Günther Grass' „Mein Jahrhundert“ – Unser Jahrhundert

Abstract

In 1999, the newly-chosen Nobel laureate Günther Grass, the restless and unpleasant "drummer" of all evil in postmodern times, published a novel about a century of German history, “Mein Jahrhundert”/”My Century”. The present article strips through the content and textual aspects in order to gain even a glimpse of the literary peculiarities, which traditionally make a Grass' analysis turn into a perpetual challenge. The ample account of the 20th century, OUR century, offers the Grass-accustomed reader a powerful taste of the ruthless post-war "Aesthetics of Engagement". Ostensibly and conspicuously unfolded in 100 three-to four-sided (short) stories is the special narrative frame, the "Vergegenkunft", i.e. the combination of the past, the present and the coming, with the help of which good and bad sides of life, great moments and bourgeois corners of life are taken into consideration. Attention is paid to the refined intertextuality mechanism with its alienation effects, which helps Grass put the reader to unexpected intellectual tests. This enables then Grass to look with a critical eye in a sometimes elegant, other times ironic manner to German personalities as well as to modern-day decision makers, last but not least to his own person, a human being-a citizen-a writer.