A Rocky Ode to Joy
Oskar, against all odds, becomes a worker in a quarry and, even more unexpectedly, quite a good one. What may be most surprising, however, is that it is within the pit of stone that Oskar discovers something rare and beautiful in his life: joy. The imagery here explodes in a panoply of philosophizing about the nature of happiness, the elusiveness of it and the connection of it to rock. The rhapsodical fantasia ends on a perfectly appropriate metaphor:
“here I found joy, though it was not my drum, found joy, though it was but a substitute, for joy too may be a substitute, may only come by way of substitution, joy always ersatz joy, laid down as sediment: marble joy, sandstone joy, sandstone from the Elbe, sandstone from the Main, sandstone always mine, sandstone beyond time, joy from Kirchheim, joy from Grenzheim…Joy erupted like a volcano and fell as a layer of dust, as grit between my teeth.”
Faith and Fascination
Although touching up his newfound joy within the expansive realm of stone, Oskar cuts right to the point in the avoidance of his natural propensity to rhapsodically repetitious imagery in a brilliantly terse engagement with imagery to describe his strange fascination with the Catholic religion. The metaphor so engaged here is of such precision it may almost be conferred with a certain divinity itself. Or, perhaps, one just has to gone through a phase of attraction to the peculiarity of those gingers among us:
“I admit that the flagstones in Catholic churches, the odor of a Catholic church, Catholicism as a whole, still inexplicably fascinates me, like a red-haired girl, even though I'd like to re-dye that red hair and even though Catholicism moves me to blasphemies”
Beethoven and the Beast
The author is German and certain background elements—definitely not the central conceit of Oskar himself—are loosely autobiographical. It is a portrait of two Germanies, really, inseparable yet maddeningly coherent. In this way, the country is a reflection of the dualistic nature of Oskar himself: a child who is not really a child and a man who is not entirely a man. This duality is also situated through imagery which pits the greatest that Germany has had to offer to the world against the worst that Germany has had to offer the world. Once again, the recurring motif of attempting to find joy in the world enters into the fray:
“The grim portrait of Beethoven hanging over the piano…was removed from its nail, and an equally grim portrait of Hitler was hung on the same nail…[Oskar] wanted to banish the nearly deaf composer completely. But Mama, who loved the slow movements of Beethoven sonatas…insisted that Beethoven be placed, if not over the sofa, at least over the sideboard. This resulted in the grimmest of confrontations: Hitler and the genius hung opposite each other, stared at each other, saw through each other, yet found no joy in what they saw.”
The Beat and the Bawl
Oskar is equipped with certain powers that belie the realistic tone and mood of the story otherwise. One is his drum, of course, while the other is a shriek. The ear-piercing bawl which emanates with surprisingly powerful force is, it should be noted, intensely connected to the drum. Taken together, they are weaponized emotional states allowing Oskar to manipulate the world around him into something more to his liking. This passage serves to define the purpose of the drum before seamlessly drawing upon both sonic and visual imagery to make that caterwaul palpable:
“The ability to drum up the necessary distance between grownups and myself on a toy drum developed...almost simultaneously with the emergence of a voice that allowed me to...sing-scream at such a high pitch and with such sustained vibrato that no one dared take away the drum that pained their ears; for when my drum was taken from me I screamed, and when I screamed something quite valuable would burst into pieces...my scream slew flower vases; my song caused windows to crumple to their knees...my voice sliced open display cases like a chaste and therefore merciless diamond”
