From Publishers Weekly
In a novel that has already attracted attention on both sides of the Atlantic, Nobelist Grass (Too Far Afield) employs a compelling vehicle for his latest excursion into Germany's tortured past. The Wilhelm Gustloff was a Nazi cruise ship refitted to rescue German refugees from the approaching Russian army in the waning days of WWII. The vessel was torpedoed by a Russian sub in the Baltic Sea, resulting in the deaths of 9,000 people and becoming the largest maritime disaster of the 20th century. Grass's unlikely narrator is second-rate journalist Paul Pokriefke, whose mother gave birth to him while the ship was collapsing. Pokriefke's irreverent narrative, couched in colloquial language, moves back and forth through the history of the incident, starting with the story of Gustloff, a Nazi functionary who was shot in 1936 by a Jewish medical student named David Frankfurter. Grass also weaves in details about the Russian sub commander, Aleksandr Marinesko, but the decidedly modern touch is the inclusion of Pokriefke's son, Konrad, an unbalanced loner who becomes deeply involved with the Web site dedicated to commemorating Gustloff's "martyrdom" and the vessel Hitler named after him. Though the elliptical narration and multiple subplots intentionally impede dramatic momentum, this is one of Grass's most accessible novels, and the closing chapters about the rescue of Pokriefke's mother are simply riveting. The final irony is the fate of Konrad, who, in search of revenge, goes after a man posing as Frankenfurter on the Web site. Grass has covered many of these issues in earlier novels, but this time he addresses the suffering of German civilians during and after the conflict. A writer who refuses to avert his eyes from unpleasant truths, he remains an eloquent explorer of his country's troubled 20th-century history. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In 1945, a Soviet submarine sunk the German refugee ship Wilhelm Gustoff, resulting in 9000 deaths-the worst maritime disaster ever. Grass here reimagines not just the event but the consequences for postwar Germany.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The latest novel by this Nobel laureate is a stunning work of historical fiction, centering on the worst maritime disaster in history, the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30, 1945, by a Soviet submarine. Packed with more than 10,000 people, mostly refugees, only 1,238 survived the sinking. Grass' narrator, a journalist named Paul Pokriefke, is a survivor of that disaster--of sorts. His mother was on board and nine months pregnant on that fateful day, and Paul was born soon after she was rescued. Because of his connection with the disaster, Pokriefke is hired to write its history. While researching on the Internet, Pokriefke discovers that his estranged teenage son is also interested in the disaster, spurred on by his grandmother, whose postwar life was spent in East Germany, and by the rising skinhead movement. It is here that fate overtakes the Pokriefke family. The ship's history and that of the Pokriefkes is too strongly intertwined, and one tragedy leads to the next. Frank Caso
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Hailed by critics and readers alike as Günter Grass's best book since The Tin Drum, Crabwalk is an engrossing account of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and a critical meditation on Germany's struggle with its wartime memories.

The Gustloff, a German cruise ship turned refugee carrier, was attacked by a Soviet submarine in January 1945. Some nine thousand people went down in the Baltic Sea, making it the deadliest maritime disaster of all time. Born to an unwed mother on a lifeboat the night of the attack, Paul Pokriefke is a middle-aged journalist trying to piece together the tragic events. For his teenage son, who dabbles in the dark, far-right corners of the Internet, the Gustloff embodies the denial of Germany's suffering. Crabwalk is at once a captivating tale of a tragedy at sea and a fearless examination of the ways different generations of Germans now view their past.




Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German


About the Author
Born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927, GÜNTER GRASS is the widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. He lives in Germany.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Complex but accessible, rich in drama and insightful points of view, Crabwalk is an engaging, often thrilling read -- a thoroughly approachable historical novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author best known for his masterpiece, The Tin Drum and other daring, intense works about Germany's conflicted past and troubled present.

Born in a lifeboat following the worst maritime disaster in history -- the 1945 sinking of the Nazi cruise ship the Wilhelm Gustloff -- Paul Pokriefke is today a journalist who sees continuing parallels between the ship and the grievous fate of himself and his family. Grass relates Pokriefke's tale in a fractured style, leaping through time from the Gustloff's namesake (an incipient Nazi murdered in 1936) to the life of the Russian submarine commander who sank the ship, and into the present with Pokriefke's own son, a neo-Nazi Internet junkie who reveres Gustloff as a martyr.

This ambitious, scholarly, and heart-wrenching novel shows that Günter Grass continues to be a powerful, outspoken thinker on Germany's bewildering history. Profound and penetrating, Crabwalk will astonish you with its understanding of a country's ongoing misfortunes and dilemmas. Tom Piccirilli

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"A German cruise ship turned refugee carrier, it was attacked by a Soviet submarine in January 1945. Some 9,000 people went down in the Baltic Sea, making it the deadliest maritime disaster of all time." Born to an unwed mother on a lifeboat the night of the attack, Paul Pokriefke is a middle-aged journalist trying to piece together the tragic events. While his mother sees her whole existence in terms of that calamitous moment, Paul wishes their life could have been less touched by the past. For his teenage son, who dabbles in the dark, far-right corners of the Internet, the Gustloff embodies the denial of Germany's wartime suffering.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

In Crabwalk, Mr. Grass addresses two other long-buried wartime memories, that of Germans who were expelled from or fled territories once under Nazi occupation and, more specifically, the sinking by a Soviet submarine of a German ship carrying thousands of German refugees. As always, though, he is most interested in the impact of a distant memory on attitudes today. And he warns here of the dangers posed by repressed memory. — Alan Riding

The Los Angeles Times

Grass has constructed a penetrating, scrupulous, imaginative novel from this event by focusing upon the fate of a child born of a mother rescued from the Wilhelm Gustloff who actually gave birth to him on a small rescue boat amid the screams of the dying thousands. — Thomas McGonigle

The Washington Post

What was it we lived through? What happened? Forty years of reimagining recent German history, to say nothing of participating actively in its politics of the Left, bring Gunter Grass to these questions. And to the uncertain and interesting voice of his latest narrator, who, in what he calls a "crabwalk," "scuttling this way and that" in time and need, describes an unparalleled sea disaster he was present at but unaware of, because his mother was giving birth to him. A metaphor fabricated and ironic, Crabwalk takes us not only back into the Hitler years but also into depths of the present, which are Grass's real story. They are depths evoked by the sinking of the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff, which went down with 9,000 refugees in the Baltic in January 1945, torpedoed by a Soviet sub. — Joseph McElroy

Publishers Weekly

In a novel that has already attracted attention on both sides of the Atlantic, Nobelist Grass (Too Far Afield) employs a compelling vehicle for his latest excursion into Germany's tortured past. The Wilhelm Gustloff was a Nazi cruise ship refitted to rescue German refugees from the approaching Russian army in the waning days of WWII. The vessel was torpedoed by a Russian sub in the Baltic Sea, resulting in the deaths of 9,000 people and becoming the largest maritime disaster of the 20th century. Grass's unlikely narrator is second-rate journalist Paul Pokriefke, whose mother gave birth to him while the ship was collapsing. Pokriefke's irreverent narrative, couched in colloquial language, moves back and forth through the history of the incident, starting with the story of Gustloff, a Nazi functionary who was shot in 1936 by a Jewish medical student named David Frankfurter. Grass also weaves in details about the Russian sub commander, Aleksandr Marinesko, but the decidedly modern touch is the inclusion of Pokriefke's son, Konrad, an unbalanced loner who becomes deeply involved with the Web site dedicated to commemorating Gustloff's "martyrdom" and the vessel Hitler named after him. Though the elliptical narration and multiple subplots intentionally impede dramatic momentum, this is one of Grass's most accessible novels, and the closing chapters about the rescue of Pokriefke's mother are simply riveting. The final irony is the fate of Konrad, who, in search of revenge, goes after a man posing as Frankenfurter on the Web site. Grass has covered many of these issues in earlier novels, but this time he addresses the suffering of German civilians during and after the conflict. A writer who refuses to avert his eyes from unpleasant truths, he remains an eloquent explorer of his country's troubled 20th-century history. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal