Vast plains

Author: (German) Grass
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "Depicting the forgotten side of history through playful black fables" is a major characteristic of Nobel Prize-winning author Grass in his literary creation in the 20th century. In this book, the author still employs his writing technique. During World War II, Frenzi served as a war correspondent and went to the front lines to interview, where he met the French girl Martha and, influenced by her, joined the radio work of the resistance movement. After the war, Frenzi worked as an elementary school teacher in the Soviet-occupied zone, assisting the government in ideological education and receiving multiple awards. However, he later faced purging within the party and was dismissed due to his transgressive advocacy of freedom, especially after his three sons "defected to the West." After the reunification of the two German states, he was reappointed as a consultant by the Treuhand. At this time, he could not help but sigh, "Our republic is finished," expressing his reluctance to part with the workers' and peasants' regime. In the cheers of celebration at the Reichstag for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two German states, people once again heard Frenzi's discordant voice, "A full moon is good, but a waning moon is better." As time passed, Frenzi's disappointment with the reunified Germany grew. The tycoons from the West, under the guise of "cleaning up," engaged in large-scale opportunistic exploitation and forced thousands of East German citizens, including those employed by the Treuhand, onto the streets, pushing them into the ranks of the unemployed. In people's minds, "cleaning up" became a synonym for "murder." At this point, Frenzi was given a new task: to find a new term to replace the infamous "cleaning up." Frenzi finally came to realize: the freedom and democracy people pursued were actually like this! Afterward, he quietly escaped from Berlin with his French granddaughter and drove toward a vast wilderness.