More madness

Could this become a theme?

Now I'm reading the Aug. 16, 2007, edition of the New York Review of Books and the article "The Road from Danzig" that reprises the career of Guenter Grass, the brilliant German writer. The author of the article is Timothy Garton Ash, one of the most perceptive writers on Europe of the past 20-some years. The main topic is Grass' recent memoir, "Peeling the Onion" in its English title, which ends with Grass in Paris where he came up with the startling words: "Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital."

The link to madness quickly rises in my thoughts. Those are the opening words of Grass' great novel, "The Tin Drum," which I struggled to read in German in the 1960's, and what a fantasy it was -- the book and reading it in German, too. Thank goodness for fine translations.

I bring it up here partly because the article is graced with a photo showing Grass and Norman Mailer together at an event at the New York Public Library on June 27, 2007. Mailer looks a hundred years older than Grass, though their age difference is only four years, and it's said to be perhaps his last public appearance. One report on the meeting noted that Grass and Mailer were the two last great writers from World War II.

Mailer's being in the article is a link to the previous post here, which was so much about Mailer and the touch of madness around him. I'll confess that I bought and like his recent novel, "The Castle in the Forest," with the unlikely subject of the boyhood of Adolf Hitler. Now, there's some madness. The remaining question: will Mailer write about stabbing his wife? More madness.

This link takes you to the NYRB article. And from that I found a link to an audio recording of Grass and Mailer together at the NY Public Library. Life is good.

UPDATE: It took two hours to listen to the recordings in the last link above. Two great writers talking about the madness of the world in the 20th Century -- a fruitful way to spend an afternoon with the ears open. It bears relistening.