Crabwalk [Paperback]

On the night of 30 January, three Soviet torpedoes sunk the liner. Around 1,200 people were rescued. The rest - mostly women and young children - died in the freezing Baltic.

It was the worst maritime disaster in history. And yet, until recently, it was a story that remained largely taboo in post-war Germany. That changed however, when Nobel laureate Günter Grass took on the episode.

In Crabwalk, Grass takes up the story of Tulla Pokriefke, first seen in his earlier Cat and Mouse. Now a pregnant refugee on the ship, she gives birth to a son, Paul, in the midst of the disaster. His life is forever overshadowed by the circumstances of his birth, no matter how hard he tries to ignore his place in history. Then Paul’s own son, Konrad, develops an obsession with the disaster.

The ship had been built as a cruise liner for the nazis’ Strength Through Joy organisation and was named after a nazi ‘martyr’, who had been shot by a young Jewish student. Konrad, banned by his teachers from mentioning anything about the ship and the disaster at school, slides toward neo-nazism as he seeks to tell the story and seek some form of retribution for the deaths.

And so, with an awful sense of inevitability, history begins to repeat itself.

Grass’s premise is partly that, because acknowledgement of the suffering of ordinary Germans during the war was considered less important than breast-beating and guilt, the far right has been gifted an opportunity for propaganda. It is also a criticism of the way that the rise of nazism and the history of the war is taught in German schools, and of what Grass sees as the political correctness that has helped to bury German suffering beneath collective guilt.

But it is also a striking illustration of how the suffering of war knows no boundaries, be they national or ethnic.

Crabwalk is an astonishing, challenging book - harrowing in places - that makes for compulsive reading and is perfect proof, were it needed, that Grass has lost none of his power.

Moving, crab-like, back and forth, following the seemingly random order of speaker Paul Pokriefke's recollections, Grass brings his story and characters to life, expanding our view of the war and its aftermath, and showing how Germany's sociopolitical thinking has changed (or not changed) from the war to the present. Actively involving the reader in deciphering Paul's memories and imposing some order on them, Grass reveals the lives of the historical characters involved in the disaster, provides intense and moving descriptions of the disaster itself, and establishes the on-going saga of Paul and his family, all directly affected by the disaster.

The past and our willingness to learn from it, our changing definitions of "martyr" and "hero," the nature of punishment and atonement, and the impermanence of monuments and memorials are all major themes here, related both to the sinking of the Gustloff and to the events in the lives of the Pokriefke family. As is always the case with Grass, the themes are fully developed, the novel is fascinating for its insights, and it is often dramatic and moving. Grass's assessment of the current generation, as seen through his depiction of the speaker's son, is both startling and alarming in its implications. Mary Whipple

I must admit that this is one of the most fascinating, and disquieting, books that I have read in a long time. Part of the book is history, which is both informative and heartrending (5 stars). The other part of the book deals with Germany, and the way that World War II affected Germany and still affects it today. It shows how many people did and still deal with the memory of the war, some praising and some damning what happened, and all trying to come to grips with it. This other part is gripping and highly thought provoking (also 5 stars).

I wish I could say more about this book. It is a lot to digest, and is resistant to any quick and easy analysis. Overall I thought that this is a great book, and I highly recommend it to you.