Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Tin Drum... A Really Weird Book

I absolutely LOVED The Tin Drum. Why? Because it was so weird!!! I thought I would just list all the things I found strange about The Tin Drum. First, the fact that Oskar thinks he's Jesus. When he's in the church, trying to get Jesus to play the drums, I smiled a little, but when he sits on Mary's lap while the dusters raid the church, I really laughed. I found it so bizarre and just awkward I guess. The nurse fetish seemed so random when I was reading, too. After class today, I understand why Grass included such an obsession in his book and how it relates to the Oedipus complex, etc. Another odd characteristic of Oskar: his random poetic spurts. At one point he even apologizes for randomly inserting such a weird, poetic section into his story. Which points me to another irregular characteristic of Oskar that we briefly pointed out in class today, his insertion of unrelated phrases into his recounts. These weird little random tidbits of information were probably what made me love the book so much. I would be reading and all of a sudden Oskar would draw my focus in a total different direction because he would state something I wasn't even thinking about. His spontaneous, almost ADD mind proved for a fun, change of pace.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I totally agree; all of his inane ramblings kept me totally engrossed in the story, though I am not entirely sure why it was so entertaining to me. Also, talking about the symbolic meanings in class got me to like the book even more, despite the fact that going over the eel scene more slowly made it much more disgusting.