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bookherd's review against another edition
I read this in my teens in the 1980's and I remember slogging through it, thinking it was kind of dismal. When I saw it at a rummage sale for 50c I wondered what I would think of it now, as an adult. I shouldn't have bothered. I got 30 pages in and decided I was right the first time.
jacobbou's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
sirfrankiecrisp's review against another edition
Dnf (pg. 120) - Saving it for later - not many books have a bell-beaker joke and the banal characterisations by anthropologists/archaeologists
greenbourne's review against another edition
4.0
An epic novel about the history of the conflicts between men and woman, combined with a history of our food. As it is often the case in Grass books, the story takes place near Gdansk/Danzig. It starts
from the stone age and finishes in the 1970's. The male and omniscient narrator shares his encounters he had with nine female cooks throughout the centuries and how a flounder gave him advice to support and cement the male supremacy. Parallel, the flounder is accused by a female court, because of his advice he gave to the men that lead to the oppression of women.
Grass is known for his convoluted structure of sentences, his wordiness, the addiction to Neologisms and his realism. Sometimes this made it difficult to read for me, but after 150-200 pages and getting used to his style, it was ok. The book is structured in 9 chapters. Ilsebill, the girlfriend and omniscient female counterpart to the narrator, is pregnant. In each month of the pregnancy the focus lies on another female cook. On the one hand, the male narrator shares his thoughts and on the other hand, the female court discusses the role of the flounder during that time. The chapters often contain poems as well, which I found really nice because it helps to mix things up a bit.
While all Chapters are about the fight between the genders, each of them focusses on the 'tools' that men or women use, to keep their supremacy. In the first two Chapters, women rule about men and, for example, negate men their right of fatherhood. While in the middle-age religion is used to rule women, later on domestic abuse or even rapes take that role.
Although, you need to give the book some time, I would say it is worth reading it. Grass, known for supporting the demands of the 68's generation and his support of the german social party, wrote a pleading for gender equality that is still up-to-date.
from the stone age and finishes in the 1970's. The male and omniscient narrator shares his encounters he had with nine female cooks throughout the centuries and how a flounder gave him advice to support and cement the male supremacy. Parallel, the flounder is accused by a female court, because of his advice he gave to the men that lead to the oppression of women.
Grass is known for his convoluted structure of sentences, his wordiness, the addiction to Neologisms and his realism. Sometimes this made it difficult to read for me, but after 150-200 pages and getting used to his style, it was ok. The book is structured in 9 chapters. Ilsebill, the girlfriend and omniscient female counterpart to the narrator, is pregnant. In each month of the pregnancy the focus lies on another female cook. On the one hand, the male narrator shares his thoughts and on the other hand, the female court discusses the role of the flounder during that time. The chapters often contain poems as well, which I found really nice because it helps to mix things up a bit.
While all Chapters are about the fight between the genders, each of them focusses on the 'tools' that men or women use, to keep their supremacy. In the first two Chapters, women rule about men and, for example, negate men their right of fatherhood. While in the middle-age religion is used to rule women, later on domestic abuse or even rapes take that role.
Although, you need to give the book some time, I would say it is worth reading it. Grass, known for supporting the demands of the 68's generation and his support of the german social party, wrote a pleading for gender equality that is still up-to-date.
arkham's review against another edition
It was interesting and weird, but just didn't hold my attention, I guess. And there were these poems interspersed that I didn't love. I'd say I made it half way through but the print is tiny and the pages are thin, it might only have been a third of the way.
jen_richardson19's review against another edition
5.0
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!
xterminal's review
1.0
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)