"Tin Drum": He beats a tin drum all day to vent his indignation against the deformed world
What is this book about? Write a fool. "The Dust Settles" also writes about a fool, that is a fool and a prophet; Shakespeare wrote a number of fools, all of whom are fools and wise men; "Noise and Commotion" also has a well-known fool, so stupid that it is difficult for readers to "substitute for the role"; the fool in "Diary of a Madman" is completely the author's microphone. What about the idiots of "Tin Drum"? It was a very sweet fool, almost as much a fan as the idiot in Dust Settled. Oscar, a dwarf, a tin drummer, is a fool plus Satan.
When I read Doctor Zhivago, I not only saw the war, but also experienced it firsthand. The German Günter Glass, who is good at using ingenuity and intellectual writing, is so quiet. I couldn't see the blood, I couldn't hear the gunfire, I couldn't sense what was happening outside Oscar's body, only the voice—calm, cold, obedient, oscar and glass—rising down a gentle corridor. This style of writing is exactly what I imagined would be the style of Günter Glass who created the "Nazi incident." But in the face of "Tin Drums," the "Nazi incident" is not important at all. Because how Günter Glass himself is, it doesn't matter at all. Importantly, he shaped the little Oscar!
In this work, the war is not the protagonist, but the background. The real theme is a wandering of the human soul. Like the typical European intellectual writing, this layered work is inseparable from the Greek and Hebrew traditions, from mythological archetypes such as the killing of the father to God and Satan. In fact, Satan is part of the Oscars, and the Oscars are part of Satan. Glass helps us understand Satan. In this sense, this work is greater than most war fiction, and it is close to the essence of war- evil. Writers need to discover, explore, and understand evil. He first had to see his own evil. Evil should be an important theme in literature, but it has not long been. Evil is sinful and should not be. So it is ignored and discarded. The appearance of the figure Sade in literary history is a completely repressed explosion. Only by facing up to evil can we better understand good. I think this is the greatness of "Tin Drum".
Günter Glass is by far my favorite intellectual writer. I didn't have much feeling for the intellectuals of the "New Fables." French, like to play exquisitely. Unfortunately, whether it is the subtlety of the French or the ambiguity of the Japanese, I do not feel strongly. What I need is a blow to the head that shocks and dizzys me. The sense of strength is an important criterion for my personal evaluation of writers. Russian writers, American writers, on the whole, have a strong sense of power. The former's sources of power are more spiritual, the latter more realistic. Among Chinese writers, the northern writers have a stronger sense of power than the southern ones (think of the difference between Mo Yan and Yu Hua's works).
It is true that Germany can hardly be called a tolerant nation, and it is too harsh on others and for itself. This brings irreparable harm. But don't you see it? Germany is changing its image, they are trying to learn to tell jokes without a sense of humor, and you, the people who are giggling and watching the hilarity, never learn to make yourself wiser. I love their rigor, as well as the books that embody their rigor, music, philosophy, everything. Indeed, sometimes I am not objective enough to evaluate Germany too accurately. But someone once said: "It is difficult for Germans to judge themselves accurately." "Not to mention me. There must be some people who are depressed after reading this, and that is because you don't understand, you don't understand everything, you don't understand the true meaning of beauty.
How should art, especially literature, approach history, and how should history be narrated in fiction? Adorno's words were like a forbidden token blocking the way: "It is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz". The sins of Nazi Germany were the pain that haunted Glass, prompting him to look deeper into time and space. After completing the "Danzig Trilogy", he thought about the dilemma and future of humanity as a whole. He traced back against the flow of time, history, reality and the future intertwined, and "The Mother Rat" and "Flounder" are the results of this thinking.
Recalling the creation of The Tin Drum, the author says that Oscar Mazlat, the protagonist of a long poem, originally built a column in the middle of the town, tied himself to the pillar to take a stand, looked down, and found his own perspective. This is the author looking for a perspective that is different from reality. Later, he argued that too high a foothold lacked dynamics, and that a tall man at the age of three was able to provide flexibility and a sense of distance. Hence the idea of "Tin Drum". Choosing a bottom-up perspective of observation, through the protagonist's narrative of what he has seen and heard, detailed description, no taboo description, and no taboo vulgar and despicable language. With the Oscar, there are three layers of theme and meaning of "Tin Drum", and only then can there be a shocking artistic effect, and each of us should self-examine and get inspiration from it.