Oskar’s the winner: in which Günter Grass lures the reader with an apparently simple tale of dwarfism, musical dysphoria, incest, Nazism, murder, Oedipal longings, and madness, before spinning into something far more complex. The “imitation of Christ” is also as near to the spawn of Satan a you can get this side of Rosemary’s Baby, and the plot, as such, resembles EastEnders at its most torrid. Breon Mitchell’s 2009 translation, undertaken with Grass’s direct involvement, conveys the rich musicality of the language, and the sprawling madness of the a story which is epic in its dimensions, quite ludicrous at times, and unputdownable, in the sense that you’d break a bone in your foot if you dropped it. The small scenes will linger, long after the whole has faded in the mind’s eye. It’s been an incredible journey and one which, if I’m honest, I’m happy is over, but Oskar the mad-not mad narrator, whilst he may be an unreliable witness, is alive alive-o...