Signandsight summarizes the latest on the Günter Grass affair from Die Tageszeitung:Markus Joch has read Günter Grass' novel Cat and Mouse in an attempt to glean "new information about Grass' relationship" to this part of the Danzig trilogy, written 1961, and to show how the author fictionally encoded the "insane machismo of his young years" in it. The fact that Grass tried to make his hero Joachim Mahlke "ridiculous, to shove his heroes' outlook away from his own, reflects the creative principle of the entire story. The author gave his character a series of not-identical features, estranged him, in order to make the almost identical non-threatening – the alienation effect with security measures."Click here for more "arts, essays, and ideas from Germany," in translation.
Previously on the blog: Günter Grass shocks Germany; John Irving on Günter Grass.
--Marshal Zeringue
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