The Tin Drum

A New Translation by Breon Mitchell

By: Günter Grass

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

The Tin Drum deals with the rise of Nazism and with the war experience in the unique cultural setting of Danzig, by Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the original publication of this runaway best seller, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, along with Grass' publishers all over the world, offer a new translation of this classic novel. Breon Mitchell, acclaimed translator and scholar, has drawn from many sources. The result is a translation that is faithful to Grass' style and rhythm, restores omissions, and reflects more fully the complexity of the original work. After 50 years, The Tin Drum has, if anything, gained in power and relevance.

©2009 Breon Mitchell (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

This is a new translation of the classic novel, offered on the 50th anniversary of its original publication.

"Grass is one of the master fabulists of our age." (Times)

"The Tin Drum itself remains a very great novel, as daring and imaginative as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or Toni Morrison's Beloved." (Washington Post)

"The Tin Drum will become one of the enduring literary works of the twentieth century." (Swedish Academy, awarding Günter Grass the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1999)

One of the greatest works of the 20th Century

Strange, irreverent, satirical fable set around world war II era. Often difficult and disturbing yet always comical, enjoyable and entirely essential for the literary minded. Well worth the credit. One of the greatest literary works of the 20th century--along with One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez--another title I hope audible gets soon.

Good but not Great

I read this because it was on the recommended reading list before a river cruise in the area. Some parts of this were interesting, but many unexplained foreign references combined with a near complete lack of awareness of a major World War made me question why this was recommended. I have a better appreciation for what it's like to be a midget rather than about the region.

Grows on You

Upon listening to the first third of the Tin Drum, I scurried to my library and gave it a one star rating. I tried again, listening to the second section, and the rating went up to four stars. The book confounded me with the confabulations of the demented musings of a diminished man, who matures inside the body of a person who never grows any larger than a three-year-old. He takes refuge under women’s skirts, as he bears witness to the events of World War II during the invasion of Poland. Each and every of his mental constructs is made up of multiple, arcane, and original analogies. Freud and Young could have spent years arguing over whether coalescing “though bubbles” in his “steam of consciousness” tirades were really the apex of a series of “transferences,” harking back to some unconscious landscape of repressed memories or uncatalogued “archetypes” describing the most eclectic features of the collective unconscious. Such are the ravages or warring camps in the field of psychology, warring cognitions of adult and toddler occupying the same mind, tossed unwittingly about by the warring parties of World War II. Such carnage! It’s brilliant and bogus and you have to love it or hate it. I grew to love what I started out hating.

It's a metaphor, right?

One thing is for sure: this book is never boring. Funny, annoying, weird, and a lot of other things, but not boring. It's clear that a lot of things in the book are supposed to be metaphorical. I never did figure out what the tin drum was supposed to be. I did learn a lot about the German mindset through the first half of the 20th century. Or at least, I think I did. There's enough ambiguity that it's hard to tell what Grass's opinions are, what his countrymen actually thought, whether Oskar represents what people really thought or what they thought they thought, or something else. Which is probably true of most people in most places and times. That Grass is able to capture that essence is an accomplishment. That Oskar is perhaps the most aggravating protagonist in literature doesn't diminish that in any way.

Engaging Story

Complex storyline… many characters…interacting and entwining over time..very engaging prose…narrator was easy to listen to…nice hint of German accent in his voice

Some of the best irony in literature

Many listeners will perhaps find this book tedious and lacking humour. However a careful listener who has previously found their own human condition not lacking in elements of the absurd will find laugh out loud moments at the most unexpected time. I would compare the subtlety of the irony to that of Don Quixote or The Divine Comedy.

Loved it but it was “thick” in many ways.

Complicated story line. Unfortunately in 2023 close reading is difficult. It’s such a fast-paced world. However I loved the descriptions, settings, and over texture. It was a quirky kind of fun read.

What War Does

Although this is a great book, it will not be for all readers. There is little action and the story is convoluted, self-contradictory, and alternatively commonplace and absurd. I would not recommend this to young readers, and I am not yet sure I will recommend it to my (adult) daughter.

This book is funny at the surface and (literally) intolerably sad below. It deals with the effects of war and the dehumanization of the modern post-war world. This is a great book which uses aspects of magical realism and the absurd to express the pressures of humans dealing with modern war and its aftermath. This book is well worth reading just to hear the story of the Onion Club.

This book did not feel like a translation, it was smooth and resonated very well in english.

The narration was superb, completely clear, expressing emotionality, and handling swift changes of mode and perspective very well.

Cryptic

This book is not even close to what it says it is. If you read this book as is, it is a great read. But if you dig into the symbolism of what all these characters and stories are actually talking about, your mind will be blown.

Disquieting and provocative story

Oscar comes alive both as a mental provocateur and a fascinating character. One feels transported to the Poland of late 1930s.