The Call of the Toad

by Günter Grass, Ralph Manheim (Translator)

A German art historian and a Polish art restorer find adventure and love in the cemetery business. Their vision is to offer plots in Gdansk to those Germans who had been exiled after World War II. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Line drawings by the Author. Translated by Ralph Manheim. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Genres: Fiction, German Literature, Germany, Literature, Nobel Prize, Classics, Roman

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Novels, 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.

Reviews

[Peiman E iran · Rating 1 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، ابتدا باید بگویم که نمیدانم مترجم در این داستان چه دیده است که این کتاب را جهتِ ترجمه به فارسی انتخاب نموده است... داستانِ بی محتوا و نچسبی بود که تنها میتوانم بگویم که ناراحتِ وقت و زمانی هستم که به پایِ خواندنِ این کتابِ 150 صفحه ای هدر دادم... اصلاً مشخص نیست که نویسنده هدفش از نوشتن این داستان چه بوده است و بدتر آنکه چرا تا این اندازه داستان را طول داد تا اینگونه خسته کننده و کسالت آور شود
**********************
‎داستان اینگونه است که نویسنده دفترچهٔ خاطراتِ همکلاسی قدیمی خویش، به نامِ <الکساندر رشکه> به دستش رسیده است و او این خاطرات را به صورتِ داستانی روایت گونه درآورده است که در این داستان، <الکساندر> که بیوه مرد است و همسرش مُرده است با بیوه زنی به نامِ <الکساندرا پیاتکووسکا> به صورتِ کاملاً اتفاقی آشنا میشود و داستان حولِ محورِ این زن و مرد میچرخد و لازم است بگویم که داستان در لهستان روایت میشود و گویا جنگ به تازگی پایان یافته است
‎عزیزانم، کتاب واقعاً هیچ برای چکیده نویسی نداشت... تنها به گفتهٔ نویسنده میتوان نوشت که: قبرستانهایِ اتحاد چه زود و اتوماتیک وار پُر شدند.. آلمانی ها در قالبِ مردان و زنانِ مُرده، به خانه برمیگردند.. آینده ازآنِ ریکشاو است.. لهستان هنوز از دست نرفته است.. الکساندر و الکساندرا به خوبی و خوشی ازدواج کردند و برایِ ماهِ عسل به ایتالیا سفر کردند
‎ولی در ماه عسل و به هنگامِ بازگشت سوار بر ماشینِ ولوو ......... عزیزانم، سرانجام داستان و سرانجامِ کارِ این زن و مردِ دلباخته را برایتان نمینویسم، شاید برخی از دوستان قصدِ خواندنِ این کتاب را داشته باشند
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‎امیدوارم این ریویو جهتِ معرفیِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Owlseyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

("By the shadow of this cross I, eternally, weep for you"; my photo)

This is not a book for the superstitious mind. When you mix toads and cemeteries, and (bad) omens and fairy-tales-of-old, you’ll, likely, get suspicious, and, most likely, you’ll drop reading this book. But it didn’t happen to me. After reading the book, my whole conception of cemeteries changed.


(my photo)

Before going into the book, I would like to dedicate a few lines to the biography of the author, Günter Grass, the German writer. One I knew (but never read) it had been some years ago, when I had the chance to know (and watch) he would have a house in south Portugal, Algarve.



Recently, I read he used that house (also one in Denmark) to escape from his “tiring” nation. My assembly of his biographical data makes me think of a sort of patriarchal figure; one, who, at 85, had 8 children and 18 grandchildren.



Writer and artist, he would hint at his work's modus operandi: while “standing up”, as an opportunity to work his art/sculpture, while “seating”, to write down his books. No cell-phone, no computer in his studio.





His political leanings were widely known, as well as his 30 years of correspondence with Willy Brandt. No doubt a left-winger, what was so special to me, about him, was his criticism over the German Unification*; ultimately, his “germaneness”. It was a “union on paper”, not the first one in History. To him, those “18 million” Germans of the GDR didn’t have a voice on the matter.



Grass feared the “excess of (German) nationalism”. But most polemic was, in recent years, his admission of a sort of Nazi past (check on the book “Peeling the Onion”), on a concentration camp near Danzig (today's Polish Gdansk). Grass acknowledged his 12 year old obsession/fantasy, yet defended himself while affirming: he was “conscripted by the Waffen SS”, and was “not involved in military combat”. However, he would concur: “we did these crimes”.



By 1990, he used to travel very frequently to the former GDR (he had set a goal to go there every month, to keep an eye on the great political change...)

His ecological views as well and his criticism on the “predatory capitalism” and the American “war crimes” are quite public. Günter Grass, an unbeliever, had, though, one belief: the Sisyphus myth.


(my photo)

Reading The call of the toad will make you, for sure, recognize some of the previous lines, in the male character Reschke. Yes, there’s some similitude between Günter Grass and the grey mustachioed Alexander Reschke; I’ll be back on that. But you’ll have also, while reading, a much updated vision of the post-Berlin-Wall-fall times and worries, especially in Eastern Europe. You can add to that the nature/ecological concern present in many instances (“a premature spring”, and the regret over a “non-white Christmas”) starting with the Reschke’s habit of recording the sounds of the toads “singing”, and extracting meaning from that, in different regions. You cannot discard German or Polish culinary, from the prose, either.


(my photo)

Well, the narrative of the book is provided to us by a narrator, one who knew Reschke from school years. They had a common past, and now that Reschke left his diaries to the narrator, this one tells us the (love) story as if he had witnessed it from the very onset: Reschke, the art historian, a widower, meets (by chance??) a polish widow, Alexandra; both in their sixties.

She was buying flowers….for a cemetery, the place where her parents are buried.

The cemetery provides them the platform for an idea which will mature. They wonder about “reconciliation”, about a place where politics cannot enter, where “the dead can rest”. She invites him to her place, they share the just-bought mushrooms, with potatoes; they have coffee (in the Polish way) and yet their dialogue is still about the cemetery. At length their relationship will mature to the marriage point, but it will be parallel to the enfolding of this project: a German-Polish cemetery; surely, the Lithuanians to be included too.


(my photo)

But now a few phrases on each of the characters.

Alexander Reschke is a skinny, tall widower, whose wife died of cancer. He still has grown-up kids. Of his infancy we get to know he was a “precocious reading-rat”; he participated in the Nazi championships with the narrator of the book. Much later, graduating in Hamburg, he became a doctor in Art History, lecturing as a university professor in the Ruhr region. He had a PhD thesis on “epitaphs” in the Churches in Danzig. A professor with a “dispersed character” , in self-conflict…with ecological convictions. Some called him the “68 Vet”.


(my photo)

As to Alexandra Piatkowska, the short, compulsive smoker, with a strident laugh, she, too, worked in the art field; restoring sculptures/statues in churches, by applying gold on them, for example. She also has grown up children, but her husband died of leukemia, some time ago. Alexandra had her childhood in Vilnius. When 17, she was a member of the communist youth organization; she would leave the party, but “kept her superstitions”. Her eyes were captivating/impressive for Rescke.

She often laments the poor Poland (a “worthless zloty”), but highlights the omnipresent catholic church, and trusts the power of the D-mark, in their business “arrangement”. Poor Poland, rich Germany. Alexandra spoke German, but her phrases had no articles; indeed, she kicked the grammar.

At length the couple will manage to get a property rented for 60 years. You’ll get interesting insights on the psychology of death and religion, like this one: most of East Germans didn’t want a priest in their funerals. But their (couple’s) cemetery will be a safe “harbor” for Catholics as well as Protestants. Incineration is admitted too; and favored.

“The Raduna canal stinks”

“Maybe you’re right, Alexandra, we Germans don’t have a vein for happiness”.

“I would like to see Naples, then I can die”- Alexandra.

As you might guess, the cemetery business would thrive. It would turn profitable.

Other characters of interest are the Bengali Chaterjee and an old woman, a cemetery-society partner, soon to die, whose dialect makes the author venture into language itself, creating a challenge for the translator**.

Alexandra though, she doesn’t like the Bengali friend of Reschke. Chaterjee will be successful in his rickshaws business. Yet, Alexandra would say he was always with eyes half-closed, restless…and was “smelly!”. Nevertheless, the Indian business man had the power to change Reschke humor.


(my photo)

As to the trip to Italy I won’t tell you much,… because of the omens. Early on in the story/book, while together on the road, they had seen four toads on the road, completely flattened on the asphalt, they had tried to cross… and Reschke has uttered then: “not a good sign”.



Ah, I’ve been captivated by the couple’s description of the North Germany Labskaus, and Matjes; also, by Achim von Arnim, the poet, since both Reschke and Alexander liked reciting poetry.

I haven’t watched the movie based on the novel.


Unkenrufe - Zeit der Versöhnung (2005)




*See the interesting article by José Riço Direitinho (Crónica de uma catástrofe anunciada) in: Ípsilon, Publico, 19th July 2013. There you can read that the German Unification was a sort of "annexation". Also, the last phrases of the article: "Mas é sobretudo a participação numa conferência em Oslo, The Anatomy of Hate, organizada por Elie Wiesel e pelo Comité Norueguês para o prémio Nobel da Paz, que mais revela o lado reaccionário de Günter Grass, culpando a América de todos os horrores do mundo, e não gostando de ver judeus americanos e israelitas em maioria (os patrocinadores da fundação de Elie Wiesel são judeus). No fim, fica a sensação incómoda de que o anti-semitismo daquele jovem membro da Juventude Hitleriana e voluntário nas SS envelheceu mal."



**I’ve found, in the Portuguese translation [Mau Agoiro] of the book, several pages which will make you wonder about the kind of Portuguese you’re reading. Take a look at this quote “Hai mui tempo que nû apanhava û gansico destes cû mançanas lá drento”. Is it Portuguese? Of what century? Maybe Galician? [where is "^" you should assume it is "~"; yet, it's impossible to print it via computer keyboard]

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weder die "heiter-melancholische Liebesgeschichte" noch das "kunstvoll gesponnene(s) Gleichnis", wie auf dem Schutzumschlag heraufbeschworen, haben mich in UNKENRUFE begeistern können.
Die Gründung einer Deutsch-Polnischen Friedhofsgesellschaft und der daraus entstehende Versöhungsfriedhof in Danzig sind erzählenswert, aber nach den ersten hundert Seiten dominierte bei mir die Langeweile. Immer wieder gibt es Details, die sich in den historischen Kontext, den gegenwärtigen wie auch den vergangenen, einfügen, aber vieles wirkt aneinandergereiht und irrelevant. Sprachlich haben mich die ersten 20 Seiten in den Bann gezogen, aber dann ließ der Zauber nach, den ich bei Grass erwarte.
Ich fand die Erzählung zunehmend nicht nur ideenarm, sondern auch deprimierend, und von der angepriesenen "Heiterkeit" habe ich wenig gespürt. Ganz im Gegenteil nimmt der Lauf der Handlung ja einen immer schlimmeren Gang, der sein Ende in einem "Schicksal" findet, das - wenn man an eine Vorhersehung glaubt, ersatzweise hier den Autor - als zynisch (ironisch scheint mir ein zu schwaches Wort dafür) zynisch genannt werden muss. Denn auch Scheitern kann man in Abstufungen.
Und die Liebesgeschichte? Ach je, der deutsche Witwer und die polnische Witwe, Alexander und Alexandra, sie haben mich doch wenig berührt. Das mag auch damit zusammen hängen, dass Grass hier einen Kunstgriff gebraucht, der eine zusätzliche Distanz zwischen Handlung und Erzählung bringt: Es ist nämlich kein allwissender Erzähler, auch nicht der Witwer oder gar die Witwe, sondern die Geschichte wird erzählt von einem ehemalige Schulkameraden des Professorchens (wie die Witwe den Deutschen gerne liebevoll nennt), und schon er begegnet Alexander mit Vorbehalten. Die zusätzliche Reflektionsebene tut der Liebesgeschichte auch nicht wohl.
Mit Bedauern muss ich für mich feststellen, dass UNKENRUFE bislang das Buch von Günter Grass war, das mir am wenigsten Freude gemacht hat.

[pastbedtimestories · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was often smiling while reading this book. It’s funny, endearing, hilarious, and just wonderful. The narrator tells the story from the journal of the main character and it’s so interesting how it’s told! Alexander and Alexandra will stay with me a long while. No politics in cemetery! I love the way Gunter Grass writes so much. The quirky events and the comedic heart running through these pages remind me of a Wes Anderson film. I also read The Tin Drum and that too was wonderful. It’s highly likely I will make an attempt to read all of Grass’s fiction.

Page 244, a few pages from the end… : I, too, would be glad to take my leave now, and wish I could end my report at this point. Has everything, then, been said? How automatically the cemeteries of reconciliation fill up. The Germans return home as dead men and women. The future belongs to the bicycle rickshaw. Poland is not yet lost. Alexander and Alexandra are happily married. This ending would please me…

[Susanna Rautio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Voisin antaa nolla tähteä, mutta annan yhden. Grass ei kertakaikkiaan ole minun kirjailijani. En uskaltaisi lukea Peltirumpuakaan enää, koska pelkäisin, etten pitäisi siitäkään.

Kaksi leski-ihmistä tapaa sattumalta, rakastuu ja perustaa hautausmaayrityksen. Voimakkaasti aatteellinen bisnes rakentaa sopua ja rauhaa saksalaisten, puolalaisten ja balttien kesken. Tai sitten ei, koska pahaa mieltä ja väärinkäsityksiähän tästä aiheutuu.

Grassin kertoja on hyvin satiirinen. Satiiri kohdistuu yhdistyneeseen Saksaan ja D-markkaan, mutta paljon siitä jää minulta ymmärtämättä. Satiiri on kitkerää ja hieman katkeraa. Tyhmä lukuvalinta, koska marraskuu olisi ihan tarpeeksi ankea kuukausi ilman ankeaa lukemista!

Kaiken tämän taustalla huutelivat kellosammakot. Mitä ja miksi? En ymmärtänyt siitäkään mitään.

[Jaclyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first Grass was Crabwalk, which I loved.

I enjoyed the historical context of this (Poland/Germany just as the Wall is coming down, but before the Soviet Union has started to crumble), especially because the characters provide an interesting commentary on the political atmosphere of the time.

That said, the satire didn't work for me. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed the book more had I read it in German, but it seemed like critical moments of the satire just flopped in the English translation. Maybe it's because, upon reading the review on the back calling the book "accessible satire... taken to absurd extremes," I was expecting something more ... Vonnegut-esque. That certainly didn't happen.

I stuck with it because I liked my first Grass, and I wanted to see where A&A would end up at the conclusion. Not sure it was totally worth the time, though.

[Glenn]

Pretty disappointing for a Gunter Grass novel. Though interesting historically if you don't know too much about German-Polish relations after WWII, the story is incredibly slow, lacking in the vibrancy and originality of his other novels and, unfortunately, it's pretty boring.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

A satirical West-meets-East book in which the Deutschmark starts to do what German armies couldn't. Like many of Gunter Grass' works, I enjoyed it, but was pretty sure I was missing a lot of the references.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-woven story about a widow and widower falling in love after WWII amidst hopes for reconciliation, the unchangeable nature of the past, and the suggestion of more destruction to come - but of a different nature. The narration is very interesting as well: written in the style of a journal, the narrator is neither part of the story nor omnipotent. I don't think I've read another book written in this style. Quite a good read.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Los únicos trozos que prometen son las (pocas) ironías del narrador.

Como cuento hubiera podido tener cierto humor, pero como novela se hace demasiado lento, pedestre y pesado.

No pude culminarlo. Günter Grass es un autor importante, pero definitivamente éste no es, en mi opinión, uno de sus libros más logrados.

Reseña escrita en Marzo 2002

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little meditation on aging, capitalism, and unexpected love. Truth be told, even Grass' lesser works are better than most other's best. For Grass: a 3-star book. For anyone else: 4-stars. I'm partial. Sue me.
There's no option for the elusive Ed McMahon "three-and-a-half-stars."

[T.P. Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Substandard Grass in my view. Not up to quality of "Tin Drum" or "Dog Years" or even later work like "Crabwalk." For what seems like the umpteenth time, the protagonist is an ethnic German from Danzig/Gdansk, born in approximately 1927. In other words, Grass himself. The usually entertaining attention to minute detail of that city is now boring, having been gone over ad nauseam. Some entertaining characters to be sure - Wrobel, Brakup, etc., - but not enough done with the character of Chatterjee, which could have been developed more. Did not like the structure of the novel, with a friend of the protagonist- with a first person POV - assembling papers, photos, tapes and such into a narrative. Ending seemed false, like author either didn't know what to do with the story or got bored with it and just wanted to end it. The premise of a commercially viable "cemetery association" for the interment of displaced Germans and Poles held much promise, I think, for a political commentary and/or satire, but it didn't work for me.

[Hamidreza Jafarsalehi · Rating 4 out of 5]

پایان "آوای وزغ" قابل تصور نبود، نه که واقعا نتوان پایانی بر آن متصور شد بلکه ریتم داستان اینگونه نبود که خیال پایان به سر آدم بزند. نهایت تصور این بود که جایی میانه ی زندگی همچین که آگاهی از بین می رود و زندگی ادامه می یابد، شخصیت ها هم ادامه می دهند و همینطور شد(؟). همچنان که الکس می گوید:"تو همیشه از واقعی بودن بیشتر لذت می بردی تا واقعیت ها ..." و آیا او فکر می کند پایان بشریت با جنگ ها و انبار مالامال از بمب ها واقعی است؟ "وقتی فوران آتشفشانی جزیره لوزان، چاه های نفت آتش گرفته، کردهای فراری، بیانیه ی پیروزی و برآورد حدودی کشته شدگان را زیر مواد مذاب و خاکسترهای خود دفن کرد، پیامدهای این حوادث اکنون بی ارزش، دوباره با تصاویری که از پی آمدند، آبستن شد. رشکه با شرح تمام این رویدادها با دست خطی که به خطاطی شبیه بود، از کاناپه برخاست و درحالیکه چوب شوری را می مکید، در پی نتیجه گیری برآمد: هیچ چیز پایانی ندارد."

[G. İlke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dünyalılar olarak, iyi niyetle bile başladığımız bütün işleri bir yerden sonra yüzümüze gözümüze bulaştırmakla ünlüyüz herhalde evrende. Anladığım kadarıyla da Bay Grass tam olarak bu mesajı vermeye çalışmış bizlere. Hikaye fazlasıyla özgün olsa da, verilmek istenen mesaj tarafımca halihazırda kabul edildiğinden, bana pek heyecan vermedi doğrusu. Yine de hikayenin güzelliği için tavsiye edebilirim. =)

[Paige]

This was just not enticing enough for me, unfortunately. I really appreciated the wonderful makings of the geriatric love story it opens with, but I just found myself generally unmotivated to pick it up. I was missing that "Tin Drum" magic. Just didn't catch my fancy as hoped...(it's not you, Gunter- it's me.)

[Lina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich fand es schwierig zu lesen, wobei ich nicht einmal genau sagen kann, woran es lag. Vielleicht wird es beim zweiten Versuch besser.

Was mir wirklich gut gefiel, war der deutsch-polnische Kontext.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minor Grass, without question, yet I harbor a sentimental link to the book as I read days before travelling to Rome.

[Trinity Benstock · Rating 5 out of 5]

With age Grass’ pen has grown lighter! This tender account of a widower and widow attempting to create a Polish-German cemetery (Germans will not come first in this review does not lack grass’ typical irony and political commentary. However, it is altogether his most pleasant work, despite the ending.

[Özlem · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Ricardo Munguia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una novela un poco extraña, no tanto por la historia que cuenta si no por la premisa en la que se sustenta. Puede llegar a ser árida y confusa por momentos por los múltiples giros y las digresiones de la historia principal , pero fascinante.

La historia que se narra es la de Alexander y Alexandra, viudos que después de conocerse en una visita al cementerio, entablan una relación ion amorosa y una empresa noble, la de constituir un cementerio de la reconciliación donde alemanes y polacos enterrados lejos de su tierra de origen puedan encontrar paz en el lugar que los vio nacer. Con esa finalidad fundan la Asociación Germano-Polaca de Cementerios, que resulto ser un éxito, pero con el éxito (y el dinero) vienen los problemas y lo que fue una noble y pequeña propuesta se desfigura por completo. La historia de esta empresa es reconstruida por el autor, quien cuenta con documentos, fotografías y grabaciones de las personas involucradas en la Asociación, por lo que por momentos la voz del autor traspasa la barrera de la ficción que nos cuenta, pero nunca toma un papel protagónico.

De los personajes principales sus características e historia se nos va revelando lentamente a lo largo del libro, y se podría decir que tienen gustos afines, una historia similar que de alguna manera quieren dejar atrás y una personalidad que difiere pero no diametralmente, lo más interesante es que estos detalles no se nos cuentan de manera explícita, si no sutilmente a través de gestos y descripciones de las acciones de los personajes, tan así que si no se lee con cuidado uno puede perderlos.

La historia se pierde por momentos entre descripciones de lápidas antiguas y arte y arquitectura, como en diversos detalles de origen administrativo, contable y legal, narrador de una era realista, pero que por momentos parece una farsa por las circunstancias. A veces es interesante, pero la mayoría de las veces no, pero resulta necesario (de alguna manera como la burocracia) para entender el contexto de la historia.

Sin ser un gran libro, los detalles a los que le encontré gusto me parecieron buenos, pero sentí que es un libro disperso, entre la historia romántica y personal de los protagonistas, y la historia de la asociación perdí el interes por momentos a pesar de ser una novela relativamente corta. El final es excelente y tal vez eso fue lo que más me gusto de la novela. Recomendado para aquellos quienes gustan de novelas con detalles obsesivos (por momentos me recordó a "Todos los nombres" de José Saramago), y quienes gustan dar un vistazo a la historia de dos personas marcadas por la segunda Guerra mundial y los eventos sucedidos ppir las posguerra, aunque esta bien estructurada y fluye bien, creo que l avariedae de temas que toca la hacen confusa, y los detalles sutiles no la hacen apta para una lectura ligera, como la longitud del libro lo sugiere.

[Eszter · Rating 3 out of 5]

the author's treatment of his two elderly protagonists is (the word i'm looking for is not coming to me so forgive me, but i am about to dance around it for a bit) sensitive, humane, sympathetic, tender, candid (none of these exactly but all of them to some extent). also: eastern europe. whimsical and enjoyable with interesting underlying political insights regarding the former prussia and really all of europe after the fall of the berlin wall. not one hundred percent absorbing throughout, but certainly very pleasant.

[Hesham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expert both in the Germans and the poles ,Gunter Grass dissected both mentality efficiently.
anyway,I have read this novel solely to get acquainted with his too prolix narrative before reading Danzig trilogy.

[Lechw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tuttua Grassia - hyvässä ja pahassa. Välillä junnailee hieman liikaakin yksityiskohdissa, mutta joukosta erottuu teräviä ajatuksia ja huomioita. Paranee loppua kohti, mikä aina plussaa. Lukiessa mietityttämään jäi, miten paljon tätä pitäisi lukea romaanina, miten paljon EU-allegoriana.

[Gomboli1 · Rating 1 out of 5]

اصلن جذاب نيست

[Minerva · Rating 2 out of 5]

** 1.5 stars **

[Mariusz Kalisiak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historia milosci Polki i Niemca po upadku komunizmu. Proba zanalizowania polsko-niemieckiego pojednania podszyta sceptyzmem.

[Ana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutamente enfadonho.

[B.C. Dittemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the challenge of reading a Grass novel; he makes no qualms about who his audience is—namely him—and if you don’t like it, you can go read something easy and accessible. His narrators are often unusual and his stories framed deeply within his own culture and history of his homeland. In The Call of the Toad we meet an older couple who, over the course of the book, fall in love, brought together by an idea for a new kind of cemetery. I can’t say I ever fully understood what was happening but that is typically the case when I read Grass. I just go with it and hope it all makes sense by the end.

This one, however, was missing something. I liked the distant narrator, the idea that it’s some person (possibly Grass himself) picking through the notes and files of a schoolyard friend to create a story. But perhaps the distance of the narrator is too far removed for the reader. I never truly felt the full of effect of what our protagonists are doing. This could be because the historical setting of the book is more personal to Grass than a wide audience, or it could be a flaw of the narration. Regardless, it’s an interesting tale, and the love story between Alexander and Alexandra is surprisingly sweet for Grass, and helped in my making it through this short book that seemed much longer than it is.

[Kaj Roihio]

Saksa ja Puola. Ongelmallisempaa naapurivaltioiden suhdetta on vaikea löytää. Danzigista eli Gdanskista kotoisin oleva Günter Grass on kirjoittanut tapansa mukaan omaperäisen ja tulkinnanvaraisen kertomuksen ikääntyneiden saksalaisen miehen ja puolalaisen naisen suhteesta, kuin näiden kahden maan keskinäisistä väleistä. Pariskunta haluaa haudata maidensa surumielistä menneisyyttä, mutta sovinnollisuus kasvaa voitontavoitteluksi, kun hautapaikasta tuleekin kovin kallis. Puolalainen ylpeys ja saksalainen liiketoiminta oppivat kummasti tulemaan toistensa kanssa toimeen, vaikka soraääniä molemmista leireistä kuuluu enemmän kuin tarpeeksi, sillä yhteisellä asiallahan tässä ollaan. Raha-asialla. Uskomuksen mukaan kellosammakot huutavat varoitusta tulevasta ja vähitellen kaiken ylle nousee tummia pilviä useampiakin. Kommunismista vapautunut Itä-Euroopan maa vetää puoleensa odottamattomia bisneksentekijöitä ja kaikkien yhteisenä nimittäjänä tuntuu olevan ahneus. Grass on hyvä kirjoittaja ja Kellosammakon huudon alku erityisesti kulkee vaivattomasti. Ei tämä muutenkaan ole raskasta luettavaa ja jättää sopivasti miettimään. En tiedä, pitävätkö kirjassa kuvatut tapahtumat paikkaansa enkä haluakaan, mutta tosielämässä välillä käy kaikenlaista, mitä voidaan nähdä laajempien kokonaisuuksien allegorioina. Tai yleensä vain merkillisinä sattumina.

[Scherzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

¡Qué es eso de se podría, se debería y se tendría que! Son hermosos condicionales. Ya los he estudiado. Pero mejor decir: ¡se puede, se debe y hay que! Lo haremos inmediatamente. Y lo diremos en voz alta donde política acaba y empieza ser humano.

¡Locura! Sí, Alexandra, con esa palabra se anunció el nuevo decenio.Así se saluda a la gente en los últimos tiempos; ¿No es una locura? Sí, ¡es una locura! Para cualquier olla abierta la locura es la tapadera apropiada.

¿Tenía que encontrar en mí, el muy necio, a otro necio complaciente?

¿Cuántos sapos tendré que tragarme aún?

Viudo y viuda estuvieron de acuerdo en que, en alguna parte y, desde luego, en los cementerios, la maldita política debía cesar. "Es lo que digo- exclamó ella- con muerte enemigo ya no enemigo.

¿Tenía que encontrar en mí, el muy necio, a otro necio complaciente?

La pareja parecía hecha para esa clase de conversaciones. Él dominaba el tono elevado del lenguaje culto; ella sabía encolerizarse de forma plausible.


En todo eso me interesa su aspecto ilustrativo y el puente tendido entre el arte y la vida diaria.

¿No es arte siempre poquito falsificación? Pero comprendo, arte alemán debe ser puro ciento por ciento.