Dog Years (Sobachyi Gody)

Dog Years is the final novel in Günter Grass's Danzig Trilogy. It explores German history in the first half and mid-20th century: the pre-war period, the rise and rise of Nazism, the war, the post-war years, and the period of the German 'economic miracle.' Each section of the novel is narrated from the perspective of a different character: Eddi Amsel, the 'victim,' Harry Liebenau, the 'witness,' and Walter Matern, the 'perpetrator,' each of whom perceives the events in their own way. The grotesque images, plots, and allegories that permeate the narrative reflect the tragic paradox of the era. For Grass, satire becomes the only means capable of revealing the madness of a society that nurtured and then denied the horror of the Third Reich.