The flounder

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Sculpture of the same name by Günter Grass in Sønderborg, Denmark

The Butt is a 1977 novel by the writer Günter Grass . With a focus on the area of ​​the mouth of the Vistula, it deals with the history of mankind from the Neolithic to the present on several narrative levels, and here in particular the relationship between men and women. The fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife is the starting point and structural characteristic. Taken from this is the flounder , a talking fish, which Grass presents as an all-time advisor for men.

Narrative perspective and levels

In his novel, Günter Grass lets a male first-person narrator with no boundaries work. The temporal omnipresence is immediately noted at the beginning of the novel in the words “I, that's me at all times”.

And Ilsebill, the woman as such, also lets Grass be “there from the start”. With these hints the reader is introduced to the first of the three narrative levels: the story and also historical criticism. For this, depending on the epoch, the narrator slips into the garb of a more or less important man and lets Ilsebill act as a cook.

The overlays of the other narrative levels can also be found on the first page of the novel. "Before conceiving, there was mutton shoulder with beans and pears". Here, another double character of the novel becomes clear: it is a "love novel [...] [and] at the same time the cultural and culinary history of nutrition".

Thus, on a first narrative level - similar to Gustav Freytag's six-part novel Die Ahnen (1872–1880) - the focus of human history is in the foreground, while the second level describes the relationship between the current narrative self and Ilsebill's current feminine counterpart . The motive of nutrition plays a third level. Grass not only lets the woman relevant to the narrative self appear as a cook in the various epochs, but also gives a little insight into the Gdańsk and Kashubian kitchen history over time and thus fulfills the promise made in the novel From the diary of a snail , to write a “narrative cookbook”.

In addition to the first-person narrator, the flounder forms another narrative instance. He is “in a father-son relationship” with the first-person narrator. A feminist tribunal is opened over the Flounder, which “sits against [him] as the inspirer of the patriarchal order”. The tribunal serves the Flounder as a forum for his stories. Butt and first-person narrator complement each other or repeat parts of the story.

content

The approximately four thousand year history of mankind from the Neolithic to the Polish strike movement in 1970, a forerunner of Solidarność 1980, at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk is divided into nine chapters. On the second narrative level, the nine chapters correspond to the nine months of the pregnancy of Ilsebill, the wife of the first-person narrator of the present and a symbol of the woman herself. In order to also pay tribute to the third, kitchen-historical level, Grass has nine or eleven cooks appear across the chapters. In the first month or chapter three cooks are mentioned, in the following eight each one only.

The narrative levels are brought together in the ninth month. The past times are over and the future is upon us. The newborn is seen as a bearer of hope and an opportunity not to continue or to repeat the past absence and failure: a "desperately utopian end".

The dominance of the historical narrative level is also reflected in the following summary of content: The level of Ilsebill and the current narrative self is only touched upon, the kitchen story is dropped entirely.

shape

According to Ilsebill's pregnancy, the novel is divided into nine parts named “in the first month”, “in the second month” and so on. The parts are in turn divided into chapters, which either consist of a narrative text or a poem. The title of the poems is also the chapter heading. An exception to this rule is the eighth month, entitled Father's Day . This chapter, in which Grass discusses the women's movement in a satirical way , has not been divided into sub-chapters. The narrative perspective also changes: the narrator, who was previously actively involved, is only an observer who does not participate in the event in the eighth month.

interpretation

In Der Butt, Grass offers a new edition of the question of which gender is to blame for the course of the story, which is primarily perceived as negative. He reverses the role relationships of the fairy tale (in the version of the Brothers Grimm ) and portrays the man as an insatiable being who was always greedy for historical events - such as the migration of peoples, technical progress or war. Women, on the other hand, ensure the constant preservation of humanity through forced procreation, pregnancy, childbirth and nutrition. Thus they represent the true "heroes" of history, while the male urge for progress leads humanity to the abyss. The butt serves as a trigger and catalyst for a masculine fixation of history.

With the “third breast” of the mothers at the beginning of history, Grass once again raises the question of a third way . According to the content and subject matter of the novel, this sought-after alternative could be a middle ground between the two extremes of matriarchy and patriarchy . With the elimination of this breast, however, this counter offer seems to be rejected by the author. The circumstances under which the “third breast” is omitted also suggest that the third way was always only an illusion, but never a feasible option: “But when Wigga had the so-called dream rumble […] exterminated in several large-scale actions, and that for us Took wishing herb, [...] we no longer really saw what we wanted. […] Suddenly […] the good old Wigga was standing there with only two vulgar tits. "

reception

The Flounder received an extraordinarily wide media coverage and was translated into numerous languages. The novel was received particularly negatively in the women's movement. For example, the women's magazine Emma named Grass Pasha of the Month for his work . After The Tin Drum, it is considered to be Grass' most important work.

The first sentence of the novel, "Ilsebill salted up.", Was voted the most beautiful first sentence of a German-language novel in 2007.

expenditure

Current issues

Audio book

literature

  • Anika Davidson: Advocata aesthetica. Studies on the Marian motif in modern literature using the example of Rainer Maria Rilke and Günter Grass. Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg 2001.
  • Irmgard Elsner Hunt: Mothers and mother myth in Günter Grass' novel "The Butt". Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
  • Marco Fuhrländer: The Flounder. In: Harenbergs Kulturführer Roman und Novelle, Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus AG, Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-411-76163-0 , p. 295 f.
  • Barbara Garde: "Even if the world ended, your women stories would not stop". Between “Butt” and “Rättin” - women and women's movement at Günter Grass. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1988.
  • Oswald Hauser: History and Awareness of History. 19 lectures for the Ranke Society, Association for History in Public Life. Muster-Schmidt Verlag, Göttingen 1981.
  • Joachim Kaiser: Did Grass manage to create a “Magic Mountain” in Danzig? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13./14. August 1977.
  • Joachim Kaiser: Experienced literature. From “Doctor Faustus” to “Fettfleck”. German writers in our time. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1988, pp. 280-285.
  • Siegfried Mews: Gunter Grass and His Critics. From 'The Tin Drum' to 'Crabwalk'. Camden House, New York 2008.
  • Heinz-Peter Preußer: Last Worlds. German-language contemporary literature on both sides of the apocalypse. Winter, Heidelberg 2003, chapter The plurality of downfalls. Postmodernism with Alban Nikolai Herbst and the attempt at a typology: Enzensberger - Grass - Strauss, pp. 9–32.
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki: From the unseen Fruen. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine, August 13, 1977.
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki: Günter Grass. Ammann, Zurich 1992, pp. 105–117.
  • Petra Reuffer: The improbable garments of the other truth. On the rediscovery of the wonderful with G. Grass and I. Morgner. The Blue Owl, Essen 1988.
  • Alice Schwarzer: Passover of the month. In: Emma, July 1977, p. 5 ff. Quoted from From the magazine "Emma". Retrieved March 22, 2007.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rolf Michaelis: Enlighten the palate with your head. Günter Grass: The Flounder. Emancipation - more than a fairy tale. In: Die Zeit, August 12, 1977.
  2. ^ Franz Josef Görtz: Günter Grass. Information for readers. Luchterhand, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1984, pp. 131–140.
  3. ↑ a b G. M. Rösch: Roman in the 20th century. 1987, chapter The Flounder.
  4. ^ Günter Grass: The Flounder. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2007. Chapter Die Runkelmuhme, pp. 88–89.
  5. ^ Sabine Moser: Günter Grass. Novels and short stories. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2000, p. 119.