe real victims, who included Grass's own uncle. Gesche's comments on Cassubia and Cassubians, who would be far less well known in the wider world were it not for Grass's fiction, are also informative. His own mixed lineage has been the subject of debate, though an initiative to referto him as 'Graszewski' on account of his Cassubian forebears never caught on. It seems unfortunate to me that the rest of the book does not contain similarly important information. It could easily have done so: an account of reception after 1990, since when Grass has been celebrated in Gdahsk and Poland, would have been highly illuminating. Some comment on his other novels, especially Der Butt (1977), which has more Polish content than any other, and Unkenrufe (1992), would also have helped. It is unfortunate too that Gesche did not come across Carl Tighe's incisive commentary on Grass and Poland in his history of Danzig/Gdansk (London: Pluto, 1990), which would have disabused her of her contention that Hundejahre had no bearing on Germano-Polish relations. University of Kent Julian Preece Women Writers and National Identity: Bachmann, Duden, Ozdamar. By Stephanie Bird. (Cambridge Studies in German) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. x + 246pp. ?45. ISBN 0-521-82406-0. Stephanie Bird's critical analysis of narrative prose by Ingeborg Bachmann, Anne Duden, and Emine Sevgi Ozdamar is based on careful close reading of the authors' texts, and demands a similar engagement from her own readers to follow her detailed and occasionally dense arguments. Bird's is an ethically aware reading, which asserts the primacy ofthe literarytext. She affirmsthe importance of fiction,within the text, in the form of ambiguity, performance, and poetic language, and in particular the significance of narrative forexploring questions beyond theory and interrogating our conceptual understanding. Bird begins, perhaps surprisingly, but effectively,with a short digression on Christa Wolf's Medea, succinctly demonstrating Wolf's idealization of Medea as a woman and of Colchis as a nation opposed to the Western, capitalist Corinth. After this example of how not to do it, Bird looks at each author individually, treating discretely the differentconstellations of female and national identity presented in their texts. Rather than imposing a specific thematic structure, Bird examines issues which arise from the texts themselves, which allows her to treat illuminatingly diverse concepts (from shame to desire to metaphor); although her approach is theoretically informed, individual theories (by Lacan, Butler, Kristeva, among others) are introduced only when, and in so far as, they elucidate the texts. She eschews binary oppositions, and explores whether, and to what extent, the authors succeed in subverting from within the discourses they stage?of the language of the perpetrators, of patriarchy, or colonialist thinking. The complicity of the authors and/or their protagonists is MLRy 100.3, 2005 881 shown, and put in context; in meticulous close analysis, Bird traces their blind spots respectively of post-war Austrian identity,a fascination with violence, and a laudable but essentializing desire to assert Turkish tradition and identity. In dealing with the contested debates surrounding female and national identity in their work, Bird also tackles the charges of stereotyping which have been levelled variously at all three authors: of racist, colonialist stereotyping in Bachmann's Z)er Fall Franza\ of reinforcing the image of woman as victim in Duden...