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The Tin Drum (Vintage Classics) [Paperback]

Günter Grass (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 7 Oct 2010 | Series: Vintage Classics

WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 608 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage Classics (7 Oct 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099540657
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099540656
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.2 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 15,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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› Visit Amazon's Günter Grass Page
Günter Grass
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Product Description

Review

"Given Grass's close involvement with this new translation, it is fair to call this the definitive version of arguably the most important German novel of the post-war era." (Observer )

"Grass published his milestone of postwar literature 50 years ago, and the event is being celebrated with new translations...Mitchell's excellent translation reveals the novel as a timeless masterpiece." (The Times )

"At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I had read Great Expectations twice - Dickens made me want to be a writer - but it was reading The Tin Drum at nineteen and twenty that showed me how. It was Günter Grass who demonstrated that it was possible to be a living writer who wrote with Dickens' full range of emotion and relentless outpouring of language. Grass wrote with fury, love, derision, slapstick, pathos - all with an unforgiving conscience." (John Irving New York Times Book Review )

"Funny, macabre, disgusting, blasphemous, pathetic, horrifying, erotic, it is an endless delirium, an outrageous phantasmagoria in which dust from Goethe, Hans Andersen, Swift, Rabelais, Joyce, Aristophanes and Rochester dances on the point of a needle in the flame of a candle that was not worth the game" (Daily Telegraph )

"Encountering The Tin Drum in the early sixties was like discovering a new planet, a reinvention of literature. It brings the exhilaration of discovery, linked with an enormous gratitude for the way in which Günter Grass makes the world a worthwhile place to be in, and living a worthwhile thing to do. He has forever pushed back - and opened up - our concept and awareness of what is real, and what is possible, and what we dare to dream about." (André Brink )

Book Description

Grass's landmark novel in a stunning new translation and with a new foreword by the author
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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
16 reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars repays the investment of time to read it 18 Feb 2011
By William Jordan
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This novel is about a Oskar, born with a fully developed (albeit partial, seemingly a bit autistic) grip on the world about him, who does not grow past his third birthday, drums and "singshatters" glass, and lives through pre-war Danzig, war-time Danzig and post-war Danzig in the three section of the book.

The plot is highly episodic/picaresque; the individual episdose very memorable, whether this is Oskar eating an appalling soup cooked by young children, or the death of his mother following a surfeit of seafood. On the cover of the hardback come praises from John Irving and Salman Rushdie, both of whom have learned from Grass' techniques.

The style demands concentration and patience: the new translator explains that he has tried to mirror the sentence lengths of the German original, and to make the English hard going where the original German is hard going and not to smooth out the reading experience.

It takes a long time to work through the 600 plus pages. But this is quite unique - very impressive - and if it appeals more to the head than the heart, it's very well worth persevering. I was sorry to reach the end.

Highly recommended.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars a classic merits a new translation 3 Jan 2010
By S. K. Lewicki
Format:Hardcover
I was initially surprised to see that there was a new translation of one of my top three novels of the 20th century...why? It was done in conjunction with the author, 50 years after the book's first publication, and the introduction makes the point that great works of literature need to be re-translated for new generations of readers. Once I thought of the different translations of War & Peace I'd read, I agreed.

So I read the new translation, and I wasn't disappointed. It's more alive, more accessible, less stodgy than the old one (which is a good translation for its time). I dipped into the old one from time to time and the new one read better. The translator has taken great care with rendering aspects of Grass' German style into English so that we can get a closer feel for the original. And some small details which were originally not included (censored?) also appear, which for a purist is justification enough.

If you've never read the book, or if, like me, you're reading it for the nth time, I think this is a great new version of an astonishing novel.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars new improved translation 29 Aug 2011
By P. J. Jones
Format:Paperback
This new translation carries a much better feel for modern English syntax and idiom, and so improves an already excellent novel; bringing out humour and nuance that lay buried or obscured by the occasionally clumsy language of the previous 'Mannheim' English language edition. To which I must add that translation is not easy, especially when the style of the original is as dense, poetic and culturally specific as this. Herr Grass' work is unique and inimitable.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Oskar - an unlikely hero
I loved this book. Gunter Grass wrote with passion and depth and gave us an unusual and complex literary character who will stay with me. Read more
Published 9 days ago by KJP
5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Classic
This is a mad, brilliant, crazy book. While reading it, I would pick it up, certain that I had overcome its capacity to surprise, only to be taken by the almost unbridled... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Joseph Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly Complex - Yet Highly Enjoyable
The Tin Drum is certainly not an easy read. One must only read a brief plot summary to understand that. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jordan Lee Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars The Tin Drum
A nice book, very long, but worth reading and reflecting on it. It deals with the German guilt for the World War and the confusion and lack of points of reference by writers. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Cristina Amato
5.0 out of 5 stars CD CD CD CD
This is a review of the audiobook..not the book!

This is a 20 CD entire reading which is very well done. Nice and true to the dark humour. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Partial Mind
4.0 out of 5 stars Crazy
A surreal book that could only be German. It is a great introduction to the more modern literature of a different country.
Published 3 months ago by MrsMalfoy
5.0 out of 5 stars The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum

`Granted: I am an inmate in a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and the keeper's... Read more
Published 7 months ago by A.O'Connell
5.0 out of 5 stars A magical classic
The Tin Drum is, in its simplest form, a story about the life and times of one Oskar Matzerath - the perils of his age and how extraordinary times produce extraordinary lives. Read more
Published 11 months ago by jacr100
5.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat surreal, but interesting
This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I bought it as a convenient excuse to procrastinate, and it didn't disappoint. Read more
Published 12 months ago by S
3.0 out of 5 stars Serious Literature
I made a good try with reading this book, but became stuck after a few chapters. I do usually finish books that I have started, but will probably not put more effort into this one... Read more
Published 15 months ago by bluejohn
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