A most unusual question from the old Dick Cavett Show

Self | 10/2/'08 | Zionist Conspirator

[Zionist Conspirator]

FReepers have helped me out in the past when I asked about the Frugivores (which I had begun to think only I had ever heard of). Now I'm hoping someone can satisfy my curiosity on a topic both fascinating and gross.

Perhaps you remember the old half hour PBS Dick Cavett Show. This is the show where he would spend the time chatting with some intellectual cult figure (eg, Norman Mailer, Richard Gilman, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, etc.).

Back in the old days of Carson and Letterman (when he was really funny) I used to stay up later than I do now, and this show was a fun way to spend a half hour leading up to the other shows. Anyway, it was on one of these shows that I heard something I have never been able to forget. It intrigued, fascinated, and horrified me all at the same time. It made a lasting impression and emerged from my dark subconscious once again in a dream last night (don't ask!).

I believe the guest on this particular show was the German author Gunter Grass (though I could be wrong). Anyway, during the interview Cavett casually said something on the order of "people have been known to actually vomit while reading the 'eels' passage."

How in the same heck do you forget hearing something like that???

Anyway, this "eels passage" has haunted the dark shadows of my subconscious ever since hearing that remark. On the one hand, I would never want to read it since I wouldn't want to throw up. On the other, I am curious as to just what kind of passage this is. Of course, I doubt that I would ever have the courage to risk reading such a thing.

Anyway, I have looked up Gunter Grass in Wikipedia and did a Yahoo! search on him as well and simply cannot find a reference to an "eels passage." Maybe I have the wrong writer?

Anyway, do any FReepers out there know about this infamous gag-inducing piece of literature? What book is it in? Can it be generally described in such a way that I can read the description without messing up my keyboard?

For years this notion of someone writing a passage so gauche that people who read it actually vomit has sort of stuck in my mind as the defining characteristic of left-wing artsy-fartsy intellectuals.

[wideawake]

Guenther Grass' prose style, such as it is, is not meant to be naturalistic but fantastical.

He is trying for a grotesque surrealism, like Lautreamont in Maldoror.

The protagonist of The Tin Drum is a child who refuses to grow up and is forever six years old, and he wanders around war-torn East Prussia as a circus performer seducing adult women.

Everything he writes is supposed to be too clever to make sense.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Guenther Grass' prose style, such as it is, is not meant to be naturalistic but fantastical.

He is trying for a grotesque surrealism, like Lautreamont in Maldoror.

The protagonist of The Tin Drum is a child who refuses to grow up and is forever six years old, and he wanders around war-torn East Prussia as a circus performer seducing adult women.

Everything he writes is supposed to be too clever to make sense.

So . . . what I'm getting from this is that any eels profiled in his works are surrealistic and fantastic and not to be confused with real eels. That is comforting.

BTW, any theories as to which commie will win the Nobel Prize for Literature this year?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I think he inferred or said that the horses were on a transport ship that was sunk not too far from shore. WW II had no such incidents.

[Borges]

Not an answer to your question but I’d hardly call Tennesee Williams a cult figure.