Vast plains

Author: (German) Grass
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "Depicting the forgotten side of history through playful black allegories" is a major characteristic of Nobel Prize laureate Grass in his literary creation in the 20th century. In this book, the author continues to employ this habitual writing technique. During World War II, Finte went to the front as a war correspondent and met a French girl named Martha. Influenced by her, he joined the radio work of the resistance movement. After the war, Finte worked as an elementary school teacher in the Soviet-occupied zone, assisting the government in ideological education and receiving multiple awards. However, later, due to his transgressive advocacy of freedom, especially after his three sons "defected to the West," he was purged within the party and dismissed. After the reunification of the two German states, he was again put to use, appointed as an advisor by the Treuhand Agency. At this time, he could not help but sigh, "Our republic is finished," expressing his reluctant attachment to the workers' and peasants' regime. In the cheers of celebration before the Reichstag for the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two German states, people once again heard Finte's discordant voice, "A full moon is good, but a waning moon is better." As time passed, Finte's disappointment with the reunified Germany grew day by day. The tycoons from the West, under the guise of "cleaning up," engaged in large-scale opportunistic exploitation and forced thousands of East German citizens onto the streets, compelling them to join the ranks of the unemployed. In people's minds, "cleaning up" became synonymous with "murder." At this time, Finte was given a new task: to find a new term to replace the infamous "cleaning up." Only then did Finte 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.