fünf - A belated Book Review (Vonnegut's)

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Almost every book by this author is the great American novel during the time he was alive up to around the time of his passing with a book of writings in 2005 or so.  Slaughterhouse Five, a mult - faceted story that refers to the author's capture at a major and conclusive WWII battle in Belgium, by the Germans, and whereby he is taken to prison behind enemy lines to pine away while awaiting his fate.  The author was required to inhabit as a POW  an enemy prison a slaughter house and thus some of the imagery evocative of more sophisticated and zany thematics and turns of this fantastic story relating outer space voyages to the war, to a mental ward, and to things again like a plane crash and an auto accident - just one completely outlandish turn of events after another.  What is the point of literature like this (?), and in reading such things, one is compelled to allow for the primal scream of enemy imprisonment and the thoughts of freedom along with the mortal threats of POW life, and the dream - like existence in the novel of Billy Pilgrim and his interactions with an unpredictable and fragmented surroundings at times.  This is a must read, probably along with Cat's Cradle and one or two other Vonnegut novels that show the great virtuosity of this writer in his interpretation of what are mysteries for many of us, and what is lost to attention and what we believe we see in the interstices that comprise these puzzles sometimes.  Kurt Vonnegut himself might have had some divine tool, a gift, a blessing, that made for his humor as drafted onto the page; and that has us at least make a smile upon even hearing his name or reading of, even moreso directly, what his pen put on paper and then in print.

Part of what he examines in "fünf" people like me know is the Jewish question that other writers have

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penned volumes of investigative and disclosing literature about, though the humor and zaniness, again, of his illustration of this topic is evident in the text.  People like me know Itzak Rabin himself might have read this text, and Jewish leaders like Rabin, while in attempts to place the Holocaust, the Wehrmacht in its different forms, and WWII as an  entirety with respect to the Hebrew race into historical yet memorable context suffered and passed from this life due to repeated prejudice and violence against him personally and as the result of acts of completely humorless if not entirely sad and angry people.  I know as well from having read newspaper articles about the 1990's Yugoslavian conflict, however passed over themselves by policy makers who added to that sinister war at the time, and others indeed, that the methods of the Nazis against the Hebrew race regrettably have survived and have been unfortunately brought to light again in the world of terrorism and other battlegrounds.  The bombing within the past week of the Boston foot race as an attack at a milestone event shows the general cruelty and anti -  everything approach of terroristic perpetrators who have duplicated the terror used against the Hebrew people and who might be, as related to their knowledge of Nazi practices, totally radicalized.  Rabin had solutions for dealing with the effects of the kind of animalistic behavior as shown through numerous sources in Boston, and people like me know his death is related to the assassin maybe first  befriending him in order to be able to recognize him target - wise after his plot had begun.  These circumstances were part and parcel of things to come and the severe radicalization against Americans we are experiencing today.  What happened regrettably and sorrowfully with Itzak Rabin and in Boston only have secondary importance at this point as to blaming and culpability by attribution, and more important with respect to these and similar happenings are how the perpetrators became radicalized and as anti - everything as they are, and how they were allowed / are allowed to continue their destructive and violently animalistic activities.  This is a question proposed without provision for those rationalizing what again happened or will continue as terrorism remains in the collective mind and detracts from constructive activities and the progression of what we know as life at home.

Margaret Thatcher (obituary): from "The Economist."

 

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Obituary of Lady Thatcher from "The Economist."

belated book review on an edition from someone we all knew.

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Günter Grass – The Tin Drum.

 

This novel that reads like a fantastic voyage through life in Germany from the 1930’s through the end of the War and reconstruction in Western Europe, could be a straight biography of a person who spent his life in various hospitals and asylums, though a number of the details of the story (the standard edition is over five hundred pages) are so out – of – the – ordinary as to call for a fictive and colourful version of a story of a single protagonist Oskar Matzerath.  Oskar, in his childhood, acquired a drum that he replaces with larger and larger versions of the same drum at different points in his life.  The adventures he traverses replacing the drum sometimes are interesting, sometimes humourous and can be even haunting.  The symbolism of the drum is lost on simple readers like me, though the same symbolism might apply to the drum in Grass’ story of Matzerath as bells pealing in other novels, or the “Te Deum” in Shakespeare, or even the stars of David required to be worn by Jews during the Holocaust.  It is perhaps left to each individual reader, the again separate and individual significance of the key image of the novel, Oskar’s drum, that is the subject of various threads through twentieth century German history, antics, again adventures, humour, resentment from others and the like.

 

The novel takes place mostly in Poland, though there is train travel everywhere in Europe the Poles and Germans in the day found themselves.  The book begins with Oskar’s childhood, his relationship with his parents’ parent, his parents, and others that paints a portrait of ordinary life in pre – War Central Europe.  The images of his family are captivating indeed as the customs and mories, and the family – centrism of the old world that have been lost are brought out in great relief.  This is followed by a traversing of the 1933 anti – Jewish laws in Germany and Austria and this period of pogroms in those territories and in Poland as well.  All this time, and partially due to Oskar’s relationship with his drum and other circumstances, Oskar tells his story from the point of view of a mental patient; nonetheless one who is allowed to circulate, see family and friends, have relationships, and whereas his stays in the world with people are temporary if not ephemeral, his relationship to the hospital on most occasions is largely the same.  The text is also full of stories about what goes on in mental hospital psych. units, and there is an entire spate of these anecdotes where Oskar does manage each time, as in his life’s adventures outside an institution, to emerge more or less unscathed with his drum under his arm.  

 

Just before 1940, the Germans attack Poland and Oskar is in a number of battle scenes where his town is destructively attacked by blitzkrieging Wehrmacht and other German military units, resulting in the death and devastation of many of his friends.  There is also the issue in Poland of the Russian army in the partition of the country by the Axis powers and Russia at the time.  Apparently, the Russian army meted out equal devastation as the Germans.  This, along with other images of the war and the operations of concentration camps, the battle scenes, atrocities and the like, has the makings of a long, extremely destructive, interminably bloody nightmare.  The War ends and Oskar takes up different jobs and the like in attempts to continue his life in the post – Axis era with his drum under his arm.  People do express curiosity at the adult Oskar and his drum, and responses to his interlocutors range from his declaring himself a musician to “none of your business” – type declarations given the pestering questions of officious characters. 

 

From the detailed illustration at the beginning of the plot of his family and friends and younger life, through the brutal nightmare of the nazi era, to the post – War era that takes up the latter part of Book Two and Book Three, Oskar maintains his drum playing and his life in and out of hospitals.  He pursues different jobs and has some measure of success with a number of endeavours; all the time maintaining principal focus on his instrument.  The thematics of his family relationships and details, and the grotesque and violent images of the Holocaust carry through and influence the latter part of the plot where Germany recovers from the devastation of WWII to become economically and politically formidable again in a free world where fascism is on the dustbin of history.  Oskar winds his way through various adventures that are colored by the destruction of the war and the ostracism of the Central European powers, including some of the influential figures of the time as hailing from his native Poland.  The emotional and psychological images due to this throughout the text are important to read through, and are fantastic and unreal in the respect that Oskar has no point of reference for his notions as narrated as they are, and his mind meanders through various themes and related and unrelated images showing the great art and authenticity of Grass’ prose and his use of Oskar as a mouthpiece for these meaningful themes and images, dreams and experiences themselves in view of  20^th century military conflict, and with the eventuality of the end of the 1939 – 1945 War.  An excellent read for anyone honestly concerned by these issues.    Oskar toward the end of the plot participates in various travels, relationships, and has influences that eventually render him histrionic, i.e., whereas he comes to fear a ubiquitous “Black Witch,” and provokes various incidents of which declaring himself “Jesus” before police authorities during some of his travels.  Overall, this book and its author post mortem, are an excellent profile of the magical and metaphysical that surround those individuals and groups of people affected, damaged and cast out as the result of the inanity and brutality of 20th century conflict.