Cat and mouse (novella)

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Katz und Maus is a novella by Günter Grass published in 1961 .

action

In retrospect, the narrator Pilenz reports on his schoolmate Mahlke and the relationship that binds the two of them together during their school days. The action takes place at the time of the Second World War in Gdansk . As an only child and half-orphan, Mahlke has a penchant for being an outsider. His perception as an eccentric is reinforced by a conspicuous Adam's apple , which he both emphasizes and conceals with all kinds of jewelry.

Mahlke's efforts to compensate for his outsider role through special achievements and courage runs like a red thread through the story. This begins with top sporting performances on the horizontal bar and brave dives on a half-sunken minesweeper off the Gdańsk coast. Later, his interest turned to the Knight's Cross after Mahlke noticed during the poetic lectures of two Knight's Cross bearers and former pupils of his Conradinum grammar school , how much recognition German society showed during the war years as a soldier. This is in stark contrast to his actual disdain for militaristic thinking and the “overemphasis on the soldier”.

First he steals the knight's cross from one of the two speakers. He later earned the award himself as a young Panzer Grenadier in the battles near Kursk and Kharkov. On home leave in Gdansk Mahlke hopes to be able to give a lecture to the assembled student body himself. His goals remain unclear. On the one hand, he hopes that this will result in final social recognition, on the other hand, in a dialogue with the narrator Pilenz, he suggests that he wants to paint an unadorned picture of the tank battles and thus express his real contempt for the war. After he was denied the desired school lecture due to the previous theft of the order, he decided to desert . In search of a hiding place to prepare for his escape, he asks his (supposed) friend Pilenz for help. The latter, however, lamentably refuses to give himself any direct help and finally suggests that Mahlke should set up for the time being on the half-sunken minesweeper on which he had discovered a well-camouflaged radio cabin during previous dives, which is "dry to the ground" above the water level. Pilenz organizes provisions for a few days at Mahlke's aunt, rents a boat and rows Mahlke to the minesweeper. There he hands Mahlke the provisions. Before Mahlke dives into the boat, he asks Pilenz to return by rowing boat in the evening to reach a supposedly neutral Swedish steamer that is currently anchored off Gdansk. Pilenz deliberately throws the can opener, which Mahlke forgot on deck in the hurry, into the water after it dived, knowing full well that it is sabotaging Mahlke's escape with it. Nor does he return the same evening, but only a day later, merely observing the minesweeper through binoculars, without being able to detect a sign from Mahlke there. In the confusion of the end of the war, Mahlke remains missing after his dive.

The narrator

One of the dominant themes in the novel is the relationship between the first-person narrator Pilenz and his supposed friend Mahlke. With regard to Mahlke, Pilenz feels a love-hate relationship that is alternating between overheating and cooling, although nothing indicates that love should be understood here in a homoerotic context. The relationship between the two adolescents is characterized by the greatest ambivalence. On the one hand, Pilenz describes himself as Mahlke's only friend and admires him for his ability and courage. On the other hand, he despises Mahlke and his role as an eccentric and plays nasty tricks on him. Pilenz, for example, has a cat play with the Adam's apple of Mahlke, who is sleeping on the edge of a sports field. Based on this - basically harmless - boy prank, Pilenz examines his own part in Mahlke's fate.

The question of responsibility and guilt was one of the main themes of post-war literature and its protagonists. Occasionally Pilenz pretends not to be able to remember exactly who played Mahlke's famous prank on the cat, but later openly admits this act. Pilenz's story gives numerous other indications of its subversive character. His part in the deportation of one of his teachers to the Stutthof concentration camp cannot be precisely determined - the narrator says succinctly: “I hope I did not testify against him.” Pilenz even goes so far that he is putting Mahlke's life at risk by joining whose escape first holds back the can opener for Mahlke's provisions, then throws it into the water and, contrary to the agreement, does not help with the escape onto the neutral Swedish steamer.

The writing of the characters Pilenz and Mahlke is in this respect also a representation of the cat and mouse game with memory and assumption of responsibility. Mahlke never needs Pilenz, never seeks his closeness. Conversely, Pilenz is attached to Mahlke, likes to show himself with him in public, pursues him and feels imperfect without his presence - more than ever after his disappearance in the minesweeper. While Pilenz Mahlke puts the cat by the throat on the sports field to reach for the "mouse" (Adam's apple), after Mahlke's disappearance he becomes the hunted himself and feels through various associations of everyday life (grebes in the pond, excavators, etc. ) constantly reminded of his culpable actions. The roles of cat and mouse have thus turned into the opposite.

reception

Katz und Maus is the second work in the so-called Danzig trilogy . In the three books Die Blechtrommel (1959), Katz und Maus (1961) andhundjahre (1963), Grass as a writer deals with topics from the National Socialist past and the attempts at 'coping' at the time .

1961 was an official of the Hessian Ministry of Labor, Social Welfare and Health Care, probably without the knowledge of the minister, at the Federal Department requested cat and mouse for indecent content to index, due, among other things, a described therein, Onanierolympiade 'of the protagonists. The application was withdrawn in response to protests from the public and other writers.

Outrage, especially in right-wing circles, caused Grass' literary treatment of the Knight's Cross . In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Knight's Cross was considered "denazified" when the swastika was removed and was worn in public by members of the Bundestag, among others. Grass not only exposes the order to ridicule by presenting it as a goal in life for pubescent outsiders, he also treats it throughout the entire story, except for the last page, as inexpressible and invents numerous substitute names: candy, thing, article, apparatus, Dinglamdei, galvanized four-clover.

The book was filmed in 1967 under the same title .

expenditure

  • Katz und Maus , Luchterhand, Neuwied & Berlin-Spandau 1961, DNB 451644530 .
  • Katz and Maus , Rowohlt, Reinbek 1963, DNB 451644549 . (rororo paperback, ed. 572)

current issues

Audio book

literature

  • Johanna E. Behrendt: The hopelessness of human nature. An interpretation of Günter Grass' 'cat and mouse'. In: Journal for German Philology . 87/1968, pp. 546-562.
  • Johanna E. Behrendt: In search of the Adam's apple. The narrator Pilenz in Günter Grass' novella 'Katz und Maus'. In: Germanic-Romanic monthly . XIX. 1969, p. 313 ff.
  • Johannes Diekhans (Ed.): Günter Grass, Katz and Maus. Developed by Widar Lehnemann (= simply German: teaching model ). Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-22291-0 .
  • Marco Fuhrländer: Cat and Mouse. In: Harenbergs Kulturführer Roman und Novelle , Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus AG, Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-411-76163-0 , p. 294 f.
  • Gerhard Kaiser: Günter Grass “Cat and Mouse” (= Fink - literature in dialogue. Volume 1). Fink, Munich 1971, DNB 730085333 .
  • Edgar Neis: Explanations on Günter Grass “Cat and Mouse” (= King's Explanations and Materials. Volume 162/63), 7th edition, Bange, Hollfeld Obfranken 1981, ISBN 3-8044-0255-0 .
  • Völker Neuhaus: Günter Grass - Cat and Mouse: Commentary and Materials (= Steidl-Taschenbuch. Volume 243), Steidl, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86521-571-0 .
  • Alexander Ritter (Ed.): Günter Grass, "Katz und Maus" (= Reclams Universal Library. No. 8137: Explanations and documents ). Reclam, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-15-008137-8 .
  • Rainer Scherf: "Cat and Mouse" by Günter Grass: literary irony after Auschwitz and the unspoken appeal for political commitment. Tectum, Marburg 1995, ISBN 3-89608-906-4 (dissertation Uni Trier 1991).
  • Regine Smith: Günter Grass' Katz und Maus as a parody of the Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier: an interpretation (= Canadian theses on microfiche , 37546: 2 microfiches), National Library of Canada, Collections Development Branch, Ottawa 1979, DNB 820803545 (dissertation Queen's University, Kingston 1977).
  • Ingrid Tiesel-Hasselbach: Günter Grass “Cat and Mouse”. Interpretation (= Oldenbourg interpretations. Volume 36). Oldenbourg, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-486-88635-5 .