Granted: I'm an inmate in a mental institution; my keeper watches me, scarcely lets me out of sight, for there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can't see through blue-eyed types like me.
If ever an opening line indicated that the story which follows is being told by a narrator who may not be the most reliable in the world, it would be this one. And, indeed, as the narrative progresses, the actual factual events Oskar’s life can charitably be called unclear. Truth is ambiguous in this novel and that reflects not just the madness of its narrator, but the madness of the world in which he lives; the world he early on rejects.
I flung myself down, carrying a shelf laden with bottles of raspberry syrup along with me, and landed head-first on the cement floor of our cellar.
This is the defining moment of young Oskar’s childhood. At the tender age of three-years-old, Oskar makes a decision to stop growing. This decision is a rejection of adulthood and all it entails, of course, but it is even more purposely a rejection of adult society which he is witness to as a toddler. He will remain perpetually childlike physically—stuck at his diminutive height. And throwing himself down the cellar is not a suicide attempt—he even makes sure to inform the reader that this is not the case—but rather a rationale. After all, you can’t just suddenly stop growing without questions being asked. The “accidental” fall down the steps to the cellar is his childish attempt at justification to explain the ramifications of his decision.
If I didn't have my drum, which, when handled properly and patiently, recalls all the little details I need to get the essentials down on paper, and if I didn't have the institute's permission to let my drum speak three or four hours each day, I would be a poor fellow with no known grandparents.
The title percussion instrument, Oskar’s ability to retain his childish stature through sheer force of will and a piercing scream are all elements of the story which mandate that the novel belong to the genre of Magical Realism. This is a genre most sturdily associated with Latin American writers and, indeed, quite possibly The Tim Drum was the first German contribution to this genre which situates supernatural or preternatural elements within the strict confines of naturalistic realism. This is a world instantly recognized by readers; it is only Oskar who shakes the tree and shocks the monkey. Oskar’s tin drum is much more than a simple metaphor or symbol as it takes on a concrete capacity in the narrative. As he indicates here, without the drum, his story might not even be capable of telling.
But when the small and middle-sized eels were in the sack, and the docker, whose cap had fallen from his head as he went about his business, started squeezing thicker, darker eels from the cadaver, Mama had to sit down; Jan tried to turn her head aside, but she wouldn't allow it, staring steadily with large cow's eyes directly into the very middle of the docker's work as he wormed out the eels.
Anyone who has ever seen the film adaptation of this novel will likely never forget the eels. Even those capable of sitting through the goriest of horror films likely will recoil in disgust and turn away from the screen at this very real and authentic sight. The good news, in a way, is that the eels were not just invented for the visual drama; eels play a significant role in the narrative. The descriptions of the scenes in which they play a part are every bit as disturbing in the imagination as they are projected onto a large screen, but that very repulsiveness is indispensable to developing Oskar’s view of the world around them. And as disconcerting as the eels may be, they are included here for a purpose as well: these are not—by far—the most difficult and repugnant visual images captured in Oskar’s bent prose. In fact, the eels may not even land in the top five for some.
I didn't need to settle down, since I'd been waiting for what was to come in a calm, almost self-absorbed state. To tell the honest truth: Oskar wasn't even waiting for what was to come, he had no need for entertainment, and thus was not waiting, but simply holding his drum and sitting at his desk, content with the clouds behind or more properly beyond the paschally polished panes of the school windows.
Further complicating the issues of Oskar’s reliability as a narrator is his penchant for suddenly switching from the first-person to the third-person perspective. Here, for example, the quote begins with the perspective which dominates the narration. Then, as if for no particular reason—almost as if the author forgot he was writing in the first-person—the shift occurs and Oskar is describing events as if he were an outside observer even to the point of addressing himself in the third person. There is a purpose at work here and, no, it’s not laziness on the author’s part. One of Oskar’s most irritating points of unreliability is his insistence upon making the reader believe he possessed some sort of omniscient capacity so that his narration is to literally be taken as if he were capable of observing events both from within and external to the action. To suggest that Oskar is a master manipulator of his own narrative is to profoundly understate the situation.
