The virtues of the wind grouse

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The advantages of the greyhounds is the first book publication by Günter Grass . The anthology, published in 1956, contains poems, drawings and prose by the author.

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The poem “The advantages of the wind grouse”, which is printed on the inside cover of the book and illustrated on the cover, is the namesake of Günter Grass' first book publication. In addition to the title poem, the anthology contains 40 other poems, the titles of which are often related to the animal world (Vogelflug, Die Mückenplage, der Bär, Tierschutz, K, der Käfer, V der Vogel), or on the subject of the garden (beans and pears, To all gardeners) to have. Embedded between the individual poems is an illustrated, four-page prose text, "The Five Birds". This first book publication is groundbreaking for the further work of Günter Grass. There are already essential elements in it, such as his own illustration of the writing and titles based on the animal world, such as in his novel Der Flounder .

Illustrations

The anthology contains the double-page cover illustration and 10 other pen drawings by the author from 1955 and 1956.

Emergence

In his autobiographical work "When Skinning the Onion" (2006) Günter Grass reports on the genesis of his first book publication:

“I have always written poetry. I wrote it and rejected it. I would never have pushed for the publication of everything that I had done out of mere compulsion to write [...] Only the poems I wrote in Berlin were completely my own, wanted to be spoken, read, printed. Likewise, the pen-and-ink drawings for the English brochure that was to become my first book under the title 'The Advantages of the Greyhounds' should not be seen as an illustrative accessory, but as a graphic continuation and anticipation of the poems. "

Günter Grass wrote about the 1991 edition of “The Advantages of the Windhuck”:

"Even if I drew fish in between ... the chickens dominated right up to the title poem of the first volume, 'The advantages of the wind grouse', poems and drawings in English paperback ... While in the years before drawing and writing went different ways, both were allowed to do each other for the first time Practice disciplines in fantastic objectivity; they lived on an ink. Not all poems found a place in the volume. "

reception

During the first publication in the 1950s, the lyric work by Günter Grass received little attention, the anthology was only sold 700 times in the first three years.

literature

  • H.-Georg Lützenkirchen: The draftsman and poet Günter Grass began his career as a writer with “The advantages of the wind grouse”. In: literaturkritik.de, review forum, January 31, 2008, online .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ # Lützenkirchen 2016 .
  2. ↑ Quoted from: # Lützenkirchen 2016 .
  3. ↑ Quoted from Computergarten, October 16, 2016, online .
  4. ↑ Hanspeter Brode: Günter Grass, Munich, CH Beck Verlag 1979, p. 26 ISBN 3-406-07437-5