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کفچه ماهی
در حقیقت کفچه ماهی بروز تمامی آن چیزهایی است که در وجود یک انسان فرهیخته که از این روندها گذشته انباشته شده است و ناگهان اینها بیرون میریزد. کفچه ماهی اثر ساخته و پرداخته یک هنرمند ادیب است.
846 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
140 people are currently reading
3322 people want to read
About the author
Günter Grass
304 books1,839 followersNovels, notably
The Tin Drum
(1959) and
Dog Years
(1963), of German writer Günter Wilhelm Grass, who won the Nobel Prize of 1999 for literature, concern the political and social climate of Germany during and after World War II.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
This novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor since 1945 lived in West Germany but in his fiction frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. He always identified as a Kashubian.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. He named this style “broadened reality.” “Cat and Mouse” (1961) and Dog Years (1963) also succeeded in the period. These three novels make up his “Danzig trilogy.”
Helene Grass (née Knoff, 1898 - 1954), a Roman Catholic of Kashubian-Polish origin, bore Günter Grass to Willy Grass (1899 - 1979), a Protestant ethnic German. Parents reared Grass as a Catholic. The family lived in an apartment, attached to its grocery store in Danzig-Langfuhr (now Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz). He has one sister, born in 1930.
Grass attended the Danzig gymnasium Conradinum. He volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered - in a very negative way - civic Catholic lower middle class. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, and in November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, into the Waffen-Schutzstaffel. The seventeen-year-old Grass saw combat with the 10th Schutzstaffel panzer division Frundsberg from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.
In 1946 and 1947, he worked in a mine and received an education of a stonemason. For many years, he studied sculpture and graphics, first at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and then at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He also worked as an author and traveled frequently. He married in 1954 and from 1960 lived in Berlin as well as part-time in Schleswig-Holstein. Divorced in 1978, he remarried in 1979. From 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts).
During the German unification process in 1989 he argued for separation of the two states, because he thought a unified Germany would resume its past aggression. He moved to the northern German city of Lübeck in 1995. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. In 2006, Grass caused controversy with his disclosure of his Waffen-Schutzstaffel service during the final months of World War II, which he had kept a secret until publishing his memoir that year. He died of complications of lung infection on 13th of April, 2015 at a Lübeck hospital. He was 87.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
September 11, 2022
Fish and humankind… In the ancient Egypt fish was a symbol of rebirth and regeneration… In Christianity fish became an emblem of Christ and resurrection…
The Flounder isn’t exactly an avatar of the world’s spirit… The smart fish is obsessed with cooking and weird interpretations of history…
The permanent war of genders and the alternation of ass kicking and ass kissing all down the ages and all down the line – that is the history according to The Flounder.
The Fisherman and His Wife fairytale is much shorter and much more effective and it had already told the entire story long time ago.
These were the questions to be resolved: Who was speaking here and for what purpose? What would they have to explain first? The fact that the Flounder could talk or the substance of what he was saying? Was this a late reactionary attempt on the part of medieval Scholasticism to prove that evil could take the form of a fish? Was this Flounder a personification of capitalism? Or – an even greater contradiction – might he be an embodiment of Hegel’s Weltgeist?
The Flounder isn’t exactly an avatar of the world’s spirit… The smart fish is obsessed with cooking and weird interpretations of history…
The permanent war of genders and the alternation of ass kicking and ass kissing all down the ages and all down the line – that is the history according to The Flounder.
I can’t help you, my son. I can’t even offer you mild regrets. You have misused all the power I gave you. Instead of turning the rights bestowed upon you to caring, charitable use, you have let hegemony degenerate into repression and power become an end in itself.
The Fisherman and His Wife fairytale is much shorter and much more effective and it had already told the entire story long time ago.
November 7, 2018
One of my favorite novels ever. I've devoured, with intentional puns, this one twice, the second time in tandem with my friends. This represents the purpose of literature. One's culinary awareness is doubtless to be inspired within these pages. Delicious, sinuous and robust, a divine brush paints along his narration, one timeless and laden with vibrato. He is similar to the Magical Realists, only better.
December 22, 2025
Wie man den Butt aufnimmt, ist wohl massiv davon abhängig, welche Erwartungen man an Romane generell hat und ob man den Butt als Beitrag zu einem Diskurs lesen möchte oder als Geschichtensammlung mit Rahmenhandlung.
Ich nehme den Butt als virtuos erzähltes Sprachfest auf und das ist mir mit den üblichen Momenten, in denen Grass kein Maß kennt, etwas zwischen 4 und 5 Sternen wert. Wenn ich etwas zum Thema Feminismus verstehen will, gehe ich woanders hin.
Ich nehme den Butt als virtuos erzähltes Sprachfest auf und das ist mir mit den üblichen Momenten, in denen Grass kein Maß kennt, etwas zwischen 4 und 5 Sternen wert. Wenn ich etwas zum Thema Feminismus verstehen will, gehe ich woanders hin.
March 6, 2012
this book is kicking my ass ... a herculean effort required to finish it. there are, however, brilliant passages peppered in the dense stew that I really really love. Whenever I get to one, it's a giant relief.
So ask yourself, do you like books that offer occasional relief? Do you like interminable slogs through someone's intellectual workouts? Do you like falling asleep on the train and missing your stop?
So ask yourself, do you like books that offer occasional relief? Do you like interminable slogs through someone's intellectual workouts? Do you like falling asleep on the train and missing your stop?
October 29, 2023
Pero ¿qué fumada es esta? Abandono a las 200 páginas. Me llevo una gran decepción, acrecentada por la alta consideración que tenía de “El tambor de hojalata”, novela maravillosa y fascinante que disfruté hace algunos años.
Obviamente reconozco en las páginas que he leído, la desbordante imaginación y el subrealista estilo de Gunter Grass. Pero en esta ocasión se ha colado 9 pueblos.
Esta historia de la humanidad centralizada en regiones de Alemania y Polonia, protagonizada por una cantidad ingente de personajes, y un rodaballo parlante sometido a juicio por un tribunal de feministas que le achacan su colaboración determinante para que los hombres arrebataran el poder que ostentaban las mujeres desde el Paleolítico, a la vez que te meten recetas de comidas suculentas y unos cuantos de poemas, ha podido conmigo.
Le doy dos estrellas, porque a pequeñas dosis puedes llegar a disfrutar de algunos pasajes, y porque no le voy a dar la misma nota que le daría a la autobiografía de Jorge Javier Vázquez, que por Dios, espero que no exista.
Obviamente reconozco en las páginas que he leído, la desbordante imaginación y el subrealista estilo de Gunter Grass. Pero en esta ocasión se ha colado 9 pueblos.
Esta historia de la humanidad centralizada en regiones de Alemania y Polonia, protagonizada por una cantidad ingente de personajes, y un rodaballo parlante sometido a juicio por un tribunal de feministas que le achacan su colaboración determinante para que los hombres arrebataran el poder que ostentaban las mujeres desde el Paleolítico, a la vez que te meten recetas de comidas suculentas y unos cuantos de poemas, ha podido conmigo.
Le doy dos estrellas, porque a pequeñas dosis puedes llegar a disfrutar de algunos pasajes, y porque no le voy a dar la misma nota que le daría a la autobiografía de Jorge Javier Vázquez, que por Dios, espero que no exista.
May 3, 2016
The Flounder: 20th century’s last Nobel Prize in Literature was given to Günter Grass, lauded him for his “frolicsome black fables that portray the forgotten face of history”. This accolade from the prestigious organization cannot be more aptly considered than Günter Grass’ masterpiece- “The Flounder”!
“Frolicsome”- yes; “black fable”- yes; “portray the forgotten face of history”- yes; Flounder as member of the Nobel Committee for Literature- maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised, there’s something fishy about it, I’m afraid so!
Hands down, this book is the testament of Günter Grass’ genius and, indeed, he’s on his own as an artist.
This is one of the few books that I will have an in depth review- and deservedly so.
I will digress from discussing the specifics for the benefit of the future readers but, I will dwell more on general impression on some of the highlights of the novel.
First off, the premise: very interesting… As a child, with an early addiction to fairytales, “The Fisherman and His Wife” is somewhat unappealing to me. Both man and wife are fucked up- banana peeling the image so unlike the one I imagined of my parents. Too grim (or Grimm, haha!) for kids, in my opinion, based from my own childish impression. But when applied as a reworking, it offers a far better fertile field for growing potatoes than Cinderella or Miss Snow White. Why? because the fairytale is so episodic and the events (as each one escalates) are more compelling than the characters.
The idea that its epochal, the various time- phases of the main characters (which gave me an impression of vagueness between reincarnation, MPD, or when Eve was created through Adam’s rib or that other appendage..) were a unique reading experience for me. Somehow I felt the infinite universal thread that connects us all, regardless of sex, as the main characters travel through time. Mr. Grass led me to his imagined universe with Neolithic old and panoramic vista mired of human misery and undoing.
While I was deep in reading, this book is so imaginative, one can’t help thinking about how difficult this book must have been conceived and written, one can only mentally applause the author, á la socialist party meeting.
In comparison to The Tin Drum, I didn’t have a moment that I feel “nah, he’s trying to impress now” or “Whoa! Suddenly this?!”- like the horse at the beach (…) with Oskar or the demise of Oskar’s mom nor, in comparison to Dog Years, that I was bruised from concentrating too much just to summit it’s mountain face, happy but more exhausted…
With the many “cooks” in the novel, the most memorable one is Fat Gret. I think she embodies femininity regardless of time; she’s appealing, albeit an offbeat one; strong and knows what she wants and a “ball biter”!!! Billy was also memorable- such a powerful climactic chapter was written about her…!
The evolution and celebration of food in the novel also grows like a baby for nine months, i.e., from Stone Age elk meat, to the “emergency measure” ration of rat soup, to Sophie’s famous calf’s head stuffed with mushrooms, to the Womenal banquet, is sheer genius!
The “Vasco Returns” chapter is my favorite, I read it twice!
The narrator/s (the trailblazer of the male cause) in the novel was portrayed as very human and more varied, unlike Illsebill (the embodiment of femininity) which tends to “typecast” women in the story, although history- as history had it- has it on them, the book as well!
What I love about the novel was that I didn’t have to just rely with his words (and sometimes, too much of it) and trust Mr. Flounder. That seemingly funny yet powerful line where he claimed (or unclaimed) to blame him with Napoleon Bonaparte and the lot but, that he’s not responsible for the crimes of “that two infamous world leaders” was thought- provoking...
The major weakness: the former moviehouse turned “High long- haired Court” with all respectable and powerful women with the lone “husband” was like “C’mon! Günter, you can do much better than that!” moment for me. Farcical isn’t it? But, is it fun?
In reading classics and critical works of fiction such as this, I tend to avoid being critical to the author, but just get myself lost in the enchated forest he created and see if its worth the effort of going through inside that labyrinth. This book did it!
I. Must. Go. To. Lübeck.
“Frolicsome”- yes; “black fable”- yes; “portray the forgotten face of history”- yes; Flounder as member of the Nobel Committee for Literature- maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised, there’s something fishy about it, I’m afraid so!
Hands down, this book is the testament of Günter Grass’ genius and, indeed, he’s on his own as an artist.
This is one of the few books that I will have an in depth review- and deservedly so.
I will digress from discussing the specifics for the benefit of the future readers but, I will dwell more on general impression on some of the highlights of the novel.
First off, the premise: very interesting… As a child, with an early addiction to fairytales, “The Fisherman and His Wife” is somewhat unappealing to me. Both man and wife are fucked up- banana peeling the image so unlike the one I imagined of my parents. Too grim (or Grimm, haha!) for kids, in my opinion, based from my own childish impression. But when applied as a reworking, it offers a far better fertile field for growing potatoes than Cinderella or Miss Snow White. Why? because the fairytale is so episodic and the events (as each one escalates) are more compelling than the characters.
The idea that its epochal, the various time- phases of the main characters (which gave me an impression of vagueness between reincarnation, MPD, or when Eve was created through Adam’s rib or that other appendage..) were a unique reading experience for me. Somehow I felt the infinite universal thread that connects us all, regardless of sex, as the main characters travel through time. Mr. Grass led me to his imagined universe with Neolithic old and panoramic vista mired of human misery and undoing.
While I was deep in reading, this book is so imaginative, one can’t help thinking about how difficult this book must have been conceived and written, one can only mentally applause the author, á la socialist party meeting.
In comparison to The Tin Drum, I didn’t have a moment that I feel “nah, he’s trying to impress now” or “Whoa! Suddenly this?!”- like the horse at the beach (…) with Oskar or the demise of Oskar’s mom nor, in comparison to Dog Years, that I was bruised from concentrating too much just to summit it’s mountain face, happy but more exhausted…
With the many “cooks” in the novel, the most memorable one is Fat Gret. I think she embodies femininity regardless of time; she’s appealing, albeit an offbeat one; strong and knows what she wants and a “ball biter”!!! Billy was also memorable- such a powerful climactic chapter was written about her…!
The evolution and celebration of food in the novel also grows like a baby for nine months, i.e., from Stone Age elk meat, to the “emergency measure” ration of rat soup, to Sophie’s famous calf’s head stuffed with mushrooms, to the Womenal banquet, is sheer genius!
The “Vasco Returns” chapter is my favorite, I read it twice!
The narrator/s (the trailblazer of the male cause) in the novel was portrayed as very human and more varied, unlike Illsebill (the embodiment of femininity) which tends to “typecast” women in the story, although history- as history had it- has it on them, the book as well!
What I love about the novel was that I didn’t have to just rely with his words (and sometimes, too much of it) and trust Mr. Flounder. That seemingly funny yet powerful line where he claimed (or unclaimed) to blame him with Napoleon Bonaparte and the lot but, that he’s not responsible for the crimes of “that two infamous world leaders” was thought- provoking...
The major weakness: the former moviehouse turned “High long- haired Court” with all respectable and powerful women with the lone “husband” was like “C’mon! Günter, you can do much better than that!” moment for me. Farcical isn’t it? But, is it fun?
In reading classics and critical works of fiction such as this, I tend to avoid being critical to the author, but just get myself lost in the enchated forest he created and see if its worth the effort of going through inside that labyrinth. This book did it!
I. Must. Go. To. Lübeck.
January 25, 2024
Der Butt (The Flounder) is a novel, loosely based on the fairytale ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’ (Grimm brothers), that looks at the role of the sexes throughout time. Edek and his wife Ilsebill are incarnated several times between the Stone Age and now and Edek tells Ilsebill a separate story for each month of her pregnancy. The stories explain why and how primeval matriarchy was slowly replaced by patriarchy, which in our own time might lead to the emancipation of the sexes. Written in Grass’s usual mystical and allegorical style, this book (first published in 1977) is, in my opinion, one of the most important contributions to the discussion on the topic of feminism.
March 17, 2015
Deftig (ribald)! This would be the one-word review. Grass is explicit in his extensive descriptions - mostly of food, in parts sexuality or other body functions and sometimes violence.
The story:
Der Butt has three narrative dimensions.
1. Today, the narrator and his wife Ilsebill - who is of legendary fame due to an old fairy tale - are receiving a child. The book is divided into nine chapters, one for each month of the pregnancy.
2. The second dimension consists of the narrator's multiple reincarnations through time, starting from neolithitic age. The focus is on his relationships, nine in the past plus two parallel to his current life.
3. The third dimension is the tribunal (feminal) against the flounder who is accused of helping the male case, hurting womanhood through all ages.
Grass uses these dimensions to tell the history of the area around his home town Danzig through time, to criticize nowadays (the 70's) society coined by the male dominance throughout history, to make a case for feminism while parallely dissembling the 70's women's movement and to celebrate the joys of a primary sensual life - natural food, uninhibited attitudes, simplicity. In parts, it's a book of its time, especially the 'politics' are outdated. At the same time the conflict of the sexes never gets old. The sensual pleasures he celebrates were as far away from the 70's as from today.
Grass certainly knows how to write. Some paragraphs are plain brillant. But he also doesn't know when enough is enough and he's fond of preaching. Still, an extraordinary book - the East Prussian "Midnight's Children" featuring the most famous opening line of any German book: "Ilsebill salzte nach."
The story:
Der Butt has three narrative dimensions.
1. Today, the narrator and his wife Ilsebill - who is of legendary fame due to an old fairy tale - are receiving a child. The book is divided into nine chapters, one for each month of the pregnancy.
2. The second dimension consists of the narrator's multiple reincarnations through time, starting from neolithitic age. The focus is on his relationships, nine in the past plus two parallel to his current life.
3. The third dimension is the tribunal (feminal) against the flounder who is accused of helping the male case, hurting womanhood through all ages.
Grass uses these dimensions to tell the history of the area around his home town Danzig through time, to criticize nowadays (the 70's) society coined by the male dominance throughout history, to make a case for feminism while parallely dissembling the 70's women's movement and to celebrate the joys of a primary sensual life - natural food, uninhibited attitudes, simplicity. In parts, it's a book of its time, especially the 'politics' are outdated. At the same time the conflict of the sexes never gets old. The sensual pleasures he celebrates were as far away from the 70's as from today.
Grass certainly knows how to write. Some paragraphs are plain brillant. But he also doesn't know when enough is enough and he's fond of preaching. Still, an extraordinary book - the East Prussian "Midnight's Children" featuring the most famous opening line of any German book: "Ilsebill salzte nach."
February 12, 2013
This book is a fantastic, convoluted, dark and intensely strange 500 page fairy tale. The story perpetually switches between time periods, from early neolithic to present, and between the female protagonists of each time- but once you get the hang of all of the women and the men (who are in fact one man conscious of all of his historical reincarnations), it is surprisingly easy to read and stay in the flow of the current narrators past and present ramblings and references. Essentially this history of patriarchy unfolds in the absurd context of a feminist Women's Tribunal putting the Flounder on trial, through which we learn all of the ways that this god-fish instructed and aided the male cause to pursue wars and rape and oppression of women, etc etc. We also get a very detailed history of food and its effect on women and society, as all of his female protagonists are cooks.
I think it would be bold to directly recommend this to friends because it is so very very long and convoluted (and slightly perverse), but it is definitely one of my new favorite books so if you're up for something strange and compelling it is absolutely worth getting through!
I think it would be bold to directly recommend this to friends because it is so very very long and convoluted (and slightly perverse), but it is definitely one of my new favorite books so if you're up for something strange and compelling it is absolutely worth getting through!
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February 21, 2010To be continued, the deeper in I get. Haven't encountered such culinary indulgence since Rabelais, such brazen jocularity since Diderot, and such full-stomached appetite for life since Grimmelshausen. Grass is the potato of literature: earthy, savory, and irreplaceable.
April 8, 2022
The Flounder had all the ingredients in the making for a perfect book. The book is loosely based on the story The Fisherman and his Wife written by the Grimm brothers. By the way I haven't read it. The book is divided into 9 parts each corresponding to the 9 months of pregnancy of the narrator's wife Ilsebill. Unusual, I am sure most of you would agree. Add to that catchy section titles like what potato flour is good for (and against), Agnes remembered over a boiled fish, gathering mushrooms, three meals of pork and cabbage, boiled beef and historical millet etc. Various foods feature a lot in the book. Moreover the story switches frequently between the Neolithic stone age, Iron age, Bronze age, crusades, Gothic age, 20th century etc. There's also a talking flatfish called the Flounder which features throughout the book and is in fact one of the main characters. Not to forget the enigmatic book cover which has this talking fish whispering into a human ear.
Despite all this, the book was a disappointment. The writing style was the major issue. It felt drab many a time. This has been a problem for me in recent times. I didn't like the writing styles of such eminent authors like Vladimir Nabokov, James Rollins, Stephen King, Salman Rushdie and now Günter Grass, a Nobel prize winner in literature.
I am sure you will love this book if you like the author's writing style. If not you may have to abandon this book like I did after 92 pages of reading. Do give this unusual book a try especially the epicureans and gourmands out there. Ha, look at me endorsing a book I didn't even like. Lol
Despite all this, the book was a disappointment. The writing style was the major issue. It felt drab many a time. This has been a problem for me in recent times. I didn't like the writing styles of such eminent authors like Vladimir Nabokov, James Rollins, Stephen King, Salman Rushdie and now Günter Grass, a Nobel prize winner in literature.
I am sure you will love this book if you like the author's writing style. If not you may have to abandon this book like I did after 92 pages of reading. Do give this unusual book a try especially the epicureans and gourmands out there. Ha, look at me endorsing a book I didn't even like. Lol
January 11, 2018
I first attempted to read this tome when I was 19, couldn't do it. Began it again in my late 20's, got a bit further but had to give it up (it was far too intense and detailed and I found myself not understanding anything!) then I saw some crazy Facebook story about a woman who had a third boob implanted and I laughed and recalled Awa from the opening of The Flounder. I decided to pick it up again at 49 yrs of age. Third time's a charm. It was like time travel for me since I'd read parts of it in my past and had not realized that I'd absorbed parts of the story into my own personal mythos that I had long forgotten. This book is magical realism mixed with historical fiction mixed with twisted German Realism. This book spans all of time and reaches into your psyche and pulls out dreams, ideas, thoughts and fears that you didn't know you had!! This is without a doubt one of my most favorite novels. But beware, it is not easy reading, not beach reading. It's a journey, one you will never forget. It will invade your dreams!!
March 6, 2019
Magnificent! I first read The Flounder in my early twenties and while I was fascinated by the book, it mostly baffled me. Reading it 25 years later (and with the help of the internet) I feel I'm at least approaching an understanding of it. It's still a mind boggling read but the challenge makes it that much more enjoyable. I look forward to reading it again in another 20 years.
May 8, 2015
Man is was man isst. Man is what he eats. What makes better sense then to write a history of ones hometown Gdansk (a.k.a. Danzig) through its food of which the dish of honour is the Flounder which is the heraldic animal of Gdansk.
Unfortunately the joke goes on far too long. Gunther's Grass great talent is his ability to show how popular attitudes change from decade to decade, from year to year and (in times of war) from day to day.
In this great masterpiece, the Tim Drum Grass shows how the attitudes of the OstDeutsch evolved during the three following periods
-1- from 1920 when the Treaty of Paris created the Free City of Danzing to 1939 when the local Ostdeutsche stormed the Polish Post Office
-2- from 1939 to 1944 which began with the Drang Nach Osten in September 1939 and finished in 1944 when the Red Army expelled the Ost Deutsche from the territories in East Prussia that they had occupied for over 600 years
-3- from 1944 to 1965 when the surviving Ost-Deutsche fled from the East and then miraculously became pure West Germans within less a matter of years
Unfortunately Grass' ability to show how popular attitudes evolve deserts him completely when he has to deal with a period of history that he did not live through. His characters all belong to the 20th Century no matter where Grass places them between 3000 BC and 1970 AD. This sloppy effort by Grass is to be avoided at all costs. He has written several books more worthy of your time than this one.
Unfortunately the joke goes on far too long. Gunther's Grass great talent is his ability to show how popular attitudes change from decade to decade, from year to year and (in times of war) from day to day.
In this great masterpiece, the Tim Drum Grass shows how the attitudes of the OstDeutsch evolved during the three following periods
-1- from 1920 when the Treaty of Paris created the Free City of Danzing to 1939 when the local Ostdeutsche stormed the Polish Post Office
-2- from 1939 to 1944 which began with the Drang Nach Osten in September 1939 and finished in 1944 when the Red Army expelled the Ost Deutsche from the territories in East Prussia that they had occupied for over 600 years
-3- from 1944 to 1965 when the surviving Ost-Deutsche fled from the East and then miraculously became pure West Germans within less a matter of years
Unfortunately Grass' ability to show how popular attitudes evolve deserts him completely when he has to deal with a period of history that he did not live through. His characters all belong to the 20th Century no matter where Grass places them between 3000 BC and 1970 AD. This sloppy effort by Grass is to be avoided at all costs. He has written several books more worthy of your time than this one.
November 29, 2009
Echt schlecht für einen Grass!!!
October 4, 2014
Een van de mooiste kaft illustraties die ik ooit heb gezien.
December 9, 2017
This was a favorite book of mine in my 20's. I must have re-read it 3 or 4 times - and would like to revisit it. I wonder if I would be as enamored of the story now that I am 60!
December 20, 2022
Eigentlich nur 1 Stern, weil ich es nicht Mal zu Ende gelesen habe, aber noch einen extra Stern für die Ilsebill, die das Essen etwas salziger mag.
April 8, 2025
i had really high hopes for this bizzare or absurd book about a immortal flounder but this is one of those post modern works that doesnt seem to have an enjoyable narrative or characters.
August 7, 2023
Zseniális!
August 14, 2025
Amazing achievement here from Grass, which I suspect was one of the biggest contributors towards his being awarded the Nobel. A "proper" novel with hefty literary (and actual!) weight, taking in history (since the stone age!) and male/female social (and sexual!) relationships, not to mention food (stuffed calf's head, halved pig's feet, plenty of pork and cabbage), poetry and the Gdansk shipyards. Too dense at times though, making it slow/heavy going, but also plenty of rewarding (some technically dazzling, others emotionally touching) passages. 4.5 Stars but can't bring myself to round up to 5 cos not quiiite enjoyable enough overall, so 4.
February 11, 2008
Gunter Grass, The Flounder (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977)
I just couldn't get through it. I can't really put my finger on why, but there it is. The Flounder contains all the things I revere about Grass-- a strong sense of history, scurrlious sense of humor, strong characters put into wonderfully unrealistic situations. But this novel, Grass' weightiest (literally), never seems to come together in all the little ways that made similarly large tomes like The Tin Drum and Dog Years such wonderful reads.
The Flounder is a massive creation myth, seen through the eyes of a continually-reincarnated man, his continually-reincarnated longtime companion (who is always a cook of some sort), and the Flounder himself, who serves as a kind of fairy-godfather figure. In modern times, a group of feminists discover that the Flounder has been the architect of the overthrow of matriarchal society and put him on trial; the narrator and the Flounder use the trial as a method to go back over history and show the development of patriarchy in Poland, and how it relates to the potato. Yes, I'm serious.
The novel feels as if Grass had lost his sense of dynamic while writing it. The earlier long novels each keep the reader's interest with a series of climactic events, each leading up to the larger climax upon which the novel turns; The Flounder, on the other hand, continues on at the same rlatively leisurely pace in its survey of history. And that, ultimately, is its downfall; there's just too much of it without anything really going on, on a larger scale.
Definitely a bad starting place for Grass; turn to the Danzig trilogy instead. (zero)
I just couldn't get through it. I can't really put my finger on why, but there it is. The Flounder contains all the things I revere about Grass-- a strong sense of history, scurrlious sense of humor, strong characters put into wonderfully unrealistic situations. But this novel, Grass' weightiest (literally), never seems to come together in all the little ways that made similarly large tomes like The Tin Drum and Dog Years such wonderful reads.
The Flounder is a massive creation myth, seen through the eyes of a continually-reincarnated man, his continually-reincarnated longtime companion (who is always a cook of some sort), and the Flounder himself, who serves as a kind of fairy-godfather figure. In modern times, a group of feminists discover that the Flounder has been the architect of the overthrow of matriarchal society and put him on trial; the narrator and the Flounder use the trial as a method to go back over history and show the development of patriarchy in Poland, and how it relates to the potato. Yes, I'm serious.
The novel feels as if Grass had lost his sense of dynamic while writing it. The earlier long novels each keep the reader's interest with a series of climactic events, each leading up to the larger climax upon which the novel turns; The Flounder, on the other hand, continues on at the same rlatively leisurely pace in its survey of history. And that, ultimately, is its downfall; there's just too much of it without anything really going on, on a larger scale.
Definitely a bad starting place for Grass; turn to the Danzig trilogy instead. (zero)
August 16, 2020
O Pomorsiano "terra-cottista (ma perché no, anzi meglio, terra-cuocente! XD)", dall'assistenzial mammella ossessionato, mascolinamente fiero d'esser pene-dotato, attraverso le pieghe (ma perché no anche le piaghe! XD) della storia e della carne e le penne delle spennate ocherelle della grassa-gaudente-Gret, guadando pentole bollenti-fumanti di stufati operai, sì, tu, proprio tu, rombianamente boccheggiante e pateticamente blaterante e arrogantemente argomentante, giunto sino a noi, con mani impastate di resti senza storia di monche statuine di terra-cotta, che tu "terra-cuocesti", narraci dello sguazzante-saltellante-fluttuante-filosofeggiante-paraculante Rombo la fatal sorte! XD
Fastidioso il narratore-personaggio-pseudovittimalamentante; irritanti alcune pagine; forte ho avuto la tentazione di dare due stelle; ma, poi, niente, ho ceduto alle cinque stelle... alcune sghignazzate di gusto, la lingua e lo stile, la storia, le storie, le nove cuoche, Aua-Aua, la tasca di carne, il Lupo del Cielo, le ricette... insomma, poco mi ha convinto di questo libro, tanto mi ha irritata, ma tutto mi ha colpita, perciò, che dire? Cinque stelle, sconfitta, prendo e porto a casa. E, sì, questa non è una recensione: ai limiti del comprensibile, con le molte concessioni che mi sono concessa, è solo la mia strampalata opinione! XD
Fastidioso il narratore-personaggio-pseudovittimalamentante; irritanti alcune pagine; forte ho avuto la tentazione di dare due stelle; ma, poi, niente, ho ceduto alle cinque stelle... alcune sghignazzate di gusto, la lingua e lo stile, la storia, le storie, le nove cuoche, Aua-Aua, la tasca di carne, il Lupo del Cielo, le ricette... insomma, poco mi ha convinto di questo libro, tanto mi ha irritata, ma tutto mi ha colpita, perciò, che dire? Cinque stelle, sconfitta, prendo e porto a casa. E, sì, questa non è una recensione: ai limiti del comprensibile, con le molte concessioni che mi sono concessa, è solo la mia strampalata opinione! XD
February 2, 2017
3.5 I really struggled with rating this book, on the one hand it's clearly an important and intellectual novel but I found it a chore to slog through. There are several threads to the story, but the bulk of the narrative is taken up with the history of the local area told through the narrator's relationships with nine different women spanning over many centuries. (he is able to time shift) There is also a parrellel story in which these relationships are being used as evidence in a feminist trial of a flounder (yes the fish) who is accused of aiding the male domination of women throughout history and if this all sounds confusing it is. So overall the book was a rewarding read, some of the passages and puns are genuinely hilarious and after reading a whole chapter solely devoted to potatoe soup I wanted some so badly that I scratch made myself a pan! and hey I finished the book something I can't say about Ulysses!
August 25, 2016
An epic, dense, hilarious, heartbreaking (sometimes in the same sentence) meditation on the sexes and everything else under the sun. The 4000+ year scope, use of poems, absurdism, endless transgressions, humor, and postmodernism is Pynchonian in its reach, but undeniably Grass. NO ONE else could have written this book. Not a perfect work, but such a fantastic contribution to the literary canon that it deserves all 5 stars.
August 21, 2011
I just couldn't get past page 20. I think maybe this wasn't the best first Gunter Grass novel to tackle. From what I could tell, it's a man's meandering evolution. He is obsessed with breasts, has discussions with a flounder, and likes cooks and food. I understand the poetic nature of his writing, but 500+ pages was too much for me. This will be an interesting book group discussion!
January 1, 2009
Made me laugh, pissed me off, confused me, kept me company for many evenings and sometimes I just had to walk away to think about what I had read (or get it out of my head). Definitely reaction provoking.
January 13, 2013
Although the Tin Drum is more famous, The Flounder is more typical of Grass' sprawling mid-period novels, and still worth a read. Along with The Rat, this is the high-water mark or Grass' writing, but e.g. Local Anaesthetic also worth a punt.
November 7, 2022
Wow. Den här gick trögt. Tog mig nästan halva boken att komma in i den, och även efter det var delar av den rätt tungrodd. Men ändå värt mödan att ta sig igenom den! Kanske kommer läsa om den när jag är äldre och visare.
October 26, 2020
One of the worst books I ever started to read. Did not finish it. Misogynist and sexist. Why doesn't she simply cook the fish and be done with him?
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