Volume 29, Number 4 · March 18, 1982
Hangovers
By D.J. Enright
Headbirths, or The Germans Are Dying Out
by Günter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim
A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 136 pp., $9.95
The Safety Net
by Heinrich Böll, translated by Leila Vennewitz
Knopf, 314 pp., $13.95
Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll have both amply demonstrated their staying power and (more strikingly in the case of the former) their versatility. In their new books they have both (Grass more strikingly than Böll) turned into what in my childhood were called 'worrits.' Since we can worry well enough by ourselves, and in any case lack no assistance or guidance from newspapers and TV, this may seem oddly supererogatory. However, these are at least distinguished worrits. Böll has the benefit of a degree of 'psychological depth,' characters to dip into, and a story which like all good stories keeps the reader wondering what will happen next. Grass has the benefit of himself, or his 'manner,' and the Matter of Germany (including the World): his characters here are the shadows of caricatures, extreme instances of the average, the somewhat intellectual, the representatively serious-minded man in a fairly busy street, while his package tour of a plot moves too fast for the Grass we know, and nearly always admire and sometimes even love, to grow under its hastening feet.
Review, 2467 words
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