190 Besprechungen / Reviews 2002). At the very least, annotated entries of the major publications could have been added to the bibliographical lists of Walser’s works available in English translation, English-language books on Walser, and selected studies about Germans and their past. However, neither this slight shortcoming nor the occasional error (9, 14, 48, 51, 101n) should detract from the indubitable merits of this immensely informative and highly readable book that makes Walser’s most important non-fictional texts available for the first time in English translation. Georgia Institute of Technology Frank Pilipp M ONIKA S HAFI (E D .): Approaches to Teaching Grass’s The Tin Drum. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008. 258 pp. Cloth $ 37.50; Paper $ 19.75. The publication of a volume of essays on The Tin Drum constitutes a welcome addition to the more than one hundred titles in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature inasmuch as German belles lettres had been merely represented by Goethe’s Faust, Kafka’s Short Fiction, and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. The status of The Tin Drum as a prominent example of «world literature» is also attested to by the relative frequency with which the novel - its considerable length and daunting complexity notwithstanding - is apparently taught in either the German original or Ralph Manheim’s English rendering at US and UK institutions of higher learning (four contributors of the present volume are affiliated with British universities, one contributor hails from a Canadian institution) in a variety of courses that run the gamut from those in German Studies and Comparative Literature to those with a focus on race and gender, the Holocaust, and Film Studies. Unsurprisingly, the essays, which have been carefully edited by Monika Shafi, who also contributed a useful survey of German editions and those of English translations of Grass’s novel as well as an overview of pertinent secondary literature, offer a considerable range of approaches and thematic emphases that are intended to facilitate students’ access to a notoriously difficult text rather than to advance new readings. But the volume’s emphasis on providing instructional tools does not necessarily detract from its significance as a contribution to the continuing scholarly debate about Grass’s masterpiece; particularly the articulation of conflicting views on the part of various contributors attests to the fact that even fifty years after its publication The Tin Drum does not yet seem to have attained the standing of an uncontested classic. The (not cross-referenced) disagreements among the authors of various articles also tend to compensate for the inevitably repetitive references to specific textual passages, figures, themes, and so on. The eighteen contributions are subdivided into four sections. In the first of these, «Historical Contexts,» Julian Preece draws attention to Grass’s depiction of the «recent German history of the Nazi period» in general and that of the city of Danzig and the formerly German Eastern territories in particular rather than to the novel’s «literary artistry» (16). In a somewhat similar vein, Todd Kontje explores the novel Besprechungen / Reviews 191 as «historical fiction,» and, in an infrequently encountered approach, Patricia Pollock Brodsky analyzes the indications of «antifascist resistance» (42) and relates them to the precarious situations of the Kashubians in the borderland between Germans and Poles. Timothy Malchow includes in his investigation of «personal and public memory» (56-66) a brief discussion of Crabwalk, which, in contrast to many critics, he does not read as a «representation of German wartime suffering» but as an indication that the ongoing «discourse» (66) on the Nazi past tends to foster acts of violence. In the section «Narrative and Reading Strategies,» Irene Kacandes, in a distinctly pedagogical fashion, apprises the reader of her endeavors to prepare her students for «the big book» (67) by initially hewing to, in Gérard Genette’s terminology, the novel’s «paratext» (68). In an entirely different vein, Sabine Gross engages in a spirited reading of Oskar’s role as narrator whose relentless exploration of the «full range of narrative possibilities» (76) can be quite «infuriating» (77) and provocative in that it may detract inattentive and overwhelmed readers’ attention from the «actual significance and […] impact» (87) of historical events. In a sense, Alfred D. White’s essay on the «creative dwarf» (90) Oskar supplements that of Gross; whereas Gross concentrates on Oskar the narrator, White devotes his attention to Oskar’s actions and concludes, not entirely unsurprisingly, that Grass prefers Oskar’s creativity to his (lacking) «political influence» (102). Katharina Hall writes about the «secondary narrators» Bruno Münsterberg and Gottfried Vittlar (103), mostly neglected or ignored by critics, whose roles pale in comparison to that of Oskar but who offer a «rare and valuable alternative perspective» (114) to that of the protagonist-narrator. The notorious chapter «Karfreitagskost» serves Richard E. Schade as the subject of his close reading in which he also discusses Grass’s pertinent drawings and «idiosyncratic eel iconography» (124) in an attempt to augment the text with visual impressions. Jane Curran’s characterization of Oskar as the embodiment of the «distraction and insouciance» supposedly engaged in «by a large portion of the German population» (132) during the Second World War appears to implicitly contradict the reading by White. Elizabeth C. Hamilton, whose essay is supplemented by «Suggestions for Assignments» (147-48), focuses on Oskar the public persona and performer on various stages. In the section on «Issues of Race and Gender,» Dagmar C.G. Lorenz faults Grass for his allegedly negative portrayal of Jewish figures, that is, toy merchant Sigismund Markus in Book I (but see, e.g., Brockmann, 202) and the survivor of Treblinka Mariusz Fajngold in Book II - a portrayal that Lorenz considers to be a «trivialization of the Holocaust» (152). In view of these charges, it is appropriate to recall that Grass refuses «to demonize the Nazis or to idealize their victims» (Kontje, 30). Furthermore, Markus is genuinely mourned by Oskar, and Fajngold acquires a quasi-heroic dimension when he evolves into an (unlikely) resistance fighter (see Preece, 25). In a more encompassing vein than Lorenz, Peter Arnds extends the list of potential and real victims of the Nazis’ racism to include the «physically and mentally disabled […], criminals […], rootless drifters […], and homosexuals» (169). As several other contributors note, Oskar himself is decidedly a candidate for victimhood. In her contribution on «gender discourse and gender relations» (176), Barbara Becker-Canta- 192 Besprechungen / Reviews rino astoundingly dismisses the gang rape of the widow Greff by a group of Soviet soldiers as a «minor incident» (181) in comparison to Oskar’s violent sexual fantasies. Teresa Ludden’s essay on «Feminist and Psychoanalytic Theory» favors the elucidation of various psychoanalytic theories at the expense of literary analysis. The last section is devoted to Volker Schlöndorff’s prize-winning film - without doubt both a supplement to the literary text as well as a work of art in its own right. Stephen Brockmann briefly delves into the reception history of the Grass/ Schlöndorff cooperation by referring to the temporary banning and confiscation of the film in Oklahoma in 1997 on account of its explicit sexuality - albeit comparatively harmless by Hollywood standards - and attributes it to Schlöndorff’s violation of the conventions governing the «depictions of a sentimentalized childhood» (203). In her wide-ranging essay on «Sound and Image» (207), Margaret Setje-Eilers devotes particular attention to the various manifestations of the «musical-cultural environment» (220), which range from an operetta to Hitler Youth songs, as contributing factors to the eventual Gleichschaltung of the population. Susan Anderson, in an essay that concludes the volume, emphasizes the film’s persisting «relevance» in view of the continuing need to remember the «horrors of Nazism» (232) even more than sixty years after its demise. Although there are a few errata (incorrect historical data, misspelling of characters’ names, mistranslation), they do not significantly detract from the generally high quality of a volume that features several reader-friendly features such as providing quotations from The Tin Drum as well as German secondary literature in both the original and in English translation, a bibliography of works cited, and an index of names. There can then be little doubt that the volume constitutes a by no means negligible addition to the ever-increasing body of Grass literature in general and that on The Tin Drum in particular. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Siegfried Mews