| 词条 | Cat and Mouse (novella) |
| 释义 |
| name = Cat and Mouse | title_orig = Katz und Maus | translator = | image = Katz und maus german first edition.jpg | caption = Front cover of the first original German edition | author = Günter Grass | illustrator = Günter Grass | cover_artist = Günter Grass | country = Germany | language = German | series = Danzig Trilogy | genre = Novel | publisher = Luchterhand | release_date = 1963 | english_release_date = | media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback) | pages = | preceded_by = The Tin Drum | followed_by = Dog Years }} Cat and Mouse, published in Germany in 1961 as Katz und Maus, is a novella by Günter Grass, the second book of the Danzig Trilogy, and the sequel to The Tin Drum. It is about Joachim Mahlke, an alienated only child without a father. The narrator Pilenz "alone could be termed his friend, if it were possible to be friends with Mahlke" (p. 78); much of Pilenz's narration addresses Mahlke directly by means of second-person narration. The story is set in Danzig (Gdańsk) around the time of the Second World War and Nazi rule. Plot summaryThe narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself. Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an Iron Cross from a visiting U-boat captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator's perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator's inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke. Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. Mahlke's main reason for entering the war in the first place was to make a speech at his school afterwards. Since he is denied that wish, Mahlke deserts his post, seeing no other reason to fight. Desertion implies treason and in consequence death. Pilenz, whose relationship to Mahlke becomes increasingly ambivalent, takes advantage of the situation and pressures an unwell Mahlke to dive into the wreck once more to hide, aware that Mahlke might not survive the dive. Pilenz never sees Mahlke again. InterpretationsThe title relates to the central metaphor, in which Mahlke is the mouse and society is the cat.{{Citation needed|date=April 2015}} Mahlke's large larynx is the leitmotif:
The anthropomorphism and metaphorical embodiment of gross social forces is common in Grass's work; here the sentence "It was a young cat, but no kitten" describes the German state in the 1940s — young but by no means innocent (p. 5). The narrative style — the evasion, self-justification, and eventual, chatty disclosure of the truth — is also characteristic. TriviaOskar Matzerath, protagonist of The Tin Drum, makes an appearance as "a little brat, who must have been about three, pound[ing] monotonously on a child's tin drum, turning the afternoon into an infernal smithy" (p. 17). He appears later in reference to the "Dusters" as "a three-year old child whom the gang had cherished as a kind of mascot" (p. 86). In 1961 an attempt was made to put the book on the index of Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, particularly due to a scene of group masturbation, in which Mahlke displays his enormous penis and remarkable sexual endurance. After protest from both the public and other writers the request was withdrawn. ReferencesThe quoted English edition is:
7 : 1961 German novels|German bildungsromans|Danzig Trilogy|German novellas|Novels by Günter Grass|German novels adapted into films|German historical novels |
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