Grass followed The Tin Drum with Cat and Mouse (1963; Katz und Maws, 1961), and Dog Years (1965; Hundejahre, 1963), and the three have been dubbed the "Danzig Trilogy," because they share many elements. Cat and Mouse features a deformed character, like Oskar, from Danzig. Joachim Mahlke's deformity is an extraordinarily large Adam's apple, and he is desperate for acceptance by his peers. His solution is to acquire an Iron Cross which will hide his bulging throat. Although a successful athlete, he does not achieve acceptance and comes to a mysterious end. As the "mouse," Mahlke has been called the most admirable person in Grass's fiction and the entire work a moral parable. Critics, however, have been somewhat bewildered by this novel. The Tin Drum was a long, complex novel. By comparison, Cat and Mouse seems tiny and obvious in its meanings. Limiting itself to the war years in Danzig...