Ein weites Feld; Too Far Afield

Ein weites Feld; Too Far Afield (1995)Grass’s epic novel about the GDR and the Wende (German reunification) uses the figure of the 19th century Prussian novelist Theodor Fontane as a narrative device. The novel's title is a phrase from Fontane's novel Effi Briest, used by Herr von Briest in order to avoid a thorny topic. In Too Far Afield, the history of the GDR is seen from the perspective of Prussian history in the 19th century; Grass’s Berlin is haunted by Fontane’s Berlin, the capital of the Prussian empire. The main protagonist of Grass’s novel, Fonty, is a 20th-century version of Theodor Fontane, and his life resembles Fontane’s in several ways. Fontane wrote reports for Prussian intelligence during his time in London; Fonty writes reports for the Stasi. Both men are ambivalent characters, and hard to pin down politically. In the novel, Fonty is accompanied by Hoftaller, alias Tallhover. This character is based on Hans Joachim Schädlich’s Tallhover (1986), a novel about an eternal secret policeman who serves various regimes throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Reaching back into the mid-19th century, Too Far Afield takes a long view of recent German history. Adopting the ambivalent Fontane as his guide to the 20th century helps Grass to present historical events not in black and white, but in different shades of grey.

Further Reading in English

Julian Preece, ‘Seven Theses on “Der Fall Fonty”’, in 1949/1989: Cultural Perspectives on Division and Unity in East and West, ed. by Clare Flanagan and Stuart Taberner (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 215-30

Morwenna Symons, Room for Manoeuvre: the Role of Intertext in Elfriede Jelinek’s ‘Die Klavierspielerin’, Günter Grass’s ‘Ein weites Feld’, and Herta Müller’s ‘Niederungen’ and ‘Reisende auf einem Bein’ (London: MHRA/IGRS/Maney, 2005)

Further Reading in German

Jutta Osinski, ‘Aspekte der Fontane-Rezeption bei Günter Grass’, Fontane-Blätter 62 (1996), 112-26