SOURCE: Ziolkowski, Theodore. Review of Vormittag eines Schriftstellers, by Martin Walser. World Literature Today 69, no. 1 (winter 1995): 135-36.

In the following review, Ziolkowski summarizes the themes of Vormittag eines Schriftstellers, elucidating the volume's thesis and critical perspective.

The latest volume [Vormittag eines Schriftstellers] by the impressively productive Martin Walser contains an assortment of eleven occasional pieces on political, cultural, and literary topics—mostly published in various newspapers since the German unification. We find here a paean to Boris Becker, an insightful appreciation of Horst Janssen's erotic drawings, a rhapsody to Goya's Maja, and a surreal vision of the year 2000 inspired by Dali. One piece portrays the figures of an economic scandal as drama while another meditates on the meaning of nation and nationalism in the era of unification with its skinheads and post—Cold War ideologies. (Walser, in contrast to many German intellectuals, is a firm supporter of Helmut...