The Flounder

The Grimms' tale of "The fisherman and his wife" counts as a notorious piece of misogyny: in the published version of the tale (there are others, of course), the wife Ilsebill keeps demanding more and more from the magic flounder until her greed has destroyed their happiness altogether. So, naturally, Grass uses it as an ironic central motif for this novel, his definitive analysis of the History of Women. Which is also — incidentally — a history of cooking, and of human settlement in the Danzig/Gdansk city and region, from matriarchal clans of neolithic times to the 1970 strike in the Lenin Shipyard.

Grass clearly means well, and his conclusion isn't very favourable to the way men have run the world, but even as far back as 1977, show more it's still quite an arrogant task for a male writer to set himself. With hindsight, there are probably roles that his proletarian strong women of history could have filled other than as cooks, nurturers and bed-warmers, and he doesn't really do himself any favours by his gently ironic treatment of the modern women in the feminist tribunal that is trying the flounder for his crimes against womanhood. Especially since the narrator, constantly reincarnated in new male characters, seems to have slept with all of the women in the book...

As always, a tour-de-force piece of writing, clever, witty and knowledgeable, but maybe not the Grass novel you should be rushing to re-read 45 years on. Unless you are fascinated by Baltic cuisine, in which case you can just read it for the recipes (not suitable for vegetarians!). show less

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.

Comparable stories of the battle of the sexes told by an immortal talking flounder, (yes, really) whose subtle guidance to men through the ages leads to the destruction of a once influential matriarchal society and the ascendance of patriarchy.

Hmmm, well, almost every review I've seen of this book has some negative critique or another. I, on the other hand, found it a fabulous piece of fiction. This reincarnation creation myth is quite entertaining and serves as Grass' difinitive statement concerning history, feminism and yes, love. I'll leave it up to you to discover the rest.

Günter Grass makes a flat fish (presumably a flounder) speak and write the history of the humanity. Throughout the pages will know if the luckiest or unluckiest day in history was when a Neolithic fisherman caught this loudspeaker fish.
Grass brings to the conversation his life predilections: food and women, giving both the historical role that the masculine imperative has denied for centuries. Probably the luckiest day of history will be when we look back and restitute to women the powerful and creational principle that incarnate.
It is also remarkable the translation work by A. Saenz, giving to the Spanish version a loyal and beautiful resonance without precedent in other translations of The Flounder.

I have read about 100 pages so far. I might finish it but I do not feel compelled to right now. The premise of the book is so imaginative and the writing is full of dry wit and cynical dead-on humon about the difference between the sexes. So, it is sad that the book isn't tighter. The story lines and times are intermingled in a ad-hoc rambling way that is somewhat tedious and repetitive. A good editor could take this book, remove 300 pages, and it could be fantastic. It is definitely a book you can put down and pick up again later though, so I might. Interim rating 2.5

Well. Uh. This is definitely something.

An odd book, to put it mildly. Grass has his trademark humor and historical wisdom here. But the whole concept of the novel is something baffling - a talking fish gives advice to the reincarnations of a man and his cook-wife in the areas near Danzig, and the fish is accused by a gang of radical feminists that he has altered the course of history by instituting the patriarchy. There's also a lot of discussion on food, particularly potatoes.

I have no idea what to make of this, but I will return to it. And maybe on a full stomach, as Grass' writing makes me hunger.

A hard but slightly overwritten book about the history of Prussia (the Danzig area) and cooks through the eyes of a fish... What a feminist-socialist court can do with a flounder who can be the Zeitgeist or the Tempter...?