greeny reviewed The flounder by Günter Grass
Review of 'The flounder' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
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, …
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.
