Günter Grass’s topsy-turvy picnic in The Flounder mocks all the accepted ideas of a picnic.
It’s celebrated on Ascension Day, when Jesus ascended to heaven in the presence of the Apostles, and as Father’s Day in Germany. But Grass‘s picnickers are four women, lesbians, masquerading as men. Picnics are pleasant, but Sybille, aka Billie, is raped by her friends Maxie, Frankie, and Siggie. When Billie escapes, she is pursued by men dressed in black leather riding motorcycles, who rape and murder her. When Billie’s mutilated, mangled, and mashed body is found, her friends anonymously call the police and then hardheartedly move on. The picnic is a complex message suggesting the demonic urge in German civilization that the novel’s narrator refers to as primordial and “gruesome.”
Featured Image: Grass’s self-portrait was published in 1977 , the same year as The Flounder was published in Germany.
See: Grass, Günter. The Flounder, aka Der Butt. Translated by Ralph Mannheim (1978)