This was one of the forgotten fare of one of those Grass clusters in the late 1990s. I reread this a few years ago after reading C.V. Wedgwood's history of the Thirty Year War. It is certainly thinner Grass, equating his own Gruppe 47 with the efforts to restore civilization after that bloodbath in the anything but Holy Roman Empire.

Concept: the premier German-language poets decide to meet during the negotiations at the end of the Thirty Years War. At this meeting, the poets take turns reading their work for comment, the point being a desire not only for the end of military conflict, but a peace of language - that is, a standardising of their regional tongues. Verdict: Probably for linguists and poets only.

Ausgezeichnete barocke Sprache, Setting, und Figuren.

Bawdy and rough and full of period detail, a bravura piece.

The idea behind the book is not bad at all and that was the reason why I read it, but the never-ending phrases and the language just made me feel like I was chewing on something for hours and could not swallow.

At page 70 I asked myself if the author is going somewhere with this story and I do not think that he did or maybe I just missed the point.

I knew Günter Grass was not my cup of tea and this book confirmed it yet again.