My Century

by Gunter Grass

This work has been written and illustrated with matching aquarels by Gunther Grass to celebrate the end of the XXth century. It is a compilation of 100 different stories. For each year of the century there is a story, on a particular german event in the field of  history, culture, science, technique, fashion, even sports a.o., each time described from a different angle by fictional narrators, mostly ordinary people who see those events from their own perspective. Only occasionally is the narrator autobiographical.

 The author allows each of those witnesses to express themselves about various topics such as war, peace and bitter hardships but also about new developments in communications, scientific discoveries, new awareness of the environment, technical inventions or cultural performances.

Is it possible to successfully depict a hundred years of “change” in a hundred brushstrokes ?

The stories start in 1900 where a group of soldiers have the visit of a helmeted Kaiser, who urges them, in a pompous speech, to follow the example of King Attila and the Huns.

 Further chapters relate the launch of the first submarines or describe the Krupp foundries where the Big Bertha canon was built.

 They also take the reader through the turbulences of WWI and its aftermath when families were obliged to eat only turnip cakes and ersatz while children played with obsolete banknotes.

 A few years later Berlin couples would dance again, it is Charleston time.

After chaotic years which led to the Nazi period, WWII and the partition, topics seem to move into modernity, the economic miracle and the intrusion of radio and television in the households and on the streets.

A new lifestyle is inaugurated bringing with it a new set of anxieties. Parents have new worries now about their children’s drug habits, their strange hairdos or their deafening music. Bavarian mushroom pickers get driven out of the forests by Tchernobyl’s cloud, which causes middle aged Germans to become conscious of environmental threats.

 A schoolteacher is confronted with terrorism as he unwittingly hosted a Baader Meinhof gang member, another frightened man built an atom bunker in his garden.

 In the eighties an elderly man confesses to his granddaughter that he spent most

 of his time in his armchair in front of a television set.

 Very  lyrical, witty and  magical  is Grass’s 1999 conclusion  with the story of a 103 year old woman , just like his mother, born in Danzig ,brought back to life by her novelist son. She has lost most of her relatives in the different wars of the century

 “what I remember most is war, war with breaks in between” she said and in the last year of the century she is looking forward to the New Year 2000 to stand on the balcony of the home her son has put her in to watch all her great-grandchildren running around on these new ‘rubber skates’. 

What are the readers’ impressions after having read and reread these hundred chapters?

 Readers of the bookclub liked some of the stories, as they were touching because G.G. manages to put himself in the shoes of schoolboys and old women alike. The atmosphere is masterly depicted with  lively images, subtle dialogues, frequent understatements…but they are all about life in Germany.  

  For us non-german bookclubmembers many chapters were a little hermetic and the book as a whole left the impression of being disjointed, hence a bit confusing.

A book written for Germans!!!

The hard work to get into it may have been rewarding,

Irène