Gunter Grass

An ambitious, brief study which charts the life together with reference to the work. We learn of Grass's early training as a stonemason and sculptor, and how his adored mother Helene, a Catholic Cassubian, encouraged his reading. His father was Lutheran, and that mixed heritage, Preece contends, influenced the range of Grass's fictional characters. Preece makes several references to his subject's defining love of food and sex. But it is the wealth of political material, much of it involving Grass's relationship with the former German chancellor Willy Brandt, Grass's political ambitions and hunger for publicity, which dominate the narrative. Politics soon emerges as the major theme; that and Grass's divided personality as a polemical artist with political aspirations. . . . The general reader will find this quasi-conversational analysis a useful introduction to one of world literature's most exciting writers. -- Times Literary Supplement This highly readable little book is a must for any student or lay reader who wishes to gain an overview of Gunter Grass's life and work, but it also contains gems for those more familiar with his texts and times. . . . Particularly impressive across all eight chapters is Preece's ability to keep the whole, complex oeuvre in view, as he moves lightly from one text to another without losing the overall thread of his argument in each chapter. . . . This book will be on my prescribed reading list for years to come. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking to gain a clear sense of why they should read Gunter Grass. -- Journal of European Studies Reaktion's Critical Lives series makes available for English readers high-quality biography and critical analysis of major figures from Antonin Artaud to Frank Lloyd Wright. The Gunter Grass contribution is intelligent, readable, and comprehensive--the resource nonspecialists will go to. One can escape without knowing any German--witness that in the text, the titles of Grass's works are given only in English. (The excellent bibliography, however, does have many German sources for the benefit of readers who wish to go deeper.) What is particularly useful in the Reaktion format is the quality of historical background and context. Preece places Grass in the post-World War II environment of what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewaltigung: i.e., dealing with the Nazi past. Grass was both a literary and a political figure in Cold War Germany. His friendships with German Chancellors Willy Brandt and Gerhard Schroeder were an important part of his world. The discussion of The Tin Drum in both novel and cinematic forms is particularly helpful. Preece places The Tin Drum alongside Goethe's Werther and Mann's Buddenbrooks as the greatest first novels in the German language. Recommended. -- Choice