The Box
Tales from the Darkroom
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
In this delightful sequel to Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass writes in the voices of his eight children as they record memories of their childhoods, of growing up, of their father, who was always at work on a new book, always at the margins of their lives. Memories contradictory, critical, loving, accusatory - they piece together an intimate picture of this most public of men.
To say nothing of Marie, Grass's assistant, a family friend of many years, perhaps even a lover, whose snapshots taken with an old-fashioned Agfa box camera provide the author with ideas for his work. But her images offer much more. They reveal a truth beyond the ordinary detail of life, depict the future, tell what might have been, grant the wishes in visual form of those photographed. The children speculate on the nature of this magic: was the enchanted camera a source of inspiration for their father? Did it represent the power of art itself? Was it the eye of God?
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Functioning both as experimental fiction and as a sequel of sorts to Peeling the Onion, Grass s latest sheds light on a role the revered German author has thus far only touched upon: fatherhood. Grass gathers his eight children dubbed Patrick, Georg, Lara, Taddel, Lena, Nana, Jasper and Paul to recount memories of their childhoods and of their often absent father. The conversations are being recorded at the fictional Grass s request, and the memories and speakers often overlap as the adult children fall into well-worn patterns of sibling rivalries, though it is Marie, a photographer who is Grass s constant companion and artistic inspiration, who is the dominant presence in the children s memories. Her ever-present camera (the box of the title), the children were convinced, was magic. It sees things that weren t there. Or shows you things that you d never in your wildest dreams imagine. It s all-seeing, my box, Marie says. Though he controls the puppet strings of his fictionalized progeny, Grass allows their resentments and shared passions to come through as he eloquently opens up his life, once again, to public scrutiny.
