Since his seventeenth-century authors are all historical figures [in The Meeting at Telgte],… Mr. Grass has counted on a German audience's familiarity with them to fill out his quick, simplified characterizations. American readers, barring German specialists, may have some trouble distinguishing one of these hymn writers from another but will have no trouble enjoying their activities. Their critical debates are a wonderful muddle of disinterested aesthetics and self-serving maneuver, and there is much comic irony in the contrasts between their high moral principles and the illegal activities that enable them to survive at Telgte. In a short space, Mr. Grass says a great deal about the cultural importance of literature and about its practical limitations. (pp. 101-02)

Phoebe-Lou Adams, "Short Reviews: 'The Meeting at Telgte'," in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1981, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass.; reprinted with permission), Vol. 247, No. 6, June, 1981, pp. 101-02.