Crabwalk

This is Grass at his considerable best: a powerful, significant theme is handled trenchantly, while the multi-generational problems of his characters are balanced against a lucid picture of the society in which they live. And despite the seriousness of his subject, Grass remains immensely readable. His books may be shorter these days, but their impact is no less forceful for that. --Barry Forshaw

Reader Reviews:

Brilliant re-telling of a forgotten disaster, but so much more . . . (0/0 people found this helpful)

Naval disaster, assassination, death, betrayal, hate-filled chat-rooms - these are not the usual content of novels by Gunther Grass but all feature in this clever interpretation of a historical event of 60 years ago. It would be easy to say that this book tells the story of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a Nazi cruise ship refitted for war time service, torpedoed by a Russian submarine while carrying escaping German refugees, a platoon of submarine trainees and many injured servicemen and women. The book does this of course, but its real purpose is to reflect on and analyse the impact of 20th German history on modern Germany. Grass uses many literary devices to achieve this, especially by setting the story in a modern-day context of websites and Internet chat-rooms where the old conflict between German Nationalism and Judaism is relived on a daily basis, with equivalent passion to the Nazi era.

As a history book the novel works magnificently. It is written in the first person by the son of a survivor of the tragedy, who may even have been born on the ship or soon afterwards. The voice of the narrator's mother allows Grass to present a colourful account of the tragedy with great impact. But before the ship goes down, Grass recounts the career of Wilhelm Gustloff, a Nazi propagandist and "martyr" shot for his beliefs in Switzerland by a young Jewish man. The first purpose-built "Strength Through Joy" cruise ship is named after Gustloff and spends a few years cruising round the Fjords of Norway and beyond with its cargo of German workers enjoying a holiday on this class-less vessel. Later the ship is converted to war-time use and Grass describes its ultimate fate after being hit by three Russian torpedoes. Even the life of the submarine captain is used by Grass to illustrate the historical context of this naval disaster, which Grass points out is barely remembered today unlike the equally devastating sinking of the Titanic.

Grass never allows the historical sections of the book to be dry and impersonal but constantly brings the events into the present by showing how his present-day characters are affected by them. The narrative is passionate and personal because the main characters feel so deeply about the events of 60 years ago and act out their own responses with devastating effect. This is not an easy read in some senses (the issues being so complex), but I found myself racing through it, because of Grass's skill in bringing the past into the present.

A brilliant book on a little known tragedy (3/3 people found this helpful)

This book describes the history of a ship and its influence on the history of a family. The ship is the Wilhelm Gustloff that was named after a Nazi who was killed in Davos, Switzerland in 1936. After its use as a cruise ship for the Nazi Kraft durch Freude movement, a floating hospital and a training ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed to the bottom of the sea on 30 January 1945 with on board between 6000 and 10000 (nobody knows the exact number) German refugees. On board is also the very pregnant Tulla Prokriefke, who goes into labour when the ship goes down. In the end her son Paul is born on board of a rescue boat.
Paul is divorced, mediocre journalist, who has, to say it mildly, a difficult relationship with his mother. One day he finds a site on the Internet that describes the ship that determined his life (his mother cannot talk about anything else). He finds that the site, with neonazi characteristics, is made by his son Konnie. And then the story goes almost inevitably to its dramatic conclusion.

The book is called Crabwalk because the story of the ship and the family are not told in chronological order, but by walking sideways. Still, the story goes forward, just like a crab walks. This is also because Paul tells the story of the Wilhelm Gustloff working with the information that he finds on the internetsite of his son.

This is a brilliantly written book, because one never gets lost between or within story lines despite the large number of considerable time leaps. Also, this book describes a little known ship tragedy (more than 5 times the number of deaths as the Titanic!) and gives an insight into the distorted minds of German neonazis. An excellent read.

Masterpiece of Titanic Proportions (4/5 people found this helpful)

The torpedoing of German converted cruise-ship 'Wilhelm Gustloff, overloaded with refugees, by a Soviet submarine during World War II is the single deadliest maritime disaster of all time, resulting in over nine thousand deaths. In 'Crabwalk' Gunter Grass scuttles over almost a century of history to examine events building up to this catastrophe, and its consequences on generations of a German family. In doing so, Grass creates a novel exploring the effects of Germany's Nazi past on contemporary German society that is at least the equal of Bernhard Schlink's highly acclaimed 'The Reader'. Particularly impressive is Grass's skillful use of the internet, and particularly chat rooms, as a vehicle both for conveying information on the disaster and developing the various strands of the story. 'Crabwalk' is an engrossing, compelling and thought-provoking read for those interested in the recurring impact of the past on the present.

A lot to digest (6/6 people found this helpful)

In January 1945, the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Russian submarine in the Baltic Sea, and took some 9,000 refugees with her to their deaths. In the late 1990s, journalist Paul Pokriefke, born to a survivor while the great ship was still sinking, decides to write about the sinking, which killed more people than any other maritime disaster and yet is invisible in most history books. But Paul must crabwalk through the story, scuttling between the past and the present, to look at the tragedy of the past and the echoes that are still ringing through Germany today.

I must admit that this is one of the most fascinating, and disquieting, books that I have read in a long time. Part of the book is history, which is both informative and heartrending (5 stars). The other part of the book deals with Germany, and the way that World War II affected Germany and still affects it today. It shows how many people did and still deal with the memory of the war, some praising and some damning what happened, and all trying to come to grips with it. This other part is gripping and highly thought provoking (also 5 stars).

I wish I could say more about this book. It is a lot to digest, and is resistant to any quick and easy analysis. Overall I thought that this is a great book, and I highly recommend it to you.

Echoes and Ripples -- Reliving and Reimagining the Past (14/15 people found this helpful)

Crabwalk was the first great book I have read that was written in the 21st century.

Why Crabwalk? Here's a definition of "crab:" "to move sideways, diagonally, or obliquely, especially with short, abrupt bursts of speed." Crabwalk's structure is similar. Grass offers a clue in referring to "scuttling backward to move forward."

Paul Pokreife, a journeyman journalist, narrates several parallel tracks: his life, his mother's (Tulla), his son's (Konrad), his ex-wife's, the ship Wilhelm Gustloff, the Nazi Wilhelm Gustloff (and his monument and remains), Gustloff's assassin (David Frankfurter), the Soviet submarine commander who sunk the ship (Marinesko), and Konrad's online challenger (Wolfgang "David" Stremplin) and his parents. Sometimes Mr. Grass jumps sideways sharing several stories at that time. Other times he jumps forward or backward to a different time or story. . . and then goes sideways to other stories. It's like stream of consciousness narration except it's finished prose and dialogue. . . rather than thought fragments.

This structure establishes many connections between one person and another to show an interconnected fabric of German society and consciousness since 1933 in the context of a few events, a family and a few other characters. I felt like I had just absorbed the richness of War and Peace . . . except in a relatively short and simple book.

Crabwalk can be read at several levels of meaning. The most compelling story relates the terrible tragedy of the sinking of the German refugee ship, Wilhelm Gustoloff, in January 1945 on the frigid Baltic by a Soviet submarine. More than 1200 survived while most others (estimated between 6,600 and 10,600) died from explosions, equipment faults, rescue mistakes, freezing, drowning, or the icy waters. Of these, more than 4,000 were probably children. There were only 22 lifeboats on board, and only one was launched properly. You'll have to read Crabwalk to appreciate the tragedy, but it dwarfs the Titanic. Yet it's a little-known event. The Germans made no announcement then to help maintain civilian morale. The Soviets were embarrassed and hid the event. Post-war Germany has kept a code of silence around any German civilians suffering as a result of the war, seeming to reflect the national guilt for starting the war.

Paul's being born the night of the sinking, aboard a rescue ship, links him to the Nazi past (through the anniversaries of the Nazi rise to power and Gustloff's death), the consequences of the sinking on the survivors, and the sinking's effect on the next generation of Germans. This connection is the bridge to other ways to read the book.

At another level, it's a story of a dysfunctional family: A woman who wasn't sure who the father is of her only son; a son estranged from his mother by her disappointment in him and his rejection of her values; a fatherless son becoming a poor father and failed husband; and a grandson reaching out to a grandmother for the emotional support his father fails to give him.

At a third level, Crabwalk is about the experience of the German nation since January 1933 when the Nazis took over. We go through the economic recovery years as Tulla's parents take a cruise to the Norwegian fjords aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. Tulla grows up during the war and has a miscarriage while being a streetcar conductor. She becomes pregnant with Paul, and after the rescue are settled in East Germany where she becomes a carpenter and a devoted Stalinist. Paul escapes to the West as a teenager, and the two becomes estranged. Tulla also admires the old Nazis after East Germany falls and tries to fascinate her grandson with the ship's history. She succeeds through giving him a computer, and Konrad runs a Web site about the ship and the man it's named for. At the same time, you find out how Gustloff becomes a Nazi martyr after he's assassinated by a Jewish medical student in Davos. Ironically, Frankfurter's health improves by being in prison. He's released after World War II by the Swiss and heads to Palestine.

At a fourth level, this is a story about how our lives are influenced by our environment (our family, our nation, our history and our ways of perceiving).

At a fifth level, Crabwalk teaches us to think about the consequences of when and where we're born. If Paul had been born a few hours later, he would have spent his whole life in the western sectors of Germany rather than starting in the east. He believes his whole life would have been different . . . and it probably would have.

At a sixth level, Crabwalk explains that history repeats itself through the influences of the earlier generations on another. There are many deliberate ironies in the book as one character acts out variations on what an earlier character did (especially the way Konrad mimics David Frankfurter).

Ultimately, the book is about guilt. Who's guilt is it? And for what? What's to be done to atone? "History, or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet." "We flush and flush, but the [content]. . . keeps rising." In particular, should Germans deny their own suffering in World War II as a means to expiate guilt, or will that denial lead to new guilty actions?

The book profoundly expanded my understanding of the German experience. As a young man in Munich on business, I found my sleep troubled and interrupted by dreams and memories of Nazi marchers on the street outside, death camps in the countryside and murderous attacks on fellow Germans. Some taxi drivers who were old enough to have been in the Wehrmacht looked at me with obvious hate. Clients my age were very punctiliously correct anti-Nazis (we even visited events criticizing the Nazi past together). On the streets, young skinheads passed wearing swastikas. Crabwalk helped me to understand what was happening then and now.

Gunter Grass

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