Günter Grass and his Critics: From 'The Tin Drum' to 'Crabwalk' by Siegfried MewsDer Fall Grass: Ein deutsches Debakel by Wolfgang Beutin

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276 Reviews symbolic capital with regard toSchmidt's habitus ofself-stylization, thereis,rather sadly Imust admit, very little in thisvolume thatwe did not know already. KING'S COLLEGE LONDON ROBERTWENINGER Gunter Grass and his Critics: From 'The Tin Drum' to 'Crabwalk'. By SIEGFRIED MEWS. (Studiesin GermanLiterature, Linguistics andCulture: Literary Criti cism inPerspective) Rochester, NY: CamdenHouse. 2008. vii+426pp. $90; ?50. ISBN 978-1-57113-062-4. Der FallGrass:Eindeutsches Debakel. By WOLFGANG BEUTIN.Frankfurt a.M.:Peter Lang. 2008. 192 pp. ?18.50; ?12. ISBN 978-3-631-57004-3. Siegfried Mews's astoundingly well-researched critical overview ofGiinter Grass's reception isan essentialcompendiumforanybody workingon theauthor's prose fiction. Itilluminates theliterary-critical reception ofGrass inrespect ofall fifteen piecesof literary fiction and systematically analysessourcesranging from contem porarynewspaperreviewsin theGerman,US, and (to a lesserextent) UK and Frenchpress,through disparateresearch articles andchapters, tohighly specialized monographs. Consideration of the media responseto the2006 autobiography has been added in theepilogue. Mews discreetly sifts and evaluates hispress material andyetremains bothsubstantially more inclusive andmore critically focusedthan similar earlier studies(e.g.Blechgetrommelt: Gunter Grass inder Kritik, ed.by Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Gottingen: Steidl,1997)), so that hisbook stands outas a valuable toolforresearch. Particularly in thecase of lesscelebrated works suchasKopfge burten oderDie Deutschensterben aus andUnkenrufe, Mews significantly corrects thepictureof their contemporary reception not justby recording positivereviews butalsobystressing thedifferent sympathies andpriorities brought tothe works in different geographical locations. Yet thisisonlythetipof theiceberg. Inextending, bothchronologically and spatially, Volker Neuhaus's critical overview ofacademic scholarship on each literary work (Giinter Grass (Stuttgart: Metzler,1992)),Mews systematically bringsback to lightforgotten insights expressedin earlyand not alwayseasilyaccessiblearticles, aswell asdelineating the major themes, issues, and stylistic concernsthat underpinacademicdebateup to thepresent. This isabove all tobe welcomed in respect ofGrass's 'DanzigTrilogy', which has inspired a myriadof criticalapproachesand vastlydiffering interpretations over theyears. Althoughtheindexisa little disappointing ina research companionof thiscalibre (termssuch as 'religion'/'Christianity', 'politics','narrator'/'narration', 'teaching'/ 'pedagogy','masculinity', and 'gender' were all absent,despitetheirinclusionas interpretative categoriesin thetext), Mews's sixty-page bibliography of secondary sources outclassesallothercontemporary compilations on theauthor. Nobody working on Grass in the future-at whatever level-can afford not to have a copy of this book to hand. However, it should be noted thatMews neither expresses anypersonal, overarching interpretations ofeithertheauthor orhiswork, which it is probably unfair to expect from a companion of this sort, nor develops MLR, 104.1, 2009 277 anyobviouscritique or theory regarding thecritical reception as a phenomenonin its own right. This isan element orchapter onemight more reasonably havehoped for, and somekindofwider interpretative framework mighthave helpedguard againsttheobviousproblemsinherent in Mews's eclecticsource material.Sources andvoicesbegin to mergeand competeinan at timesrather bewildering manner ifone triesto read thebook as a narrative aboutGrass's authorialsignificance, while theverynatureofGrass's relationship tohiscritics means that chapters can appearrepetitive. By thesametoken, onehardlyreadsan encyclopedia from cover tocover, but isoftenincredibly grateful thatitisthere. Mews's critical compendium of source materialfulfils justsucha function, and everylibrary withholdingsin contemporary German literature shouldhavea copy. No suchstatement can bemade about WolfgangBeutin'sDer Fall Grass:Ein deutsches Debakel.Thebook setsout tobe a 'schmale kritische Schrift', but itsoon revealsitself tobe aKampfschrift ofthe worstsort. Beutin's main argument appears tobe that Grass isa shoddy writer, withhitherto unrecognized right-wing tenden ciesandamuddledandself-contradictory political presencethat bringstheentirety ofpost-war German societyintodisrepute. He availshimself ofno recognizable critical apparatusinordertosetaboutsubstantiating theseclaims. Not onlydoes thebook lackanybibliography, Beutinmakes no reference toanyotherscholarly worksonGrass throughout, and this despitethefactthat he isnominally discussing Die Blechtrommel, ImKrebsgang, BeimHdutenderZwiebel, and the1968collection ofessays Uberdas Selbstverstandliche, which includes manyof the most frequently referenced politicalpiecesfrom that period.Politicalantipathy evidently motivates mostofwhathewrites: much,ofcourse,is made ofthe2006 Waffen-SS revelations, but Grass's support ofNATO involvement inKosovo in 1998 is also held against the author with tedious andoften misplaced frequency. A thoroughly confusedimage ofGrass as a political commentator emerges, based on theworst possible scholarly practice. Not onlydoesBeutinlimit himself almostexclusively toone smallvolume of speechesfromthe196os,entirely discounting thespecifics of thisdecade and quotingoutofcontextthroughout, he also statesas fact wild conspiracy theories abouthow the media and the German intellectual community propelled Grass to fame andhavesubsequently kepthiminthespotlight. His literary criticism amounts to two chapters inwhich he tries to correct Grass's grammar and style.Yet Beutin's own textisexceedingly poorly written, lurching fromtabular lists andbullet-point insertions to Bild-style sensationalist sentences, personalanecdote, and inappropri atepolitical polemics. The introduction losesitself entirely inabullet-point critique ofcontemporary...