The provocative story centers on the narrator's vivid recollection of a boyhood scene in which a black cat is provoked to pounce on his friend Mahlke's 'mouse'-his prominent Adam's apple. This incident sets off a wild series of utterly Grassian events that ultimately leads to Mahlke's becoming a national hero. Because of Grass's singular storytelling virtuosity, Cat and M The provocative story centers on the narrator's vivid recollection of a boyhood scene in which a black cat is provoked to pounce on his friend Mahlke's 'mouse'-his prominent Adam's apple.
This incident sets off a wild series of utterly Grassian events that ultimately leads to Mahlke's becoming a national hero. Because of Grass's singular storytelling virtuosity, Cat and Mouse is marvelously entertaining, powerful, and full of funny episodes. The brutal account of these kids in Danzig/Gdansk during the Hitler youth and the war is both chilling and poignant. It is the second volume of Grass' Danzig trilogy after The Tin Drummer and a fast but furious read. The characters are both repulsive and compelling and ow that we know that Grass was in the Hitler youth when he was 16, it is obviously a pretty damn accurate portrayal (better than the kid in All the Light We Cannot See in any case! I have to believe that Doer read this book and de The brutal account of these kids in Danzig/Gdansk during the Hitler youth and the war is both chilling and poignant.
It is the second volume of Grass' Danzig trilogy after The Tin Drummer and a fast but furious read. The characters are both repulsive and compelling and ow that we know that Grass was in the Hitler youth when he was 16, it is obviously a pretty damn accurate portrayal (better than the kid in All the Light We Cannot See in any case! I have to believe that Doer read this book and derived part pf his from it). I felt it gave me the impression of being there - just as terrified and confused and conflicted as those kids were. A worthy second exploration into Grass.
I first read Cat and Mouse without the benefit of having read The Tin Drum beforehand, and I missed a lot. Cat and Mouse is the second book in Grass' Danzig Trilogy, three books that look at life in Danzig under the Nazi regime from three different points of view (the tales are told concurrently, and time can be fixed by seeing the same event from different points of view; for example, the picnic taken by the jazz trio and Schmuh in Book III of The Tin Drum shows up towards the end of Cat and Mo I first read Cat and Mouse without the benefit of having read The Tin Drum beforehand, and I missed a lot. Cat and Mouse is the second book in Grass' Danzig Trilogy, three books that look at life in Danzig under the Nazi regime from three different points of view (the tales are told concurrently, and time can be fixed by seeing the same event from different points of view; for example, the picnic taken by the jazz trio and Schmuh in Book III of The Tin Drum shows up towards the end of Cat and Mouse, and Matern, one of the main characters of Dog Years, shows up in The Onion Cellar, where Oskar's jazz band is retained, in The Tin Drum). Cat and Mouse is actually a novella, originally a part of Dog Years that broke off and took on a life of its own; on the surface it is the tale of Joachim Mahlke, a high school student with a protruding adam's apple (the Mouse of the title), and his fascination with a sunken Polish minesweeper after he learns to swim at the age of thirteen. It is also the story of Pilenz, the narrator and Mahlke's best friend. The two spend their high school years in wartime Poland, reacting to various things, and that's about as much plot as this little slice of life needs. The interesting thing about Cat and Mouse is its complete difference in tone from the other two novels.
Both The Tin Drum and (what I've read so far of) Dog Years have the same high-pitched, almost hysterical humor combined with a profound sense of teleology (not surprising given the apocalyptic nature of life in Danzig under the Nazis); Grass attempts to confront the horror with over-the-top slapstick, because only through that kind of comparison is it possible to make the reader understand. But while Cat and Mouse has its moments of the same kind of ribald humor, it is more dignified, in a sense, and closer to reality; enough so, at least, that when the book reaches its inevitable climax and denoument, one feels more genuine, or more human, reactions to the fates of Pilenz and Mahlke than one does to Oskar, the hero of The Tin Drum. Perhaps that is why it was segmented off from Dog Years; perhaps there was another reason. Whatever the case, it stands on its own and as an integral part of Grass' magnum opus. And the cat and the mouse? Are there stories that can cease to be?
The second of Grass’s three Danzig-based stories is a novella that echoes the first, deliciously; overtly, there are several cameos and crossovers, including Oskar’s appearances at various points and the life of the Catholic Church and the Dusters gang, but also in mood and theme, if somewhat more compressed and focussed. This time, we have a chiefly bodiless narrator, constantly trying his best to not be in the stor And the cat and the mouse? Are there stories that can cease to be? The second of Grass’s three Danzig-based stories is a novella that echoes the first, deliciously; overtly, there are several cameos and crossovers, including Oskar’s appearances at various points and the life of the Catholic Church and the Dusters gang, but also in mood and theme, if somewhat more compressed and focussed. This time, we have a chiefly bodiless narrator, constantly trying his best to not be in the story, and only briefly mentioning his first name by accident on page 110.
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I, Pilenz—what has my first name got to do with it? And now it’s up to me, who called your mouse to the attention of this cat and all cats, to write. Even if we were both invented, I should have to write. It’s a story about Joachim Mahlke, or the Great Mahlke, as he is eventually dubbed, by Pilenz (if he is ever to be believed). And it is also a love letter, and while certainly not erotic, it is still of-the-body too, so not purely Platonic, in how that is understood. I don’t mean to suggest that Mahlke was queer; in those years spent between the beach and the sunken barge, we none of us knew exactly whether we were male or female.
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Mahlke becomes a hero to Pilenz (and others) in and among the missing father figures and elder brothers due to war and commercial death. And he breaks regularly into second person, and addresses the reader as Mahlke. And it’s not like Grass is trying to conjure you up as Mahlke, but that poor Pilenz is, because you sense the tragic in the demand. There's a pointed Golden Child tragedy signposted everywhere. You know that Grass knows, and you really start feeling like apologising to Pilenz for your lack-of-being-Mahlke for him. Because he wants you to be him, so bad, but you also kind of know that he knows you aren't too. Joachim Mahlke, by JDT Mahlke goes from zero to hero suddenly and without much effort when he learns to swim and becomes the effortless Alpha Male of the group, but not Alpha in the sense of some annoying twat who’s just good at stuff, he’s Alpha everywhere, including being humble.
And in keeping to himself. And in having the largest penis by far. But he also has a large adam’s apple, his ‘mouse’, as Pilenz imagines it, and even tries to set a cat on it. Or the cat just pounced by itself. We can never be sure.
And he proves to be self-conscious about it, and tries all sorts of neck-wear and tricks to diminish it, but only one ever does the trick. He was not a thing of beauty. There is a type of acceptance you want, that you never got, and probably never could have had, that’s why you craved to be underwater, dressed as a clown, deep in a Panzer, dressed as a war hero. You could only feel acceptance from the Virgin, even so, and you might have had it from the school, if they would have let you speak.
But the mouse was there, and the cats were there. And you craved an audience that you could only ever shrink from. But you said to yourself no doubt: no blackness can engulf this overdeveloped fruit; everyone sees, suspects, feels it, wants to grab hold of it, for it juts out ready to be grabbed. But this is not some ‘self-esteem’ issue for Oprah-bounded adolescent councillors to mop up with a Kleenex and some banal therapy one-oh-one.
It’s a challenge to humanity. It’s esteem itself put to the blowtorch. In the age of all-esteem, from the age of Grass’s esteem-gone-wild, Mahlke becomes an emblem to the rise of the cats in an age of the shrinking mouse. Grass writes with a strange and stunning economy; it’s an economy of focused excess. He builds story, and back-story, side by side and back to front, and his sentences become aggregate things. When you strike a simple description of a path being birdless, for example, it seems to push a scene up from the ground like the ground was water and the birdlessness fills in everything. And alongside this painterlyness there’s postmodern self-awareness of writerlyness.
Grass was a visual artist, graphic designer (he designed his own covers), stonemason and sculptor too, and this impresses upon his words.and the distance between us increased, because we were taking steps. And while Oskar’s brand of unreliable narration in was rarely acknowledged by the fictitious author (and when it was, always with apologism), Pilenz keeps us aware of it, overtly and subtly. That’s why I swam breaststroke, and that’s why I write that I swam breaststroke.
If only I knew who made up the story, he or I, or who is writing this in the first place. What really happens to the Great Mahlke is left to the reader to wonder over, just as it is left for Pilenz; or to demand from Grass. Either way, ‘–Aber Du wolltest nicht auftauchen.’.you didn’t show up. You didn’t surface. I honestly don't know how anyone could give this less than 5 stars.
(Taste being subjective, I understand that we like what we like.) It's flawless, without an ounce of fat on it. After finishing The Tin Drum yesterday, I started Cat and Mouse this morning. Having had the chance to finish it this evening, I'm still sitting here, some hours later, floored by it. Achingly beautiful and haunting. If you're looking for The Tin Drum II, this isn't it.
Better yet: it's an entirely different animal wit I honestly don't know how anyone could give this less than 5 stars. (Taste being subjective, I understand that we like what we like.) It's flawless, without an ounce of fat on it. After finishing The Tin Drum yesterday, I started Cat and Mouse this morning.
Having had the chance to finish it this evening, I'm still sitting here, some hours later, floored by it. Achingly beautiful and haunting. If you're looking for The Tin Drum II, this isn't it. Better yet: it's an entirely different animal with no less an impact than its predecessor.
In fact, I argue that its overall impact is greater, as is the book as a piece of art unto itself. There is some devastating beauty here.That rarest of things: a perfect book. I was disappointed in this second book of the trilogy. It was short, which is what I loved.
And sadly, it was the only thing I loved about it. As with the first, this book is about the coming of age tale of a boy. In this case, the story was told by his best friend. It wasn't a horrible tale at all.
The concept was brilliant, I thought, however, the execution fell flat. I just didn't care about the characters as I did in the first book. And it didn't help that I found this book boring for most o I was disappointed in this second book of the trilogy. It was short, which is what I loved. And sadly, it was the only thing I loved about it.
As with the first, this book is about the coming of age tale of a boy. In this case, the story was told by his best friend. It wasn't a horrible tale at all. The concept was brilliant, I thought, however, the execution fell flat.
I just didn't care about the characters as I did in the first book. And it didn't help that I found this book boring for most of it. Logically, I know the writing was good and the literary standard was met. However, this book just didn't sit well with me. Something was clearly missing, and after thinking about it for a day, I still don't know what it was. If you've only read The Tin Drum, and you're looking for more Gunter Grass to read, this is the book for you. It's short and straightforward and quietly devastating.
Beautiful and heartbreaking, this is a story about two school friends, taking place in Germany during World War II. Pilenz is one of a crowd of teenaged boys who like to hang out together at the beach, occasionally swimming out together to a partially submerged Polish minesweeper. Mahlke is just a kid who wants to belong. But Mahlke If you've only read The Tin Drum, and you're looking for more Gunter Grass to read, this is the book for you.
It's short and straightforward and quietly devastating. Beautiful and heartbreaking, this is a story about two school friends, taking place in Germany during World War II. Pilenz is one of a crowd of teenaged boys who like to hang out together at the beach, occasionally swimming out together to a partially submerged Polish minesweeper.
Mahlke is just a kid who wants to belong. But Mahlke is deeply flawed, Pilenz explains. He is independent, inventive, original and individual, at a time when it was deadly dangerous to deviate in any way from the crowd. With dread, the reader begins to understand that, in telling this story, the narrator is performing a kind of atonement, seeking to repent of an as-of-yet unnamed sin. A profoundly moving book. You don't have to look far to find the enemy, says Grass.
He is already there, inside you, waiting for just the right time to pounce. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, It is a great book of course. Gunter Grass never fails to impress. Its the second book of his Danzig trilogy.
The other two being 'The tin Drum' and 'Dog Years'. The portrays a protagonist who is at odds with his time. It is the time of war and Joachim Mahlke like Oscar Matzerath fails to come into terms with it.
He was born one of natures tragic clowns, with an adam's apple that was as large as a mouse, but he became a hero and his only aspiration all along had been the chance to give a lectur It is a great book of course. Gunter Grass never fails to impress.
Its the second book of his Danzig trilogy. The other two being 'The tin Drum' and 'Dog Years'. The portrays a protagonist who is at odds with his time. It is the time of war and Joachim Mahlke like Oscar Matzerath fails to come into terms with it. He was born one of natures tragic clowns, with an adam's apple that was as large as a mouse, but he became a hero and his only aspiration all along had been the chance to give a lecture in the auditorium of his old school, the way one lieutenant colonel gave once, a lecture he had attended. But his aspiration could never become a reality. He was not allowed to give the presentation and it broke Mahlke to the point that he decided to give up the military and run away and hide in his underwater hideout.
The writer witnessed him diving down into the sea but he never surfaced and that was the end of Joachim Mahlke and the novel. If Germans were the ones known for magical realism, I think Cat and Mouse would kind of define the genre-dead pan, literal, and packed with tall tale-ish exageration more than pure and unbelievable magic. This is a story of two boys going about the very personal business of being boys, amidst the great geopolitical upheaval of their time. While their lives at times intersect with BIG history, it is the personal revolutions, ups and downs that define the narrative and motivate the characters. I If Germans were the ones known for magical realism, I think Cat and Mouse would kind of define the genre-dead pan, literal, and packed with tall tale-ish exageration more than pure and unbelievable magic. This is a story of two boys going about the very personal business of being boys, amidst the great geopolitical upheaval of their time.
While their lives at times intersect with BIG history, it is the personal revolutions, ups and downs that define the narrative and motivate the characters. I loved this book. This is the kind of book that has a very specific flavor.
I remember reading The Tin Drum years ago and, at the time, I liked it a lot, so I was very looking forward to reading this one. Unfortunately, although it has Gunter Grass written all over it and the storytelling is very attractive, I just couldn't relate to the book in any way. The story is about a young boy who gets very good at swimming, is very well respected by his friends, is rather ugly and, well, has really great sexual performanc This is the kind of book that has a very specific flavor. I remember reading The Tin Drum years ago and, at the time, I liked it a lot, so I was very looking forward to reading this one.
Unfortunately, although it has Gunter Grass written all over it and the storytelling is very attractive, I just couldn't relate to the book in any way. The story is about a young boy who gets very good at swimming, is very well respected by his friends, is rather ugly and, well, has really great sexual performance. There isn't much more to be said. What I really enjoyed while reading this novella was the narrative style. The storyteller seems to be quite confused about the person he's talking to, and this gives the book a rather innocent feel.
It's almost as if you're entering a private diary, you get to feel the narrator so close, as if he's sitting next to you and telling you about his friend. Of course, Gunter Grass is a genius and he did this on purpose. So, even though I didn't really enjoy this book so much, it was a warm read, the kind of book perfect for a lazy weekend, and it shouldn't be read while being in a hurry (especially since it has no real take-aways anyway). I actually got goosebumps when, around the middle of the book, there was a very clever reference to Oskar, the little boy with the tin drum (there you go, a spoiler).