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Title: Cat and Mouse and Other Writings (German Library, Vol 93) by Gunter Grass, A. Leslie Willson, John Irving ISBN: 0-8264-0733-1 Publisher: Continuum Pub. Date: September, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 2.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Okay for Grass Readers
Comment: I was ensnared into reading this book by the promising name of the author. While I do not regret having read this book, I do not think that this does measure up to the 'Tin Drum'. If you are planning to read Grass for the first time, tehn this is not the book to get started with.

Some people, especially those who can not find fault with anything, least of all with literature, might say that the humor here is subtle as compared with the humor of the 'Tin Drum' where it was more ribald. To use the word 'subtle' in that sense would be more a misuse of the term than anything else. The humor remains dark here. The background remains war and nazi Germany. But still the main the theme is that of an adolescent hero (Mahlke) and hero-worship by the narrator (Pilenz) and others.

It would be a fair asumption that most of us have had some heroes during our school days. Therefore it is not too difficult to identify with the theme and the narrator of this book. The narrator here is Pilenz and his hero is Joachim Mahlke. Mahlke is a catholic teenager with an abnormally protruding Adams apple. He is a year older than the rest of the group. He is the best swimmer and diver and he often spends his time in a barge nearby the shore that went down during the war. He has the largest penis in the group and he is the most prolific masturbator. But he generally stays away from adulation. After a daring stealing act whereby he stole a nazi-German officer who was visiting his school, he gets expelled from his and the narrator's school. Later he joins the army and becomes a tanker. There also, he becomes a hero all of which is told in a 3rd persons voice. After his first furlough, he decides not to turn up for his military work again. Then an intrusting climax.

Throughout the novel, you have the nazi Germany and the unmentionable fuhrer as the background. The cruelty of that age is not explicitly stated here. It is amazing now for us , blessed with the advantage of hind sight, to observe that most of the Germans of that age did not recognize the fundamental evil of what they were supporting. They still had cold winters, they still had flowers bloom in spring, they still had wonderful swimming seasons in summer. The nazi youth's childhood was as naughty and gloomy as ours. Nothing was different, yet everything was fundamentally different. It is equally important in this context to note that the very reason for which our hero turns a deserter was not that he found out that he found war to be evil. It was more due to a combination of fear and boredom.

The prose here is at most times banal, unimaginative and boring. Compare that with the wit and intelligence of 'Tin Drum'. Only the descriptions of the church rituals and the sentences where all words are combined without period, commas etc remain the same.

I would recommend this book to someone who has already read Grass. If you are a first timer to Grass, start with the ' Tin Drum'. Otherwise, you would develop an 'anti Grass ' syndrome. Finally I must admit to be a Grass admirer.

Rating: 2
Summary: ultimate boredom
Comment: i don't know what the hell was going on. those damn yanks don't know what they're talking about. i could write a better book than this with my toes.