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the complete review - fiction / autobiography

The Box

by
Günter Grass

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : intriguing fiction, but disappoints as (auto)biography

See our review for fuller assessment.

  Review Consensus:

  Quite puzzled as to Grass' approach; disappointed that there's not more to it

  From the Reviews:

• "Call it a golden glow of patriarchal egoism. There are all sorts of mostly cheerful anecdotes (.....) It’s a lively show, down-to-earth, unpretentious -- and ably translated by Krishna Watson -- except that in the end it doesn’t reveal very much." - Peter Heinegg, America
  
  
• "Und es beginnt ein schönes, sonderbares, eigenwilliges, ein für Günter Grass ungewöhnlich leichtes Buch. Denn Die Box ist ein Buch ohne Mission, ein Buch ohne Auftrag, ein Buch, das nicht als Transportmittel einer Botschaft missbraucht wird. Und in dem auch kein verschämtes Bekenntnis so lange mit Adjektiven und Partizipialkonstruktionen umstellt wird, bis der Autor hoffen kann, dass es nicht weiter auffallen wird. (...) Das Rührendste an diesem Buch, das Schönste, Traurigste und Ehrlichste daran ist aber ohnehin etwas anderes. Es ist das Ringen des Vaters um die Liebe seiner Kinder. Es ist das Wissen um all das Unausgesprochene in einer Familie, und um wie viel mehr in einer so zerstückelten Familie wie seiner. All die stummen Vorwürfe wünscht sich der Dichter endlich ausgesprochen" - Volker Weidermann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
  
  
• "Jedes Kapitel wird auch von ihm beschlossen -- natürlich gehört dem das letzte Wort, der sich dies alles einfallen ließ, Grass kann eben nicht aus seiner Haut. (...) So wie hier lässt Grass ein ums andere Mal die eigenen Kinder als Marionetten zu Entlastungszwecken antreten." - Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  
  
• "British readers will wonder how an autobiography that all but dispenses with the first person singular can be so egoistic." - James Buchan, The Guardian
  
  
• "The book is replete with tender memories and the dark secrets held in Marie's darkroom. The Hitler period is not dilated on much here. The book is piquant enough without talk of the Waffen SS." - Ian Thomson, The Independent
  
  
• "In fact, The Box tells us very little at all about Grass. Dressed in rags of whimsy (.....) Grass evidently decided to leave the public domain to the critics and biographers, but it is a great pity that he ducked this important opportunity to give his own account of significant work." - Michael Hulse, Literary Review
  
  
• "The Box is a problematic work -- Grass' consideration of his own complicated career through the safety of fiction" - Thomas McGonigle, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "Thus the narrative advances, through fleeting and inconsequential-seeming events (.....) But what, really, is the point of this slender book ? Not merely, one hopes, to offer up a second instalment of autobiography, albeit one with an unconventional structure. If this is not the case, however, it is hard to know what Grass intended." - Sam Munson, The National
  
  
• "Ärgerlich und peinvoll genug ist die Selbstentblössung, die hier den Sprechblasen produzierenden Kindern aufgenötigt wird; als Zumutung in jeder Hinsicht empfindet man jedoch die alberne Sprache, die sich krampfhaft um Anbiederung an die Alltagssprache bemüht und die Kinder reden lässt, als wären sie alle ein wenig verblödet." - Roman Bucheli, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
  
  
• "There are opportunities in The Box for literary trainspotters to glimpse fleeting references to the Grass canon, but those references are not the point here. In fact, The Box ultimately seems to raise questions about the fundamental significance of his writings: it may not be a memoir, but it is an exercise in soul-searching." - Tim Mohr, The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "The Box should serve as no one's introduction to Grass; its charm and poignancy hinge on prior knowledge of the author's books. As a self-standing work of art, it's repetitive, thin and elliptical in ways not always rewarding. And while Grass expertly places readers amid the affectionate, at times contentious and frequently chaotic family chatter, none of the author's children emerge as especially distinguishable. Meanwhile, for those already familiar with Grass, The Box certainly sustains interest in this curious late-period experiment until the arrival of the next and perhaps final installment." - Gregory Leon Miller, San Francisco Chronicle
  
  
• "It is a fascinating book and, despite its contrivances, not really self-indulgent after all. The appearance of self-indulgence is another of the masks the novelist wears." - Allan Massie, The Scotsman
  
  
• "This is a mellow and elegiac work that has the cheek, or courage, to begin with the words ‘Once upon a time . . .’ It shows that Grass’s time isn’t over yet and that his narrative energy remains inventive and undiminished." - Paul Bailey, The Spectator
  
  
• "The Box is not a wholly successful work. Capricious Mariechen often proves irritatingly whimsical; the Grass children, their voices lapping in and out in a format that comes straight from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, lack individuality." - Miranda Seymour, The Telegraph
  
  
• "The childish exchanges seem beside the point, because the book’s central perspective is so firmly established" - Iain Bamforth, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "Er nutzt den behaupteten Rollenwechsel vom Erzähler zum Zuhörer dazu, Dichtung und Wahrheit wieder einmal ordentlich zu verzwirbeln und also in das aus seiner Sicht rechte Verhältnis zueinander zu bringen. (...) Die Box ist ein technischer Oskar Matzerath, ein Medium, das die Grenzen von Raum und Zeit sprengt. Hinter seine Geheimnisse kommen die erzählenden Kinder letztlich nicht. (...) Man muss mit dem Werk und der Familiengeschichte von Günter Grass halbwegs vertraut sein, wenn die Lektüre ertragreich werden soll." - Eckhard Fuhr, Die Welt
  
  
• "Auf der Oberfläche ist Grass’ Buch nicht schlicht, sondern will ein spielerisch-intelligentes, formal gewagtes Unternehmen und vergleichsweise kompliziert sein. Der Stil des Buches ist ebenfalls nicht schlicht. Er ist zwar auch nicht schwierig, aber er will zumindest nicht in einfacher Weise erzählen. Er will verkomplizieren. (...) Ich denke, es wird klar, inwiefern all dem ein monoperspektivischer Text zugrunde liegt." - Andreas Maier, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The Box is a sequel of sorts to Grass' autobiographical Peeling the Onion, but takes on completely different forms. Covering most of his writing career, well into the 1990s, it says very little about the books written in this span, or their creation; it also isn't a personal account -- at least not directly in Grass' own voice. Instead this is a family-centered (and dictated) memoir, the many children of the pater familias (identifiable as Grass -- by the titles of his novels, along with much else --, even as the kids' names have been changed) the ones providing most of the material, in (what are meant to be) their own voices.
       Dad writes himself a father-homage: yes, this is an unusual exercise. In nine 'tales' or episodes different groupings of his now-grown offspring get together and talk about the good old days, and about Dad -- with repeated mentions of the microphones set up on the tables reminding both readers and the children that the Author-figure will take possession of the words and edit/doctor/present them for his purposes. Dad remains mostly a shadowy narrative figure, not imposing himself very forcefully but certainly also commenting on what unfolds and clearly shaping the narrative.
       Moms -- there were several, covering the large brood -- are largely ignored, but there is a significant (and constant) female figure, Marie or Mariechen (and, indeed, the book is dedicated to a Maria Rama). As one child remembers Dad saying:

Of all the women I've loved, or still love, Mariechen is the only one who doesn't demand even a smidgen of me, but gives everything.

Whenever Marie snapped a picture of something with the Agfa box, it came out of her darkroom looking totally different.

My box is like the good Lord: it sees all that was, that is, and that will be. You can't pull the wool over its eyes. It sees through everything.

     It's possible even we, sitting here and talking, are just figments of his imagination -- what do you think ?

     That is what he is allowed to do, what he does best: dream up things, imagine things, until they become real and cast a shadow.

- M.A.Orthofer, 4 November 2010

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Links:

• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publicity page
• Vintage publicity page
• dtv publicity page
• Einaudi editore publicity page
• new books in german
• Profile in The Guardian

• About.com
• B & N Review
• biloko (French)
• Deutschlandradio (German)
• L'Express (French)
• Le Figaro (French)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (German)
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (German)
• Frankfurter Rundschau (German)
• The Fringe Magazine
• Glanz@Elend (German)
• The Guardian
• The Herald
• The Independent
• Literary Review
• literaturkritik.de (German)
• The Los Angeles Times
• The National
• Neue Zürcher Zeitung (German)
• Publishers Weekly
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Scholars and Rogues
• The Scotsman
• Slate
• The Spectator
• Der Spiegel (German)
• Der Tagesspiegel (German)
• The Telegraph
• Die Welt (German)
• Die Zeit (German)

• Nobel Prize laureate, 1999
• Günter Grass at books and writers

• From Germany to Germany
• [Peeling the Onion]

• See Index of German literature
• See Index of Biographical works under review
• See Index of Books by Nobel laureates under review

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About the Author:

       German author Günter Grass was born in 1927. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1999.

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© 2010-2012 the complete review

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