I read Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum many years ago (before starting Speesh Reads, which is why it isn’t reviewed here). It is without doubt a strange one. I’m pretty sure I ‘got’ it, the why Oskar doesn’t grow up, and the article I’m linking to in this post opened up the memory floodgates.
This is a recent post by The Guardian based around a stage version about to open in London. There was a film version released in 1979, which I saw while I was at Polytechnic in Leeds. The photo at the top and the bottom are stills from the film by Volker Schlöndorff, starring David Bennent as Oskar, which won an Academy Award (appropriately enough, if you think about it).
I can heartily recommend you giving it a go, it’s not an easy one to like – as the article says, it divides audiences – though, if you do appreciate it, it will stay with you forever. The Irish Times even go so far as calling it the greatest novel of the 20th Century. Personally, I still think of it first whenever I see a piece suggesting I list my favourite books of all-time.
You can buy The Tin Drum by Günter Grass from The Book Depository
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