13 - Beim Häuten der Zwiebel: Dialogues with Memory

Summary

IN BEIM HÄUTEN DER ZWIEBEL (2006), Grass takes a new approach to communicating with his readers by using internal monologues to construct a literary version of self. Although it includes some scenes of encounter and dialogue, the narrative's focus lies on the author's meditations on formative experiences. Grass moves away from the dialogic approach to history that had characterized his fiction (and political efforts) since the appearance of Die Blechtrommel. In his autobiography, he adopts instead an introspective stance as he retraces his personal and professional footsteps in what might be called a dialogue with memory. He engages in internal conversations that give readers the impression of witnessing his painstaking attempts to uncover his past. From a stylistic standpoint, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel appears predominantly monologic, while its retrospective stance establishes implicit relationships between Grass and his readers, his past selves, and people he had encountered in his earlier life.

In contrast to Stuart Taberner's emphasis on Grass's self-congratulatory “old-age style,” I would contend that Grass's autobiographical writing takes on an existential—rather than aesthetic or political—role as he integrates various phases of his biography through inquiry into past circumstances. Despite his recurring inclusion of critical questions regarding the accuracy of his memories, Grass does not dwell on his audience's possible reactions to his internal monologue. The autobiographical mode, which causes readers to expect to hear the truth “first-hand,” is necessarily a one-sided “conversation” between listener and author. Rebecca Braun interprets Grass's creative use of autobiographical prose as a successful attempt to counter “simplifying reading practices” involving idealized images of writers.

A distinct shift in communicative style is evident in Beim Häuten der Zwiebel; whereas the first part negotiates difficult wartime recollections by using key encounters and a confessional internal dialogue, the second half is more anecdotal and light-hearted. The autobiography reflects on instances of blind acquiescence in Nazi Germany, but moves on to convey increasing evidence of personal integrity after the war's end. Grass depicts his younger self in relation to various exceptional individuals he encountered in his youth and additionally relies on depictions of symbolic objects like the onions and amber that serve as interlocutors regarding his role in Nazi Germany. Georg Just has proposed that objects took on human-like qualities in Grass's debut novel, and I would argue that this presence becomes a distinctly communicative one in his autobiography.