قصة الكتاب :
The Tin Drum is a novel by German author Günter Grass, published in 1959 as Die Blechtrommel. It is presented as an autobiographical account of a dwarf who lives through the beginning and the end of Nazi Germany. The story was adapted into a film two decades after its debut in print. The film went on to win the Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the same year i.e. 1979. The novel is the first in Grass’s Danzig Trilogy.

\r\n\r\nThe tale is narrated in the voice of Oskar Matzerath and is an incredible piece of art. Oskar is an incarcerated maniac and thereby an unreliable narrator. And yet, it is through his ravings that the nature of his times are accurately portrayed. The book charts Oskar’s progress and that of the port city of Danzig and greater Germany and in a way, the world as a whole at that time. Oskar is very much his own person despite his chosen lack of growth. He narrates the entire tale shifting between the first-person voice and the third-person voice. The tin drum is representative in the tale. Drumming is Oskar’s chosen way of escaping reality and dealing with the horror of what unfolds around him. Drumming helps Oskar detach himself from his own family. Oskar pulverizes every drum he is gifted with and every replacement lasts just a few days. Such is the madness of the times that he is caught up in and the oppressiveness of the reality he seeks to escape. With Oskar, Günter Grass created a memorable literary figure. Through the eyes and expressions of this little anti-hero, Grass gave voice to the changes that transformed the landscape of the century: from agricultural to industrial, traditional to cosmopolitan, feudal to post-modern. Oskar’s story both reflects and pushes against the totalitarian ideologies that defined the 20th century. The story shows the protagonist stepping “outside” of time and history and nature prior to his birth and making a conscious decision to spend his life drumming away, thereby spiting his father’s ambitions. Like the political death cult that shamed Germany, Oskar too is unnatural in many ways yet reflective. The story begins with his grandmother Anna in a potato field and even at the end of the tale, after World War II, when the world is cynical and blood-crazed, Oskar remembers how Anna smelt. \r\n

\r\n\r\nIn order to grasp the book’s impact when published, one has to understand the political climate that prevailed. West Germany was still struggling with its Nazi past. Several of the perpetuators had been given quiet absolution and were placed in senior positions. This book hit like a bomb, shattered all taboos and forced people to come face-to-face with their grotesque past. The Tin Drum will always be remembered as a vibrant combination of history, horror, fable and satire combined with vibrant imagery. It has deservedly earned its place among the best works of 20th century fiction.\r\n