The banging of the drum does not appear to have much value, until later in life when Oskar develops skill as a jazz drummer.

You dont get the feeling that OSKAR is crazy here, so much as he's a microcosm of Germany's pre-war "high" culture

Oskar Matzerath is that anger, loosed on a world that so richly deserves him.

Oskar was such an unreal personage that I found him impossible to trust as a narrator... with every beat of his drum he startled the already frightened theme of this book into a corner

Oskar's obsession with the past allows him to rethink events that require thought and consideration by everyone (WWII).Read the entire book.

Oskar's musical talent affects many things and eventually leads to the formation of a jazz band.

The Tin Drum” is complex and difficult to read at times but Oskar’s memoirs are written so well that you are almost forced to continue

Prior to the war, Oskar personified the enfant terrible who has the audacity to choose who his parents are after his facticity; his arrogance also extended to his "fathering" one of his father's sons, authenticated by Oskar prinzip.

One of his "presumptive" fathers is killed by the Nazis, the other, a Nazi party member, by the Russians; Oskar boasts of his direct indirect involvement in both their pitiful deaths.

Bebra held a grudge against Oskar for his liaison with his woman, and Bebra also blamed Oskar for her death during the Battle of Normandy

Young Oskar seeks comfort wherever he can find it, such as under his grandmother's layers of heavy skirts, until he finds a way to hold onto his youth in a tin drum he receives for his birthday

Like Nietzsche, Oskar would rather be a Superman than follow the Herd, but he finally realizes that anarchy and individualism only lead to self-indulgence.

A short man who works with stone (at one time Oskar cuts grave stones) seems to have influence Irving's little man who grew up in stone cutting

Oskar is selective in what he tells us

Oskar was confused by guilt because his drum supplier was harassed that night

As other reviewer has observed, Oskar seems sometimes perverse and manipulative, as some European thinkers who didn't see the dangers of totalitarisms and supported nazism or stalinism

Oskar's final struggle against shame and guilt came as he was living in Dusseldorf and doing quite well, but he was wrongly convicted of murdering a nurse whom he had a crush on

Oskar is unreliable because he parenthesizes those very unreliable times.

Oskar suffers from arrested development after getting a bump on the head.

Oskar Matzerath is introduced too us as a mental patient, Exactly who he is though remains unclear to us readers, because who he is, is constantly influx throughout the whole novel - at first, he's the mental underdevelopment kid, then a lover, then a member of a front-line theatre company, then a gang leader, engraver, model, musician, murder suspect, and finally, fugitive

The book ends with his exoneration from murder charge, but Oskar is not too happy to get out of his safe asylum

A part which, he plays to perfection for years on end, with the result that fake Oskar becomes the real Oskar

In any case, it's for our 9 y/o grandson who loves to make noise

The embouchure shown in the picture has been replaced with an s-crook mouthpiece to enhance visibility of the keys while playing

It is an allegorical myth of Germany and, in a way, the world between the 1930’s and 1950’s

The Onion Cellar is as flippant an interpretation of "German guilt" as I've ever read; yet it rings true, for that time as well as now.