Melancholy Vespers

Midway through his autobiography, Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, Günter Grass hosts an imaginary gathering. Two of his dinner guests hail from the sixteenth century: the French Renaissance thinker, Michel de Montaigne, and the French Huguenot monarch, Henri IV. To complete the circle the more recent Heinrich Mann, who wrote a two-volume biography of Henri IV in the 1930s when he was in exile from Germany, is also called forth from beyond the grave. The topics of conversation are surprising at first glance. They range from the discussion of bodily ailments— gallstones, kidney stones, and excrement—to the plight of the Huguenots, how lawyers and jurists are rascals, and the abject state of Enlightenment ideals in the twentieth century. Renaissance history, French religious conflict, and intestinal issues coexist in this evening of convivial chat, which is conducted in a good-natured and thoughtful manner.

Diverse though these topics might seem, in fact they are established topoi of intersecting melancholy discourses. While Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke is the main focus of this chapter, the banquet vignette of the later work reveals Grass's erudition in matters melancholy and thus serves as a rich starting point for discussion of how Grass performatively engages with melancholy traditions.