Günter Grass’s The Flounder (1977)

Günter Grass’s The Flounder (1977)

Grass’s picnic in The Flounder is among the worst. Not only does he mock the accepted idea of a picnic, but he turns it topsy-turvy.  It’s an ugly episode in which Sybille, aka Billie, is a variation of the Greek oracle/prophetess Sybil. According to Grass’ version,...
Calvin Trillin’s “Fly Frills to Miami” (1978)

Calvin Trillin’s “Fly Frills to Miami” (1978)

Trillin’s “Fly Frills to Miami” makes a picnic in an airplane “normal.” When Trillin’s wife Alice complains about travel expenses, Calvin decides to go cheap by purchasing food from New York to Miami. Based on “Alice’s...
Charles Bukowski’s “Some Picnic ” (1979)

Charles Bukowski’s “Some Picnic ” (1979)

Charles Bukowski’s “Some Picnic” is mean-spirited –what a picnic ought not to be. I rank it among the most unpleasant and psychologically cruel. When Bukowski says he, his girlfriend Jane and his parents picnicked and “made a...
Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (1979)

Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (1979)

Schlöndorff does his best to remain faithful to Grass’s mordant picnic satire. Grass was pleased: “In Schlöndorff, I found a true interlocutor, someone who provoked me with his questions, who delved into the heart of the subject, and who, during our dialogue, forced...
Jill Barklem’s Brambly Hedge: A Spring Story (1980)

Jill Barklem’s Brambly Hedge: A Spring Story (1980)

Wilfred Toadflax’s surprise birthday is a picnic feast of cakes, pies, jellies, and fruits. It’s the kind of high-carb meal that makes your teeth hurt. Mr. Apple’s grace suggests that the food is local, but not as he suggests from “our green...
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979)

Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is inspired by Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. Coppola adapted the action and characters to his conception of the “insane” war in Vietnam, and the beach party picnic is his addition to the narrative. Coppola ensures...
Tennessee Williams’s A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)

Tennessee Williams’s A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)

Williams’s A Clear Day for Creve Coeur (1979) is so anti-picnic that it ends the action before the picnic begins. The play’s title is a pun on the French creve coeur, which means heartbreak. In the middle or late 1930s, Creve Coeur was an active amusement...
William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice (1979)

William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice (1979)

Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is where Sophie Zawistowska is sometimes picnicked. Stingo, the narrator, associates Sophie’s park outings as one of Watteau and Fragonard a fête champêtres. He supposes that it was a “pleasant game” for Sophie to buy...