"The Judgement" by Franz Kafka 1912

I am very happy to be once again participating in German Literature Month.   Last year I read and posted on short stories by a number of Romantic Era German writers.  In the link below you will find lots of great reading ideas.  Caroline and Lizzy's only real rule is the work must be originally written in German.

The hosts are hoping this year to have an even balance of male to female authors as in prior years it had been very male author dominated. They have a schedule (but you are free to post on  any German work).  Here is the official announcement:

Official Annoucement from The Host of German Literature Month

Caroline and I are delighted to be making this announcement and we hope you’re happy to hear it. The tweets of others as early as January of this year looking forward to German Literature Month convinced us it just had to happen. And so your wishes have come true. This time, however, we are issuing a challenge.

GLM I and II were resounding successes and we want GLM III to follow suit. One thing has concerned us though. Why were the lady writers so grossly under-represented? Only 22% of the authors read in GLM I, reducing to 19% in GLM II, were female. We want to redress that balance. Now we’re not going all Orange prize on you. We don’t want to exclude the great male authors in German(-language) literature. But we are structuring the month so that there are times to focus in on the ladies.

We would, therefore, like the structure of German Literature Month III to look like this.

Week 1: 1-7.11 Ladies Week

Week 2: 8-14.11 Gents Week

Week 3: 15-21.11 Ladies Week

Week 4: 22-28.11 Gents Week

Weekend 29-30.11 Read as you please

Read anything you want: any format, any genre. As long as the works were originally written in German and are reviewed during November, they count for GLM III. The ideal female:male author ratio at the end of the month would be 50:50.

We will also have two readalongs:

7.11 Lizzy will lead a discussion of a title to be determined by public vote. A post will follow shortly with voting options. In the meantime if there’s a title you wish to suggest, written by a female (it will be ladies’ week after all), please leave a comment.

29.11 Caroline will lead a War and Literature discussion of Hans Keilson’s Death of the Adversary.

This year I hope to read in addition to The Tin Drum-

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque -completed 

The Death of Virgil by Herman Broch

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

I have a collection of old translations of Romantic Era Germsn short stories and I may read more of them.    I will also look to see what is in the forthcoming Best European Fiction 2014 Anthology. I will also look at German language Swiss and Austrian stories I have in anthologies on my IPad from prior years of this series.  I am eagerly looking forward to reading the posts the event will generate and expanding my limited knowledge of German literature.  I urge my readers to consider participating. 

German Literature Month November 2013

Fiction world wide, especially in Europe, was changed forever by the short stories and unfinished novels of Franz Kafka.  I have posted on several of them.  There is no more important short story than "The Metamorphesis".  I am very find myself of the amazing story, "The Penal Colony".  The core of Kafka's work is a few of his short stories, among them "The Judgement".  As one can imagine, it is a strange story open to many readings.   There are two on stage characters, a man and his elderly father.  The son is composing a letter to his friend that moved to Russia years ago to start a business.  It was successful at first but now the friend struggles, remains a bachelor isolated in a foreign country.  He has lost all his roots in his birth country and never formed them in Russia.  The son just sends him idol gossip. The father, perhaps he is in the opening stages of Alzheimer's Disease, tells him that he has also been writing the friend while simultaneously suggesting the friend does not exist.  

This is a very packed brief story.  I read some accounts of the meaning of the story.  Most see it as an allegorical story about the nature of judgement interpreted theologically.  I see this.  I prefer to see it as a story of a man driven to despair by his relationship with his father who is a master of "the guilt trip".

You can easily find this story online.   

Franz Kafka (German pronunciation: [ˈfʀants ˈkafka]) was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia (presently the Czech Republic), Austria–Hungary. His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and which was mainly published posthumously—is considered to be among the most influential in Western literature.

His stories include The Metamorphosis (1912) and In the Penal Colony (1914), while his novels are The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927).

Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later, Kafka acquired some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his favorite authors was Flaubert.  From Goodreads.  

"A Letter From an Unknown Woman" by Stefan Zweig 1923

I am very happy to be once again participating in German Literature Month.   Last year I read and posted on short stories by a number of Romantic Era German writers.  In the link below you will find lots of great reading ideas.  Caroline and Lizzy's only real rule is the work must be originally written in German.

The hosts are hoping this year to have an even balance of male to female authors as in prior years it had been very male author dominated. They have a schedule (but you are free to post on  any German work).  Here is the official announcement:

Official Annoucement from The Host of German Literature Month

Caroline and I are delighted to be making this announcement and we hope you’re happy to hear it. The tweets of others as early as January of this year looking forward to German Literature Month convinced us it just had to happen. And so your wishes have come true. This time, however, we are issuing a challenge.

GLM I and II were resounding successes and we want GLM III to follow suit. One thing has concerned us though. Why were the lady writers so grossly under-represented? Only 22% of the authors read in GLM I, reducing to 19% in GLM II, were female. We want to redress that balance. Now we’re not going all Orange prize on you. We don’t want to exclude the great male authors in German(-language) literature. But we are structuring the month so that there are times to focus in on the ladies.

We would, therefore, like the structure of German Literature Month III to look like this.

Week 1: 1-7.11 Ladies Week

Week 2: 8-14.11 Gents Week

Week 3: 15-21.11 Ladies Week

Week 4: 22-28.11 Gents Week

Weekend 29-30.11 Read as you please

Read anything you want: any format, any genre. As long as the works were originally written in German and are reviewed during November, they count for GLM III. The ideal female:male author ratio at the end of the month would be 50:50.

We will also have two readalongs:

7.11 Lizzy will lead a discussion of a title to be determined by public vote. A post will follow shortly with voting options. In the meantime if there’s a title you wish to suggest, written by a female (it will be ladies’ week after all), please leave a comment.

29.11 Caroline will lead a War and Literature discussion of Hans Keilson’s Death of the Adversary.

This year I hope to read in addition to The Tin Drum-

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque -completed 

The Death of Virgil by Herman Broch

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

"The Last Judgement" by Franz Kafka -completed

I have a collection of old translations of Romantic Era Germsn short stories and I may read more of them.    I will also look to see what is in the forthcoming Best European Fiction 2014 Anthology. I will also look at German language Swiss and Austrian stories I have in anthologies on my IPad from prior years of this series.  I am eagerly looking forward to reading the posts the event will generate and expanding my limited knowledge of German literature.  I urge my readers to consider participating. 

Stefan Zweig is a new to me writer.  One of the reasons I participate on reading events is that they motivate me to move beyond my comfort zones.  I remember four years ago when I signed up for a reading event, The Japanese Literature Challenge Three.  At that time I had never read any Japanese fiction, now I have read hundreds of them.  I admit I smile when I see people from Japanese universities reading my posts.   

The Guardian has an excellent series of articles on the short stories of various writers.  In the very interesting brief piece on Stephen Zweig the refer to him as a writer from a "fallen aristocracy".  The articles says that Zweig is not read nearly as much as he once was.  They include recommendations for Zweig neophytes.  One of the highest recommended stories was, "A Letter From an Unknown Woman".  It was made into a movie in 1948 which I hope Turner Classics will show one day. 

As "A Letter from an Unknown Woman" opens a well known author has just open a letter from an unknown correspondent, without a name or return address on the twelve page letter.   It is a letter from a woman who began an infatuation with him when she was thirteen, now she is in her early thirties.  I am not inclined to tell the plot (if you are seeking homework help to avoid having to read it, check the Wikipedia article) as I will remember it for a long time.  The story is psychologically acute in its portrayal of the woman's life long infatuation.  The portrait of the writer as a pleasure seeking near decadent literary aristocrat is just brilliant.  This is very much a story of the reading life.  It is about a time when reading was a treasured activity.  It is a story of pain, loneliness, isolation and obsession.  I felt I was there in the final years of the glory that was Vienna before the Nazis.  

I thank Caroline and Lizzy for motivating me to read Zweig.  Ali Smith has said he should be included with the great short story writers of the world.  I hope to read all of Zweig in Englsh available as Kindle editions (at most 2000 pages)STEFAN ZWEIG

St Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amokand Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York-a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel, Beware of Pity,and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

ZWEIG

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amokand Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York-a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel, Beware of Pity,and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 1928

Germany,Erich Maria Remarque

I am very happy to be once again participating in German Literature Month.   Last year I read and posted on short stories by a number of Romantic Era German writers.  In the link below you will find lots of great reading ideas.  Caroline and Lizzy's only real rule is the work must be originally written in German.

The hosts are hoping this year to have an even balance of male to female authors as in prior years it had been very male author dominated. They have a schedule (but you are free to post on  any German work).  Here is the official announcement:

Official Annoucement from The Host of German Literature Month

Caroline and I are delighted to be making this announcement and we hope you’re happy to hear it. The tweets of others as early as January of this year looking forward to German Literature Month convinced us it just had to happen. And so your wishes have come true. This time, however, we are issuing a challenge.

GLM I and II were resounding successes and we want GLM III to follow suit. One thing has concerned us though. Why were the lady writers so grossly under-represented? Only 22% of the authors read in GLM I, reducing to 19% in GLM II, were female. We want to redress that balance. Now we’re not going all Orange prize on you. We don’t want to exclude the great male authors in German(-language) literature. But we are structuring the month so that there are times to focus in on the ladies.

We would, therefore, like the structure of German Literature Month III to look like this.

Week 1: 1-7.11 Ladies Week

Week 2: 8-14.11 Gents Week

Week 3: 15-21.11 Ladies Week

Week 4: 22-28.11 Gents Week

Weekend 29-30.11 Read as you please

Read anything you want: any format, any genre. As long as the works were originally written in German and are reviewed during November, they count for GLM III. The ideal female:male author ratio at the end of the month would be 50:50.

We will also have two readalongs:

7.11 Lizzy will lead a discussion of a title to be determined by public vote. A post will follow shortly with voting options. In the meantime if there’s a title you wish to suggest, written by a female (it will be ladies’ week after all), please leave a comment.

29.11 Caroline will lead a War and Literature discussion of Hans Keilson’s Death of the Adversary.

My first read for the event was The Tin Drum by Gunther Grass

My second is All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 

I hope also to read:

The Death of Virgil by Herman Broch

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

I have a collection of old translations of Romantic Era Germsn short stories and I may read more of them.    I will also look to see what is in the forthcoming Best European Fiction 2014 Anthology. I will also look at German language Swiss and Austrian stories I have in anthologies on my IPad from prior years of this series.  I am eagerly looking forward to reading the posts the event will generate and expanding my limited knowledge of German literature.  I urge my readers to consider participating. 

German Literature Month November 2013

On the cover of my copy of All Quiet on the Western Front it is said to be greatest war novel of all time. I have not read enough war novels to dispute or verify this claim but I think the foot soldiers in The Iliad would see little has changed in four thousand or so years.  This is a great novel and it well might be the best war novel ever written.  It is told in the first person by a twenty year old German WW I private.  I admit part of the power of the book for me was the way it forced me to see the Germans soldiers in a sympathetic way.  My ancestors fought against the Germans twice in the Twentieth Century.  My uncle, for whom I was named, died at 23 in WWII.

Historians see WW One as among the very most senseless large scale wars.  The monarchs of the counties involved were all related by blood or marriage.  There were no large ideological differences, no serious territorial issues.  It set the stage for WW Two and the Holocaust.

When the novel starts there are 150 soldiers in the company, on armistice day four years later only seven are left and nearly all have serious wounds.  This novel brings the day to day existence of the foot soldier to life in a painfully vivid fashion.  We are made to feel it was like to be in the trenches. This is very much an anti-war novel, there is no glory in this novel, no patriotism, no jingoism.  The Germans know they cannot win against the materially richer English and Americans., There are numerous deeply moving moments in the novel.  

All Quiet on the Western Front is a masterwork, flawless. I read a translation by A. W. Wheen.

About this author

  1898 to 1970

Erich Maria Remarque is one of the best known and most widely read authors of German literature in the twentieth century. 

Remarque's biography is essentially marked and his writing fundamentally influenced by German history of the twentieth century: Childhood and youth in imperial Osnabrück, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and most of all his exile in Switzerland and the United States. With the novel All Quiet On the Western Front, first published in 1929, Remarque attained world-wide recognition continuing today. 

Examples of his other novels also internationally published are: The Road Back (1931), Three Comrades (1936, 38), Arch of Triumph (1945), The Black Obelisk (1956), and Night in Lisbon (1962). From Goodreads.

"The Kabbalists" by I. l. Peretz 1891 The Reading Life Yale Yiddish Collection Project

Isaac Leybush Peretz (1852–1915) is one of the most influential figures of modern Jewish culture. Born in Poland and dedicated to Yiddish culture, he recognized that Jews needed to adapt to their times while preserving their cultural heritage, and his captivating and beautiful writings explore the complexities inherent in the struggle between tradition and the desire for progress. This book, which presents a memoir, poem, travelogue, and twenty-six stories by Peretz, also provides a detailed essay about Peretz’s life by Ruth R. Wisse. This edition of the book includes as well Peretz’s great visionary drama A Night in the Old Marketplace, in a rhymed, performable translation by Hillel Halkin.

“If you want to discover the beauty, the depth, the unique wonder of Yiddish literature—read this volume by its Master.”—Elie Wiesel 

(From Yale University Press) 

Reading Yiddish literature is motivating me to expand my historical and cultural knowledge into areas which I know little about.  There is significant, as I so far see it, controversy about basic facts among those who claim authority.  The story I read today by I. L. Peretz, "The Kabbalists" obligated me too seek out a basic understanding of what a Kabbalist  did.  The short answer is that he is a scholar of Jewish mystical philosophies which originated in the early Middle Ages and which were them selves based on interpretations of the Torrah and what were considered divine revelations.  The notion of secret Jewish teachings helped to open up a vast world to occultists and played into the hands of anti-Semites.  Secret teachings of the Kaballah were behind many cults like The Order of the Golden Dawn.   A Kabbalist would spend a life time studying old texts, looking for God in the pages of old books.   If ever there was a culture into the reading life, that of the Yiddish was it.  

"The Kabbalists" is set in a school, it used to have a lot of pupils but now there is only the elderly teacher and one pupil.  The community it drew it students from has fallen on hard times and people can no longer afford to send their sons to study.   The master and student are dressed in very old clothes and survive on small food donations.  The student refuses to quit as all his peers did, he had a deep faith that his master's teachings will lead him to unity with God.   The teacher was focused on discovering hidden meanings in the words of David.  He is attempting to listen to the music of a choir of Angels.  It is easy to wonder if this does not come from the Platonic notion of the music of the spheres, from medieval Neo Platonists doctrines.  The student cries out in death at the end of the story and the teacher says the Devine choir needed another singer.  The villagers all wish for such a glorious death.  

I will be reading and posting on many more Yiddish works.  In the interest of full disclosure, Yale university Press has made a very generous gift of books to me.

Please share your experience with Yiddish writers with us.

 

"Fun in the Field" by Sally

"Fun in the Field" by Sally is the second story from the series of poems and stories written during the 

Anjali House Writing Project directed by Sue Guiney.  (All of the authors have been given pen names as required under Cambodian privacy statues.). The authors are all just starting to learn English.  Be sure to also read Sally's autobiography.  She is sixteen.  There will be lots more stories posted.  Please take the time to read at least Sue's introductory post. 

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information 

Fun in the Field, by Sally

 

   Today, people are busy working under a sunny day in the field, but Naron is free. He doesn’t like working. He likes playing with his friend, Billy. Naron is 17 years old.

   One day his mother comes and talks to him. His mother says, ”Naron, why don’t you go and help your neighbor in the field?”

   “But mum, now I am busy. I can’t go and help them,”

he answers.

   His mother asks, “So, what are you doing?”

   Naron answers, “I am playing football with my friend,

Billy.”

   “That’s not the good answer,” says his mother. “You should

go and help your neighbor in the field. It is also fun and you can learn how to farm.”

   Naron walks outside to the field angrily. He thinks he can’t play with his friend any more. But he is wrong. His friend also goes to the field and they start to help their neighbor. It is fun, too. Now he knows that besides playing football, he can do other things to have fun.

 

 

 

Sally, age 16 

Author supplied data 

 

One day that I always remember since I was a child is trying to learn new letters. When I was 10 years old, my parents sent me to school. That time I loved learning. Every day when I went to school I tried to read new letters and write them down. Every time that I couldn’t write the letters that I read, I always cried and asked for help from my parents or my brothers. They always helped me and cheered me up. My mum told me that learning is not easy as you might think. So you need to try hard and do your best. We are here to help you! I felt warm when my mum said that. Since that time I tried and tried until I passed all my examinations and went to grade 2. And now I still try hard to achieve my goal.

I am very honored to be able to publish this story.  

"When Problems Happen" by Victoria - A poem from the Anjali House Writing Project

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information 

"When Problems Happen" is the first of several poems that will be included for the event.  I am very proud to be able to share it with you.  All of the authors are just starting to learn English.  English and Cambodian share no historical roots and their structures are very different, making the writers accomplishments all the more marvelous.  

"When Problems Happen" by Victoria

 

In my dream I want to travel around the world.

When I see bad things happen to people

I want to help, too, but I don’t know who they are.

 

When I look to the sky

I see the bird fly in the sky.

I want to fly, too, but I don’t have a wing to fly.

 

I want to touch the sky,

but I can’t touch the sky,

because the sky is very high.

 

I feel unhappy because there is a flood in a country.

I want to help the people.

When their trouble is over I will help them to build a house.

 

 

 

 

Victoria, age 12 (all writers are using pen names in order to protect their privacy) author supplied data.

 

One day at Khmer school I had a test. I did some tests and some I didn’t. One week after that, my teacher checked the tests.Some tests had good scores, some had bad scores. Then the next week my teacher gave the student record book and I saw that I had a good score. I had passed my exam. I took the student record book to give to my mother to see it. My mother was very happy and I was very happy too.

A Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. German Literature Month

I am very happy to be once again participating in German Literature Month.   Last year I read and posted on short stories by a number of Romantic Era German writers.  In the link below you will find lots of great reading ideas.  Caroline and Lizzy's only real rule is the work must be originally written in German.

The hosts are hoping this year to have an even balance of male to female authors as in prior years it had been very male author dominated. They have a schedule (but you are free to post on  any German work).  Here is the official announcement:

Official Annoucement from The Host of German Literature Month

Caroline and I are delighted to be making this announcement and we hope you’re happy to hear it. The tweets of others as early as January of this year looking forward to German Literature Month convinced us it just had to happen. And so your wishes have come true. This time, however, we are issuing a challenge.

GLM I and II were resounding successes and we want GLM III to follow suit. One thing has concerned us though. Why were the lady writers so grossly under-represented? Only 22% of the authors read in GLM I, reducing to 19% in GLM II, were female. We want to redress that balance. Now we’re not going all Orange prize on you. We don’t want to exclude the great male authors in German(-language) literature. But we are structuring the month so that there are times to focus in on the ladies.

We would, therefore, like the structure of German Literature Month III to look like this.

Week 1: 1-7.11 Ladies Week

Week 2: 8-14.11 Gents Week

Week 3: 15-21.11 Ladies Week

Week 4: 22-28.11 Gents Week

Weekend 29-30.11 Read as you please

Read anything you want: any format, any genre. As long as the works were originally written in German and are reviewed during November, they count for GLM III. The ideal female:male author ratio at the end of the month would be 50:50.

We will also have two readalongs:

7.11 Lizzy will lead a discussion of a title to be determined by public vote. A post will follow shortly with voting options. In the meantime if there’s a title you wish to suggest, written by a female (it will be ladies’ week after all), please leave a comment.

29.11 Caroline will lead a War and Literature discussion of Hans Keilson’s Death of the Adversary.

This year I hope to read in addition to The Tin Drum-

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 

The Death of Virgil by Herman Broch

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

I have a collection of old translations of Romantic Era Germsn short stories and I may read more of them.    I will also look to see what is in the forthcoming Best European Fiction 2014 Anthology. I will also look at German language Swiss and Austrian stories I have in anthologies on my IPad from prior years of this series.  I am eagerly looking forward to reading the posts the event will generate and expanding my limited knowledge of German literature.  I urge my readers to consider participating. 

German Literature Month November 2013

About this author

edit data

Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author and playwright.

He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). Since 1945, he has lived in West Germany (now Germany), but in his fiction he frequently returns to the Danzig of his childhood.

He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum, a key text in European magic realism. His works frequently have a strong left wing, socialist political dimension, and Grass has been an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In 2006, Grass caused a controversy with his disclosure of Waffen-SS service during the final months of World War II.

Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig on 16 October 1927, to Willy Grass (1899-1979), a Protestant ethnic German, and Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898-1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin. Grass was raised a Catholic. His parents had a grocery store with an attached apartment in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, who was born in 1930.

Grass attended the Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-SS. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American POW camp.

In 1946 and 1947 he worked in a mine and received a stonemason's education. For many years he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and travelled frequently. He married in 1954 and since 1960 has lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts). From Goodreads

I am very glad I have at last read The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass.   It is often listed among the 100 greatest 20th century novels. It is a long, sometimes it seemed too long, sprawling account of life in Poland during the few years prior to the Nazi domination up through the war years.  The story is told through the very unreliable narration of Oskar Matzerath.  Oscar decided at age three never to get any bigger physically when he heard his father say he would be a grocer when he grew. He tells us the story partially from a mental hospital where he is confined.  Imagine a collaboration between Rabelais, Pynchon, and Hunter Thompson and you can get a feel for this book. It is a complicated challenging work and I am sure much of the symbolism and the Polish and Nazi historical references went pass me unnoticed.  We see how the people in the story, a motley collection of persons close to Oscar including two of his mother's lovers,  deal with and are impacted by the war.  The plot action is very imaginative.  Everyone praises the new translation of Breon Mitchell, which I read, and the quality of the prose is very high.  The novel is grand masterful account of the corruption the war brought to Poland.  Oscar has a weapon in that his voice can shatter all sorts of things.  We are always wondering how accurate are Oscar's perceptions, after all he is in a mental hospital.  I liked this book and I am glad I read it.  It is a challenging book but worth the effort.  It needs to be reread.