Summary
Set against the backdrop of the Orwellian year 1984, also known as the Chinese Year of the Rat, Günter Grass's novel The Rat mixes elements of prophecy, irony, and self-parody. This work, crafted as Grass approached his sixtieth birthday, merges characters and themes from his previous books, weaving them into a tapestry of apocalyptic imagery. As his characters revisit their origins, the narrative explores themes of destruction, renewal, and the cyclical nature of history.
Characters Reemerge
Oskar Matzerath-Bronski, familiar to readers from Grass's debut novel The Tin Drum, makes his return just in time for his own sixtieth birthday. Transitioning from drummer boy to film producer, Oskar is tasked with creating a silent film on environmental calamities—specifically acid rain and dying forests. To convey his message, he cleverly parodies fairy tales and the whimsical Disney style, assembling a coalition of fairy-tale characters to combat corporate greed and environmental neglect.
A Gathering in Poland
Oskar’s grandmother, Anna Koljaiczek, remains in Poland and is nearing her 107th birthday. She extends an invitation to her family, scattered across various locales, for a celebratory gathering. Demonstrating his visionary flair, Oskar prepares a video preview of the birthday festivities. He and his chauffeur Bruno, once his guardian in The Tin Drum, load a Mercedes with gifts for their Polish kin, including a collection of toy Smurfs for the children, and embark on their journey.
A Scientific Expedition
Interwoven with Oskar’s storyline is a subplot involving five women, including the narrator's wife, Damroka, who embark on a scientific mission into the Baltic Sea. Tasked with investigating the connection between pollution and a jellyfish population boom, Damroka privately converses with a mystical flounder, echoing themes from Grass’s The Flounder. Guided by the fish, they encounter a fabled sunken city off the coast near Gdansk, a matriarchal society submerged in history.
The Tale of Lothar Malskat
Amid these narratives, Oskar finds intrigue in the story of Lothar Malskat, a mid-20th-century painter infamous for art forgery. Malskat's confession of repainting Gothic ceiling artworks, rather than restoring near-vanished originals, captivates Oskar. He imagines this film exposing the deception of the postwar era and its continuation in the form of a global arms race, hoping to enlighten younger generations.
Rats and Symbolism
Further narrative threads explore the survival of rats through historical cataclysms, such as Noah’s Flood, suggesting an impending human downfall. These rats, alongside other creatures like jellyfish, stage silent protests against humanity’s destructive tendencies. Cultural harbingers of collapse, like punk subcultures, emerge as youth apply deathly makeup and adopt rats as pets, following pied pipers into a dystopian future.
Children of Hamelin and Rat-Humans
One subplot revisits the children of Hamelin, who were famously led astray by the pied piper. A Hamelin maid named Gret bears progeny from her pet rat, Hans, birthing a new hybrid race. These rat-humans journey to the same sunken city that the women, guided by the flounder, seek in the Baltic Sea.
Ultimo and Its Consequences
Back in the main narrative, a female rat stands atop human waste, declaring the extinction of humanity, leaving only its trash behind. The narrator observes from a space capsule, witnessing events unfold on a video feed. As the moment "Ultimo" arrives, the five women on their boat prepare for descent into the underwater city, only to be vaporized, their vessel's steel hull drifting aimlessly across the Baltic.
Destruction and Transformation
Simultaneously, as Oskar’s video reaches a scene within a scene—guests at a party watching themselves on video—the bombs fall. Oskar seeks refuge beneath his grandmother's skirts, yearning for the safety of the womb in tumultuous...
(This entire section contains 835 words.)
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times, but is reduced to a gnome-like figure by radiation. His grandmother survives briefly before passing, and the rats relocate their mummified remains to Gdansk’s St. Mary’s Church, where Oskar becomes a child figure in a macabre new religious tableau.
A Nightmare's Finale
As the nightmare nears its end, the women make a final stop at Visby on Gotland island just before vaporization. Joining a protest against animal testing, they inadvertently allow a group of escaped animals to storm a research facility. Fleeing back to their boat, the women depart hastily, leaving it unsecured.
The Emergence of Rat-Humans
From orbit, the narrator observes a vessel autonomously entering the Gdansk harbor, revealing an unsettling stowaway: rat-human hybrids. Born of genetic experiments conducted in Visby, these creatures—dubbed Manippels or Watsoncricks—bear the human form but possess rat-like features and Smurf-like speech. As these beings rediscover fire, brew beer, and organize militaristically, they mirror past human behaviors.
A Second Chance for Humanity
The new hominoids exploit the rats, constructing concentration camps for them. However, the rats, emboldened by unity under the banner of Solidarity, ultimately overthrow this last bastion of human monstrosity. In the end, the rat narrative is merely a dream. Upon waking, Oskar and Damroka return safely from their journeys, offering a renewed chance for humanity to act with compassion and hope for a brighter future.