[The Tin Drum has] an epic range in its temporal and cultural matter [and] a largeness of vision which, in its own way, comprehends the tragicomic implications of personal existence and historical development. (p. 5)

In confronting the structural variety and ambiguous richness of The Tin Drum, we find that they … derive from an extraordinary cornerstone—the functional complexity of the protagonist-narrator, Oskar Matzerath, whose creation is an achievement of imaginative and technical brilliance. As a result of Oskar's bizarre stance and strange capabilities, Grass manages to combine features of the most disparate novelistic forms as well as provide multiple perspectives on his social and historical materials.

Grass's most obvious departure from convention was to make Oskar a dwarf and a highly unusual one at that. (p. 6)

Though The Tin Drum is not a historical novel in the strictest sense, it is firmly embedded in a recent, particularized (and...