Call of the Toad [Paperback]

Gunter Grass (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 1997

By the author of "The Tin Drum" and "Dog Years", this is the story both of a great undertaking and an unexpected love affair. In a Gdansk graveyard in 1989, a German art historian and a Polish widow share the same idea, to open a "Reconciliation Cemetery" to demonstrate that old hatreds are past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Macabre humor and deft narrative control spice this doleful, satiric tale of love, mortality and politics in a changing Eastern Europe from the pen of the contemporary German master. When Alexander Reschke first meets Alexandra Piatkowska, she is on her way to a cemetery in Gdansk, Poland. The two discover they have much in common: she is a middle-aged Polish widow, he a German widower; she is an art restorer specializing in gilding, he a professor of art history specializing in tombstones; both were displaced from their birthplaces by the redrawing of borders after WW II; both champion the deceased's right to be returned home for burial. As their romance quickly blooms, so do their shared ambitions; over a bottle of wine they found the Polish-German-Lithuanian Cemetery Association (PGLCA). Soon they have an international board of directors and acres of burial land in Gdansk, and the corpses of dead Germans (born there when it was Danzig, Germany), along with the survivors' mighty Deutschemarks, are sent their way in daunting quantities. But the forces of capitalism overwhelm the pair's good intentions, and they find themselves building resorts and golf courses on the would-be burial ground. Grass ( The Tin Drum ; Two States--One Nation? ) tells their story in the voice of Alexander's former schoolmate, who has been commissioned to write a history of the PGLCA. This insightful, reluctant narrator cites photographs, recordings, videotapes, receipts and Alexander's diaries--interjecting the occasional editorial remark--to portray a strange love affair and odd benevolence gone awry.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Grass's latest novel represents a master in a minor mode, no Flounder -like dissertations ( LJ 9/1/78), just a (nearly) straight narrative about love, German-Polish relations, and the future of Europe and the world. Alexander, a German art history professor, and Alexandra, a Polish art restorer, meet in Gdansk over a basket of mushrooms. They eventually found the German-Polish-Lithuanian Cemetery Society to allow people expatriated at the end of World War II to be buried in their native soil. The Society thrives, spinning off subsidiary ventures until it seems like the Germans will again take over their former territories by dint of their hard currency. But Mr. Chatterjee, a bicycle-rickshaw mogul, acts as a counterweight, presaging a possible Indian/Asian transformation of old Europe. Essential for any fiction collection.
- Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (June 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749398787
• ISBN-13: 978-0749398781
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,819,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927, Günter Grass is a widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On reconciliations and departures., February 13, 2000

By 

Kozinski - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Call of the Toad (Paperback)

Reconciliation and forewell. As in the "Danzig trilogy", canvas of exclusively humane interplay of reconciliation's, changes and departures are painted. Grass commands knowledge of Polish and German things. Be it geography, local idioms, smell of the country sides. Descriptions of farmers market, streets and places, details of the appearance of mushroom (Boletus edulis), even description of soil is vivid. For a reader who, in his past, lived in Gdansk and knows first hand conditions of life in Poland, this book is a nostalgic trip into memories, source of reflections. There is this poetic melancholy in accepting changing world : ideals replaced with organised greed; Families decaying and destroyed; Brick wall coming down, walls between people building; Lakes desacrated by developments, their waters no more holding crawfish. Author is a keen judge of new world. He ackowledges manipulative genius of a great leader, and shallow pettiness of small; he regrets indiscriminate killings and impersonal wars of present.; he see ingrained prejudices (Polish vitriolic russophobia, German xenophobia) even in otherwise good people. Mellow and enchanting account of fast changing world. - For better ?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For Danzigers by a Danziger, November 30, 2000

By 

KG - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Call of the Toad (Paperback)

It's an interesting book... if you know Gdansk or Poland. It is interesting because in this book Grass goes beyond his usual calls for Polish-German reconciliation. He suggests -- in no uncertain terms -- that if Poles want the Germans to accept the Polish authority over Gdansk, they themselves have to accept Lithuanian authority over Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which belonged to Poland for a number of years between the two world wars. Making this observation is very important given that we, Polish people, usually see ourselves as victims of history and rarely as culprits.

One of the main qualities of the story is that it creates a very detailed picture of the very near future of Gdansk -- a future in which a park near the Gdansk Polytechnic gets converted into a German cementary, where certain German-Polish-Lithuanian reconciliation efforts are under way. Reading all the detailed descriptions of all the things Grass sees changing in Gdansk convinces me of his good knowledge of the city. The drawback of it is that the book is heavily time-stamped and probably not that interesting to those who do not know Gdansk or, at least, Poland.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars pretty good, but..., February 1, 2002

By 

Cameron Case (35758) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Call of the Toad (Paperback)

The writing was nice (though of course in translation) and the eye for detail and dialogue are both top notch. My ability to "connect" with this book, however, was not so good. Maybe that's my fault (ok, it is my fault), but I'm sure that others in America will have the same trouble. I can understand Nobel consideration just on his ability, but I'd have to read more than just this one (all I've read) to say I agree with the award. I just don't know anything about Poland or Germany. I'm sure that many others don't either. If you don't, you can still enjoy the writing, but that's probably where it will end, since the whole book will end up feeling very foreign. For me it was a distraction. If you want to read some Grass, I would recommend starting with something else...I wish I had. Overall, just average, I'm glad I read it, but I had higher expectations than it was able to meet.