The Tin Drum, Gunter Grasss

Book one, Chapter six
The Schedule

To me, this is a really funny chapter about a horrid, repulsive little boy who sees horrid, repulsive little details in the rest of the world - except for the man who runs the boy scouts down in the courtyard. And what a disaster at the end - complete mayhem!

Is Oskar homosexually inclined, or at least aware of homosexual urges? He never once seems to have anything nice to say about the appeal or physical structure of any females. But then, he is still only 5!

And his outrageous self-justifications! Such self-indulgent, narcissistic excuses. This one: "I beat out the syllables, with moderation I should say, and so it continued until la Spollenhauer, goaded by some inner demon, leapt up in palpable fury, but not over the Tartars behind me; no, it was I who sent the red blotches to her cheeks..." He finds no possible fault in himself (drumming in class!), thinks that "the Tartars" might be a reasonable target (hmmm, Tartars are from the East, yes?) and covers his actions preemptively by claiming he was "moderate".

"Self-justification, self-indulgent narcissistic excuses." Sounds like a historical figure we know about!

"Always when politics come into play, there had been violence.

A meaningful sentence highlighted by a change in tense between the phrases.

What is interesting about the greengrocer is the fact that he is a boy scout leader. Boy scouts wear uniforms.

"". . . scouts under the leadership of Greff the greengrocer were piching tents, playing lansquenet, and, as befitted boy scouts, doing good deeds", (page 78).

Lansquenet is a word derived from the German Landsknecht and means servant of the land or country, and is applied to a mercenary soldier, according to wikipedia. Yes, lansquenet is a card game so it fits into the contex of the sentence, but it is a very foreshadowing sentence.