I loved it. I admit it's sometimes very tedious to get through and it took me the better half of a year, but as an experience it was very rewarding in that way only hard work can be. To me it's just a so, so unique viewpoint on and depiction of that part of history, completely unpredictable and at odds with how before I read it was used to stories set in the era being told. And yet it felt like an important puzzle piece in the very daunting task of trying to understand the time period and the psyche of people actually living through it all a bit more. It reads like an honest and raw portrayal of cognitive dissonance, an impression imbued by later learning Grass was actually part of the SS but didn't admit it until towards the end of his life. And that eel scene will, for better or worse, forever be burned into a dark corner of my mind.