Finally finished the fucking Flounder

The book that is, and to celebrate I ate one (the fish, that is) on an extremely apt Baltic harbourside. Unfortunately the debris was whisked away from my table before I could get a picture as evidence.

I found the book fascinating, as a study of gender politics through the ages, a history of Pomorshia, the potato in central Europe (the Prussians were apparently deeply suspicious of them) and a very witty, entertaining and thought provoking read.

There's one idea Grass explores, about the notion of fatherhood, that in Neolithic times, a matriarchal society kept its reign by witholding the knowledge of sexual reproduction from the males of the tribe, rendering them powerless. There was no concept of fatherhood, only motherhood, so the men had no real role to play in society and were kept virtually as children, until the talking flounder imparts his knowledge on one particular fisherman anyway. Interesting...