TOO FAR AFIELD

Name: TOO FAR AFIELD
Author: Günter Grass
ISBN: 0-15-100230-4

by Günter Grass & translated by Krishna Winston ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2000

A rich, troubling work that offers incontrovertible evidence of this great writer’s undiminished artistry, integrity, and...

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On the heels of Grass’s Nobel Prize comes this graceful English version of his most recent (1995) and most controversial fiction: a potent criticism of German reunification, cast in the semi-fabulistic form employed so memorably in mega-novels like The Tin Drum and The Flounder.

The story’s set mostly in and around Berlin shortly after the “fall,” in 1989, of the Wall dividing East from West Germany. Its principal characters are two elderly men. One is former war correspondent and public East German intellectual Theo Wuttke, now employed as a superannuated office boy by the Truehand, the agency entrusted with steering the former East Germany’s enterprises and properties into the “new” country’s economic mainstream. The other is Ludwig Hoftaller, a vaguely sinister (though perfectly affable) figure whose history as a spy and informer extends (in magical-realist fashion) back to the 19th century, when Bismarck’s “unification” of warring German states bred the self-glorifying energies that would erupt in world war. The consequent linking of Germany’s past and present (a recurring theme in Grass’s fiction) is underscored by Wuttke’s fascination with classic German writer Theodor Fontane (coworkers mockingly nickname Wuttke “Fonty”), whose famous 1895 novel, Effi Briest, supplies the complacent repeated phrase—urging one to sticking to one’s business and avoid trouble—that gives Grass’s novel its deeply ironic title. Too Far Afield is reflective and intermittently discursive, perhaps as much a meditation on aging and facing death (and taking stock of how honorably one has lived) as it is a dramatization of the repetitive pomposity and folly of Germany then and now. Without some knowledge of recent German history, many readers may find much of it heavy going (though a helpful glossary does precede the text proper). Still, it’s filled with vivid and provocative symbolic incident (such as Wuttke’s efforts to “preserve” an antiquated elevator in the building that formerly housed the Nazi Air Ministry).

A rich, troubling work that offers incontrovertible evidence of this great writer’s undiminished artistry, integrity, and passion.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-15-100230-4

Page Count: 672

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OF ALL THAT ENDS
by Günter Grass ; translated by Breon Mitchell ; illustrated by the author

- BOOK REVIEW
FROM GERMANY TO GERMANY
translated by Günter Grass ; by Krishna Winston

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BOX
by Günter Grass

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.