There is no room for upperclass pretensions or propriety in Gunter Grass's Germany, no matter the century. And, indeed, one imagines his mind as a farraginous cauldron, simmering with a thick bouillabaise of precisely observed detail.

The Meeting At Telgte, held to create a new order, itself devolves into chaos. The readings and arguments grind on, only to abruptly conclude with the book's shattering climax. The parallels Grass draws between the two centuries are pointed, his weighing of the powers and impotence of poets and poetry equally barbed. The characters, as always, are remarkably drawn, and Grass has shown himself again to be a novelist of both charm and conscience. He is a rarity: a satirist and clown with a deep moral sense, and with enough wit and finesse to act the gadfly rather than the sermonizer.

Erik S. McMahon, "Poets & Politics: 'The Meeting at Telgte'," in San...