The Story Archive

Too Far Afield

Günter Grass · 1995 CE · Novel · German · Contemporary

Theo Wuttke, born on the centenary of Theodor Fontane's birth and known to all as Fonty, rides the paternoster as a courier in the Berlin block where the Treuhand is selling off the East, tailed everywhere by a secret policeman who has served every German regime in turn. The account comes from the archivists keeping his file. Fontane's 1871 is laid over 1990 throughout, and the book drew fiercer attacks on release than anything else Grass wrote.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
PoliticalHistoricalSatire
Theme
Memory & TimeIdentity & SelfPower & CorruptionTradition
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
The DoubleEverymanShadow
Plot structure
ChronicleFrame NarrativeMetafiction
Symbol / motif
The CityThe Book / ManuscriptThe Staircase
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
IronicSatiricalRealist
Culture / tradition
German

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