The Tin Drum
On his third birthday, Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures in post-war Germany.
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3recommend
8mentions
8people
2012–2026years
38% recommend50% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I finally got through it. Had to read Mason & Dixon first, which was perhaps even harder to start off because of the Old English spellings. But after getting past that and realizing it was mostly just a funny story, the rest was pretty easy and enjoyable. Then coming back to GR was much easier.
Whether it was worth the time invested is another question entirely. ("No", I'm afraid, is the answer. There are better books along the same lines that are also challenging but less so. I recommend 100 Years of Solitude, Midnight's Children, or Tin Drum).
Avoid Ulysses. There's such bad, lame "philosophy of math" in there it really turned me off, made it seem like the whole book is just Joyce showing off how smart he thinks he is.
- I don't know if it really qualifies as magic realism but Gunter Grass is a very good writer that gives this weird fascinating vibe. 'The Tin Drum' and 'The Flounder' are very interesting books, highly recommend.
- The Tin Drum is an amazing book and it influenced a lot of fiction - from Midnight's Children to A Prayer for Owen Meany. Some of his shorter books are a little more accessible (Cat and Mouse or Crabwalk, for instance). I found Grass' perspective on WWII and German history to be particularly valuable, since he was a young German (of Polish origin) who had to reconcile with his own participation in the Nazi regime.
- For a different professor, there's Dr. Bob Altemeyer, who wrote a book in 2006 (after 40 years of research) that includes a section on evidence-based deradicalisation[0] of authoritarian followers, pp240-245: https://theauthoritarians.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The... (for objections, see [1])
That's nonfiction, and anachronistic. As far as fiction in the correct setting goes, I'm drawing a blank, and I even had to read things like "At the Bridge" and "The Tin Drum" in school (as well as watch dokus like "The White Rose" and "Triumph of the Will"[2]).
Most stories I know are of the unrepentant[3]; maybe I can dig some repentant ones up later?
[0] dereactionalisation?
[1] some discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278
[2] if I am overly paranoid, maybe it's because it's difficult to see anyone's GOAT propaganda these days and not compare it with Riefenstahl; she made the https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropeCodifier ?
[3] including, but not limited to:
Oberleutnant (as he was then) "Kongo" Müller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Müller_(mercenary) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGAUW1ZF2xI
Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen#Gehlen_Organiz... https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/bnd-bundesnachrichtendienst-n...
SS-Sturmbannführer Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#American_car... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcU85O82XE ("doctor were-ner von brawn")
(see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759207, and elsewhere on HN, for wholesale vs retail sellers)
lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
EDIT: (haven't been using that Gemini, sorry)You too may be a big hero Once you've learned to count backwards to zero "In German, und Englisch, I know how to count down Und 我学习中文!" says Wernher von BraunSchwarzenegger's neighbours retreated into the bottle[4]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck
[4] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/85221-atticus-said-naming-p...
- I am very fond of Oblomov. Always considered him a role model, in hypothesis. I'll get around to emulating him one day.
I suspect Günter Grass was a fan too. Meyn the trumpeter in "the tin drum" and his lifestyle.
- As a German, I cannot begin to explain how much I despised the guy's work and public persona. A life's work dripping with perpetual delusions of moral high ground contrasted by the very late revelation of having been one of those he so colorfully looked down upon. Apologetic rambling on behalf of the general populace who didn't know anything about what was going on and couldn't have done anything, either.
Grass was a supreme example of everything wrong with this nation and that's not even mentioning his repulsive, monotonous style of writing.
If you're planning to read a modern German novel, avoid this guy at all cost. Read Handke or Jelinek, Glavinic or Kracht, Gernhard or Böll. Or any of a million others. Don't let anyone sell you the Tin Drum, please.
