Local Anaesthetic - Softcover

Grass

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156529408 ISBN 13: 9780156529402

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1989

Synopsis

Starusch, a bachelor aged forty teaching "German and history" (two inseparable subjects), undergoes protracted treatment by a dentist who uses TV to distract his patients. Gagged in his chair, the patient projects onto the screen his past and present with the fluidity and visual quality of the movies. Reality and fantasy, the actual and the repressed, overrun the screen in a mirror image of German history. Thus among other episodes we see Krings, one of Hitler's most ferocious "fight-to-the-finish" generals, return from Russian captivity and engage in sandbox reconstructions of Germany's battles, determined to win them this time. In a casual throwaway, the author reveals his true identity -- Field Marshal Schoerner.

Under the influence of local anesthesia, Starusch's imagination releases h erotic fantasies and the very violence he tries to combat in his pupils, one of them a militant Maoist. The dentist, dispensing humdrum wisdom and painkillers with godlike aloofness, objects to violence, real or imagined, advocating universal Sickcare and a diet preventive of caries as a cure-all. Meanwhile, Scherbaum, Starusch's favorite pupil, grimly prepares to burn his dachshund Max to stir u the conscience of dog- and cat-loving Berliners.

Juggling mockingly with lost and found illusions, with the tensions between reformists and revolutionaries, middle age and youth, Grass has created a satirical portrait of social confusions that adds to his customary exuberance a new mastery of subtle control.

About this title

Product Description:

DIFFERENT OFFER (this item listed here is DIFFERENT from the title and/or picture above. Please see description & pictures by BookGems before placing an order): Edition Penguin Books, 1973. English translation by Ralph Manheim. ISBN: 0-14-00-3729-2. PAPERBACK. 231 pages. Just light tan to paper edges. Other than that, the unread book remains in very good condition throughout: Soft cover in good form; text all clean, neat and tight. Prompt dispatch from UK.

About the Author:

GÜNTER GRASS (1927-2015), Germany's most celebrated contemporary writer, attained worldwide renown with the publication of his novel The Tin Drum in 1959. A man of remarkable versatility, Grass was a poet, playwright, social critic, graphic artist, and novelist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0156529408
• ISBN 13: 9780156529402
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288