Crabwalking through History
Note: This is a loose end. I intended to explore this subject again since my post last summer. See July 19, 2009. The tragedy depicted here happened 65 years ago today. “History, or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet. We flush and flush, but the shit keeps rising.” (page 122) So does Gunter Grass attempt to capture the essence of history within his novel Crabwalk . I read it back during my beach vacation last summer. The weather today is more appropriate for it though. Outside my home it is cold, grey and raining. We had some freezing rain overnight. The title for the novel comes from Grass’ interesting approach to history. “…should I do as I was taught and unpack one life at a time, in order, or do I have to sneak up on time in a crabwalk, seeming to go backward but actually scuttling sideways, and thereby working my way forward fairly rapidly?” (page 3) The novel shifts from the past and the present and, further, it shifts non-