Reich-Ranicki v. Grass

[jbor]

Yes, the article seemed to imply that Reich-Ranicki was somewhat more of a
critical force than Oprah (or that other discussion list pest you mention,
who it seems has now taken to conversing with and amongst its own personas.
So sad.) And I agree that _Effi Briest_ is a fantastic novel, up there with
Flaubert's _Sentimental Education_ and Turgenev's _Fathers and Sons_ at
least, imo. One of the beauties of postmodernism is that it is as much about
reading as it is about writing (as Otto noted), so that Grass's
(re)appropriation of Fontane's text need not be parody, pastiche or theft in
any Modernist/humanist/Enlightenment sense, but an "honest rebirth", to
quote a phrase from Mr P.

Roth and Updike aren't all that far afield of postmodernism either, though
they would scarcely admit it I'd say. I think it would be difficult for any
serious writer worth her or his salt to avoid it nowadays. Updike's
_Memories of the Ford Administration_ attempts to parody textual
deconstruction/post-structuralism but makes a pretty good fist of being what
it sets out to deride. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck . . .

best

----------
>From: lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de (Lorentzen / Nicklaus)
>To: o.sell at telda.net
>Subject: Re:  Reich-Ranicki v. Grass
>Date: Sun, Dec 3, 2000, 7:13 PM
>

>
>  marcel reich-ranicki, who was among the very first to write about rolf dieter
>  brinkmann, is surely a literary critic if there ever was one. wrote brilliant
>  essays on heinrich heine, arno schmidt and wolfgang koeppen. actually, i like
>  reich-ranicki's vital intelligence quite a bit. he's got the style it takes
...
>  & fontane's "effi briest", the novel samuel beckett loved so much, is, of
>  course, ten times better than the collected works of mr. grass ...
>
>  kfl
>
>  ps: of mrr's autobiography "mein leben" (- my life), which i plan to read in
>  the near future, there will be an english but no american edition: the
>  publishing house wanted to take out the whole chapter on the time after 1945
>  (- which is the period when this man became the literary critic we know), and
>  so mrr decided, as he reported in a 'spiegel'-interview (- "das kommt
natürlich
>  überhaupt nicht in frage"), that there will be no american edition at all.
btw,
>  the two contemporary american writers reich-ranicki is most fond of are
philip
>  roth and john updike. don't think he has actually read trp, but he once
>  mentioned him in a general positive way in his tv-show & he certainly knows
>  that pynchon is a big one. reich-ranicki's position towards 'pomo' is,
however,
>  similar to the one of terrance flaherty. but then, i told you before, all
this
>  is in wahrheit late modernity ...