

German author Guenter Grass dies - signa11
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32285705?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

======
morsch
The _Günter-Grass-Haus_ published this poem from his work "Fundsachen für
Nichtleser"

    
    
      Mit einem Sack Nüsse
      will ich begraben sein  
      und mit neuesten Zähnen.
      Wenn es dann kracht,
      wo ich liege,
      kann vermutet werden:
      Er ist das,
      immer noch er.
    

I don't think it's available in English, and I'll add my own translation here.
I hope that's not too presumptuous. I've done some translation, but
translating poetry is difficult.

    
    
      With a bag of nuts
      I'd like to be buried
      and with the freshest of teeth.
      When there is gnashing
      where I lie,
      one can surmise:
      He's at it,
      still he.

~~~
skore
I'd translate the last two lines slightly different:

    
    
      With a bag of nuts
      I'd like to be buried
      and with the freshest of teeth.
      When there is gnashing
      where I lie,
      one can surmise:
      It's him,
      still him.

~~~
ncza
"er ist das" also _sounds_ exactly like "he eats that".

~~~
skore
Woah, completely missed that. Then, "he's at it" captures slightly more of
that meaning as well. Still incredibly hard to translate while trying to stay
succinct.

------
allendoerfer
I'd like to quote the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's obituary [0]:

    
    
      Es gibt kein anderes Buch in unserer Sprache, das in der
      jüngsten Epoche der internationalen  Belletristik von
      vergleichbarer Präsenz war – und damit an die Seite
      der allerersten Hervorbringungen unserer Literaturgeschichte gehört,
      also an die Seite von Goethes „Werther“, von Fontanes „Effi Briest“,
      Thomas Manns „Buddenbrooks“, Kafkas „Prozess“, Döblins „Berlin 
      Alexanderplatz“ oder Musils „Mann ohne Eigenschaften“.
    

Which says, that there was no other book [than The Tin Drum] in German
language that had a comparable presence in the last epoch of international
belletristic.

It then puts Grass alongside _Goethe_ , arguably the greatest honor a German
(or really any) writer can ever get from the feuilleton.

[0]: [http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/autoren/ein-
na...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/autoren/ein-nachruf-der-
grosse-grass-13535516.html)

------
littletimmy
His poem "What Must Be Said" is a wonderful commentary on Israel and the
threat it poses to world peace. He talks about how the West has turned a blind
eye to Israel's development of nuclear weapons because of its collective
guilt. He argues that this must stop.

Here it is (translated):
[https://kugelmass.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/a-legitimate-
tran...](https://kugelmass.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/a-legitimate-translation-
of-gunter-grasss-was-gesagt-werden-muss/)

~~~
yehosef
The poem conveniently omits an important point - that Israel has never called
for Iran's destruction whereas Iran has repeatedly called to "wipe Israel off
the map." Anyone who equates Israel and Iran on this issue is either ignorant
or biased, possibly both.

[http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/](http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/)
[http://video.foxnews.com/v/3704646723001/irans-supreme-
leade...](http://video.foxnews.com/v/3704646723001/irans-supreme-leader-calls-
for-the-destruction-of-israel/)

~~~
dao-
Yup, of course this is no coincidence. The "poem" is straight-out antisemitic.
Old habits die hard, after all Grass had an SS history (that he forgot to
mention over decades).

[Edit] It's kind of obvious, but I'll say it since this is often missed by
those applauding Grass for his late poem: If Israel wanted to destroy Iran, it
had already done so, given its nuclear power. Instead, Israel has (so far
successfully) used that nuclear power defensively to keep its neighbor
countries from trying to destroy it.

~~~
ff10
That is just profoundly wrong. In the 80s he stated that a country which was
responsible for something like the Holocaust did not deserve to be re-
unificated. It seemed that he had his fair share of issues with his past, that
is we he himself decided to come out with it.

~~~
dao-
What exactly is wrong? Sure, he decided to come out with the truth about his
past, but it was kind of late. I'm not sure I see the connection between my
post and your reply.

~~~
littletimmy
Either what he is saying is right, or it is wrong.

If it is right, he could eat babies for lunch and it would be right.

If he is wrong, he could be the creator of the universe and all within it and
still be wrong.

Please stop with this ad-hominem nonsense.

~~~
dao-
Let me translate what I said / meant, then: What Grass was saying is wrong,
and by the way it didn't surprise me given his shady history.

------
ghshephard
I somehow completely missed an incredible cultural Icon. The NYT flashed this
as "Breaking News", and it's sitting here at 62 points in less than an hour -
and I had absolutely _no idea_ who Guenter Grass was, until I started reading
the news.

Spooky - it's like I slipped in from an alternate plane of reality.

~~~
philippnagel
That's the beautiful thing about literature. One can catch up by simply
reading!

~~~
JoeAltmaier
No, I'm afraid one can never catch up. There's just too much to read. My stack
of unread books gets higher every month. Sigh.

------
2511
Read 'The tin drum' about 10 years ago. Didn't get a lot of it but I remember
getting very fascinated with it. Kind of like Murakami but I found Murakami
easier to read. Time to read 'The tin drum' again.

R.I.P Mr grass.

~~~
ukigumo
I quite enjoyed the "Tin Drum" but I admit that I lost a bit of respect for
the man when it was revealed he had worked for the Stasi.

Still, it is a great loss of a great writer.

~~~
thomasz
He didn't work for the STASI, he volunteered for the Waffen SS.

> Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). In May 1945,
> after service as a soldier in the Waffen SS, he was taken prisoner by U.S.
> forces and released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, he
> began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction he frequently returned to the
> Danzig of his childhood.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass)

~~~
pgeorgi
The current official version is that he volunteered for submarine service, was
rejected there, then drafted into Waffen SS.

------
GabrielF00
The Tin Drum is an amazing book and it influenced a lot of fiction - from
Midnight's Children to A Prayer for Owen Meany. Some of his shorter books are
a little more accessible (Cat and Mouse or Crabwalk, for instance). I found
Grass' perspective on WWII and German history to be particularly valuable,
since he was a young German (of Polish origin) who had to reconcile with his
own participation in the Nazi regime.

------
lispm
If you haven't heard of Günter Grass, this is a great movie based on his book
'Die Blechtrommel':

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum_(film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum_\(film\))

~~~
eternalban
Loved the film. Haven't read the book.

------
forinti
The same day as Eduardo Galeano. It's a very sad day indeed.

~~~
Narretz
Ah, very sad to hear that. I wrote my BA thesis about his use of metaphors in
"Open Veins of Latin America". A very interesting read, and looking back, I
quite enjoyed working with it.

------
mandlar
I really enjoyed his book My Century, where each chapter covers one year of
Germany, 1900-1999.

------
cooervo
His book the Tin foil drum is still warmly remembered in my heart.

------
pluma
I never understood why he's considered noteworthy but apparently many people
thought what he did was important. RIP.

