Book Trauma

I swear I could hear that drum playing in my head at odd moments. Especially every time I tried to write this review. I think it was my own warning to pay proper homage to a brilliant book. It always amazes me how some authors can take some dark passages of a characters life and treat it with a humour that doesn't detract from the seriousness of the subject.I wanted to kick Oskar in the rump almost as often as I wanted to hug him. What an exasperating protagonist but I suspect he is very much a product of his time and environment. Did I mention he dictates this from a mental ward? I would definitely rank him with some of the best anti-heroes.Unique, weird, annoying and sometimes heartbreaking this is a work that's worth the effort to read. The allegory runs thick but never seems too obvious. I think Mitchell's translation and afterword also helped in the version I read because I don't know if I would have understood enough of the slang and turns of phrase used otherwise.