The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
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The Tin Drum
A New Translation by Breon Mitchell

Author: Günter Grass, Breon Mitchell

Narrator: Richard Powers

Unabridged: 25 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/08/2009

Synopsis

The Tin Drum, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, became a runaway bestseller and catapulted its young author to the forefront of world literature. Now on the book’s fiftieth anniversary comes this new translation by Breon Mitchell, one that is faithful to Grass’ style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work.This is the story of Oskar Matzerath, a dwarfish hunchback detained in a mental hospital, convicted of a murder he did not commit. On the day of his third birthday, Oskar received his first tin drum, and from then on it is the means of his expression, allowing him to draw forth memories from his eccentric past as well as judgments about the horrors he observed through the nightmare of the Nazi era. The rhythms of Oskar’s drums are intricate and insistent, and they lead us, often by way of shocking fantasy, through the dark forest of German history. Through Oskar’s piercing, outspoken voice and deformed figure, through the imaginative distortion and exaggeration of historical experience, a startlingly true portrayal of the human situation comes into view.

About Günter Grass

Günter Grass (1927–2015) was born in Danzig, Germany. A novelist, playwright, essayist, graphic artist, and poet, he was the author of many acclaimed books. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lived in Lübeck, Germany.

About Breon Mitchell

Breon Mitchell is a professor of Germanic studies and comparative literature and the director of the Lilly Library at Indiana University. He was awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translation of Uwe Timm’s Morenga in 2004.

About Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and Bewilderment was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit on October 25, 2021

Society dislikes outsiders… Outsiders reciprocate… Oskar is a little drummer boy staying outside of society and his life is an incessant drumming… I’ve heard rabbits, foxes, and dormice drum. Frogs can drum up a storm. They say woodpeckers drum worms from their casings. And men beat on timpani, cymbal......more

Goodreads review by Tia on April 04, 2007

I had an intense reaction to this book. I friggin hated it. Or, rather, I loved to hate it, while I was reading it. It was an assignment in a Postmodern Lit. class, and everyone in the class liked the protagonist but me. I thought he was awful. I couldn't believe they enjoyed him, much less admitted......more

Goodreads review by Dan on February 11, 2008

My reaction to finishing this book was 'thank god that's over'. I thought it was interesting in the abstract, but at times I couldn't stand reading it. The unreliable main character Oskar, decides to stop growing at the age of three . He refuses to speak, and communicates by banging on his titular d......more

Quotes

“At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I had read Great Expectations twice—Dickens made me want to be a writer—but it was reading The Tin Drum at nineteen and twenty that showed me how. It was Günter Grass who demonstrated that it was possible to be a living writer who wrote with Dicken’s full range of emotion and relentless outpouring of language. Grass wrote with fury, love, derision, slapstick, pathos—all with an unforgiving conscience.” New York Times Book Review

“When Günter Grass published The Tin Drum in 1959, it was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction. Within the pages of this, his first novel, Grass re-created the lost world from which his creativity sprang...It is not too audacious to assume that The Tin Drum will become one of the enduring literary works of the twentieth century.” The Swedish Academy

“Breon Mitchell’s new translation of The Tin Drum shows it to be the masterpiece it is, and Paul Michael Garcia’s performance…serves it well…Together, Garcia, Grass, and Mitchell take listeners on a tour of love, war, and madness.” AudioFile

“The story…flows smoothly, carried along by the prose and Garcia’s captivating performance. He reads with a dramatic intensity, giving Oskar (the narrator of the book) the voice of a man who seems to be talking to himself, listening, analyzing, and checking his words…Garcia’s masterful performance brings unreliable, unforgettable Oskar vividly to life.” Booklist

“German author Günter Grass collaborated with Breon Mitchell on a brand-new translation of his Nobel Prize–winning classic. In 2005, Mitchell and nine other translators accompanied Grass on a week-long retreat in Germany, asking questions about the book and touring the locations featured in The Tin Drum. The result? The most faithful translation in fifty years. If you haven’t read this modern classic, now’s the time.” BookPage

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