SOURCE: Skwara, Erich Wolfgang. Review of Finks Krieg, by Martin Walser. World Literature Today 71, no. 1 (winter 1997): 140-41.

In the following review, Skwara discusses the themes of Finks Krieg, noting that the novel lacks erotic tension but labelling certain section as “vintage” Walser.

Few German authors have developed a tone as uniquely their own as has Martin Walser: whatever the story, we recognize his voice right away (see e.g. WLT 70:3, p. 685). Finks Krieg, Walser's newest novel, of course remains loyal to a seismograph's function, which is to register earthquakes; and he has been the German Federal Republic's seismograph of social and inner Befindlichkeiten ever since the fifties, when his stupendous career began. His fiction, plays, and essays have demonstrated with greater clarity, honesty, and readability than most literature what has been going on in the German soul and mind. Relationships of all kinds, mainly between men and women...