Local Anaestetic
Günter GrassStarusch, a bachelor aged forty teaching 'German and history,' two inseparable subjects, undergoes protracted treatment by a dentist who uses TV to distract his patients. The patient projects into the screen his past and present, with the fluidity and visual quality of the movies. Reality and fantasy, the actual and the repressed, overrun the screen in a mirror image of German history. Plus, among other episodes, we see Krings, one of Hitler's most ferocious fight-to-the-finish' generals, return from Russian captivity and engage in sandbox reconstructions of Germany's battles, determined to win them this time. In a casual throw away the author reveals his true identity - Field Marshal Schoerner. Under the influence of local anesthesia, Starusch's imagination releases his erotic fantasies and the very violence he tries to combat in his pupils, one of them a militant Maoist. The dentist, dispensing humdrum wisdom and painkillers with god-like aloofness, objects to violence, real or imagined, advocating universal sick care and a diet preventative of caries and cure-all. Meanwhile, Scherbaum his favorite pupil, grimly prepares to burn his dachshund Max, to stir up the conscience of dog-and-cake-loving Berliners.
Mockingly juggling with lost and found illusions, with the tensions between reformists and revolutionaries, middle age and youth, Grass has created a satirical portrait of social confusions that to his customary exuberance adds a new mastery of subtle control."