Financial Times
June 8, 2012
I’ve always thought Günter Grass writes better novels than poems. Remember The Tin Drum, Grass’s hilarious 1959 novel, with its dwarfish protagonist Oskar Matzerath? Of course, you do. Remember What Must Be Said, the dreary, Israel-bashing prose-poem that he published two months ago? Er, not really.
Grass’s latest poem, the subject of which is Greece’s debt crisis, does nothing to change my view that, at the age of 84, he really ought to stop trying to mix politics and poetry. It’s called Europas Schande, which translates as Europe’s Shame. The title gives the game away, doesn’t it?
Grass pours scorn on the way that the European Union – and, implicitly, Germany in particular – is tackling Greece’s financial mess.
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1 comment:
I have been paying some real attention to the situation since I started to follow the controversy that erupted with the publication of Guenter Grass's poem warning of the consequences of an Israeli first strike, here the links to the archive for the controversy,
http://goaliesanxiety.blogspot.com/2012/04/gunter-grass-what-must-be-said.html
and to various ensuing discussions
A compendium of critical opinions http://summapolitico.blogspot.com/2012/04/part-synopsis-of-grass-poem-controversy.html
And of positive takes http://summapolitico.blogspot/05/defense-of-beast-post-mortem-part-ii-of.html
THE DEVELOPING CODICIL
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2012/05/guenter-grasss-notorious-poem-poetics.html
http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref=name
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