The Tin Drum has been called a picaresque novel, a Bildungsroman, and sheer pornography. In a famous account of modern German literature, Grass's style is described as "naturalistic … with an alloy of surrealist gags," and as "the attempt at a 'black' literature in Germany." I should like to approach his novels primarily as satires and to begin by considering The Tin Drum from the points of view of folklore, myth, and above all of literature. Certainly it is a work of linguistic art…. (pp. 129-30)

Basically the grotesque gnome Oskar Matzerath is an artist, and as such, mainly a satirist. People cannot resist the magic rhythms of his drum: he has the impact of a bizarre Orpheus; his spell is more powerful, though less sinister, than that of the magician Cipolla in Thomas Mann's Mario and the Magician. Further, his own voice has telekinetic power…. Thus Oskar cannot...