This story echoes some of the same themes of The Reader about the war and guilt but is more of a modern parable of our times. The problem wi...

If this book was part of some sort of literature course then possibly it could provoke you to fill pages and pages commenting on the questio...

Here is a question posed by Gunter Grass: Can those drowned on the losing side in a war be classed as victims? Of course it is not as simple...

As the battle between the father and son – moderate and Nazi - starts to come to the fore the narrator is sidelined. His ex-wife seems unco...

This is a classic Grass story told at different levels all inter connected and all being slowly peeled back like an onion. When they collide...

There are certain books you come to with a baggage that has been handed to you by the media, word of mouth and your own expectations. The Ti...

If you ever intend reading this book then please do not read this post any further because it will spoil everything for you. The ending remi...

As I get to the end of The Tin Drum before the moment is passed there was a great passage at the start of the book where Grass talks about h...

This book gets more enjoyable as it gets closer to its conclusion with Oskar becoming much more of a rounded personality as he leaves the ob...

Oskar seems to become a living version of the figurehead Niode touching those he comes across with bad luck and with Danzig in flames and hi...

If it was not for the events happening all around Oskar in terms of his trip to see the French coastal defences and the collapse of the Germ...

Things start to get historically set in a context that most people would be familiar with as the city of Danzig is declared a free city by t...

Each chapter seems to have a theme and although they are interrelated because the story is being told in a chronological way. But there is a...

Because today was a bank holiday I had no work and as a result no commute so reading has not been easy and I have waited until everyone has ...

Knowing that Oskar is remembering his childhood from the sanitised situation of a mental hospital it is becoming a question of working out w...

The choice of books to follow The Fall of France was limited by simply what was on the bookshelf so The Tin Drum it is for the next couple...

Having never read Gunter Grass before this was an introduction that was a result of choosing a slim-line volume for lunchtime reading rather...

The book ends with a sense of mystery and despite the style, which has at times been hard to follow, it is with a sense of affection you put...

With the story set in 1944 inevitably even those who had not volunteered for the army were called up, as the collapse became more of a certa...

The cost of stealing the iron cross is an expulsion from school for Mahkle and a self imposed exile from the barge, the beach and those frie...