The Call of the Toad is a 1992 novel by Gunter Grass. I read The Tin Drum some years ago and didn't care for it (I forget why), and I remember liking The Flounder (because how can you not like an eternal talking fish). I liked The Call of the Toad much better than Tin Drum, but for some reason I'm not wanting to finish it. I'm not sure why. It's interesting, and the characters have a quirky feel to them that I like. I'm just not motivated to keep reading, so I'm not finishing this one. So many authors I haven't read makes me think it'll be a long time before I come back to this one.
from the back of the book:
In what many have called his most accessible satire since The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass tells the poignant, irreverent story of two people who find adventure in love and business. The love is late middle-aged; the business is the cemetery business. The couple's vision is to offer plots in Gdansk to those Germans who have been exiled after World War II. He, the German, will provide the bodis, cash, and know-how; she, the Pole, will provide the human warmth and political fervor. The Call of the Toad is a tale of entrepreneurship taken to absurd extremes as both the German and the Polish characters are skewered with style, tenderness, and baroque inventiveness.Kirkus Reviews closes with this: "Spun like a jazz solo, the book seems a lot more casual than you later realize it is -which is one of its choicest pleasures." Publishers Weekly has a positive review. Entertainment Weekly gives it a grade of A-.
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Maybe you never got past the casualness, so you didn't realize it when it hit (grin). Thanks for telling me I should probably pass on this one and this author.
ReplyDeleteI still don't know why I couldn't get into this. I did like The Flounder. Maybe his other books just pale next to that one.
DeleteSometimes you just don´t click with an author. I only remember reading "The Box" by Grass, and I think I liked it ok. "The Tin Drum" made a good film, actually.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's it, and The Flounder was just the exception for me. I didn't see the movie because I didn't like The Tin Drum book at all.
DeleteRead The Tin Drum back when it was all the thing - maybe in the late 70's? Didn't much like it either. I wondered at the time if it had something to do with being translated. I have read other books that are translated that seemed fine but I always wonder what the difference might be if reading them in their original.
ReplyDeleteDarla
I'm glad it's not just me. I heard so much about this book I felt almost guilty not liking it.
DeleteI'm like you, always wondering what a book in translation _really_ says. There's no such thing as a strictly literal translation, and even if it could be managed it would be a chore to read.