- Hardcover: 284 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt (Jun 1970)
- ISBN-10: 0151529574
- ISBN-13: 978-0151529575
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 15 x 3.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,767,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
The hallucinations of a history professor undergoing dental treatment offer little contrast to the confusions of reality.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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3 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Survives the Test of Time
14 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback
Thirty years after first reading this book, I still recall the milk teeth carefully kept in a special box. The imagery and characterization stay with you - they echo down the years.
I found my old copy last month when cleaning out some old boxes; I set it aside, and read it this week. The book surpassed my memory of the book.
Like life, there are unresolved loose ends and this is a good thing.
I found my old copy last month when cleaning out some old boxes; I set it aside, and read it this week. The book surpassed my memory of the book.
Like life, there are unresolved loose ends and this is a good thing.
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful
For Grass completists
12 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
Eberhard Starusch has a number of problems. His teeth hurt. His dentist quotes Seneca constantly. One of his students is trying to come up with a dramatic protest of the Vietnam war. He has invented (or has he?) a number of events surrounding a mythical (or is he?) Field Marshal General who happens to be the uncle of Starusch's ex-fiancee, whom Starusch-- or someone else-- may or may not have murdered with a bicycle chain.
Such is the platform from which Local Anesthetic takes its course. Throughout this novel, I was reminded almost constantly of Alain Robbe-Grillet's style in The Erasers and The Voyeur. Worthy of imitation, certainly, as those are two of Europe's finest contributions to twentieth-century literature. but hard to imitate. And, were Grass not a consummate novelist, this would have come off even worse than it did.
One gets the feeling that, unlike Robbe-Grillet, Grass actually wanted the reader to be able to figure out what in the world was really happening in this odd, nightmarish world of late-sixties East Germany. But the only thing that reader can truly be sure of is the way that Scherbaum, the protesting student, is going to react to things. And Scherbaum's predictability, which would be a weakness in most novels, instead anchors the reader to some semblance of reality as the possibly-mythical Sieglinde Krings and her uncle weave in and out of the arguments the schoolteacher (Starusch) has with the dentist (who is never named), the arguments Scherbaum has with his sometime-girlfriend Vero, the debates Starusch has with his friend Irmgard Siefert, the wargames Sieglinde and the General conduct in a huge sandbox... you get the idea.
Grass manages (almost) to carry this novel off with his trademark combination of wit, silliness, and political invective against both sides of the utterly stupid post-WW2 and pre-wall-falling German government. But there seem to be too many places where things wander off and are never really picked up again. Too many loose threads are left undone at the end of this novel, and there isn't the kind of evidence one would need to wrap it all up oneself.
I'd recommend this particular Grass novel only to completists; for those who want to see an excellent example of this style of writing, check out the aforementioned novels by Alain Robbe-Grillet (the Grove Press editions) and be utterly blown away.
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful
hey there
26 Mar 2007
Format:Paperback
what can I tell ya..
one great book..
I read too far afield before this one..
different kind of book..yes..
more complexed..
but this one is a litle tiny book compering to too far afield...
Local is more then anything It will truly crack u up kind of book..
at the same time..hey..Grass makes u think of any other current writer as being a schmuk at leat in his writing history and analyzing branch..
some less then 300 pages..this book is a straight kick in the stomach...
leave u breathless and thinking...
whats was that little lady's number?
Nadine Gordimer...
Who cares...
Long Live Grass !
one great book..
I read too far afield before this one..
different kind of book..yes..
more complexed..
but this one is a litle tiny book compering to too far afield...
Local is more then anything It will truly crack u up kind of book..
at the same time..hey..Grass makes u think of any other current writer as being a schmuk at leat in his writing history and analyzing branch..
some less then 300 pages..this book is a straight kick in the stomach...
leave u breathless and thinking...
whats was that little lady's number?
Nadine Gordimer...
Who cares...
Long Live Grass !
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