"[1] The key theme of the book is of woman's historical contributions in both fact and fiction, ranging from the early goddesses of the matriarchial Stone Age society by the Vistula River, to the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, "The Fisherman and His Wife", to the novel’s contemporary "women’s' libbers" (as phrased in the English translation).

[6] In 1983 the interpolated poems were published together with etchings as Ach Butt, dein Märchen geht böse aus: Gedichte und Radierungen; a bilingual edition with the same title came out in 1999.

Cloonan also wrote: "With the Flounder, Gunter Grass creates a character whose combination of intelligence, amorality, self-irony, and curiosity makes him almost the equal of Oskar [in The Tin Drum].

For a writer justly famous for extended humorous and grotesque scenes, Grass also has a flair for one-liners.

[8]Herbert Mitgang of the New York Times noted that the novel was about "women, men and the state of the world" and since all are controversial, so was the reaction to Grass' novel.

It defies an easy summary, as the narrator tells of his many lives as a husband, including as a lover to 11 women cooks.