GRASS ROOTS

Peter Prescott, who reviewed Gunter Grass’ “The Call of the Toad” (Nov. 29), is well-respected and sincere. However, he got up on the wrong side of the bed, and sleepily, to review the book.

He starts by attacking German writing sharply, saying that in Hell one would be doomed to read it. Then he moves puzzlingly on to extol “the many virtues of German literature.”

Next he complains of the lack of wit and humor in German writers. One wonders: When were Grimmelshausen, Heine, Brecht, Wilhelm Busch and Baron Munchausen, through Raspe, posthumously declared to have lost their sense of humor? Has Prescott lost his?

He then asserts baldly, “There’s no feeling in this story.” Perhaps, but Grass has always been bursting with passion. Isn’t Prescott simply missing it?

The German people are not as anti-Grass as Prescott. At Moelin, neo-Nazis killed a Turkish grandmother as she vainly shielded her little grandchild with her body. The decent local people refused to let their stuffy bureaucrats purport to memorialize the victims. They insisted on hearing Gunter Grass himself.

I suggest that we too should insist on hearing Grass, who thinks, writes and speaks meaningfully on German and universal questions.

LAWRENCE W. STEINBERG

SANTA MONICA