Marcel Reich-Ranicki is dead

[lichtrausch]

The most influential German literary critic of the 20th century died yesterday at age 93. He revolutionized German literary criticism by placing great emphasis on clarity and decisive judgment of works. Before him, most German literary criticism was very academic and shied away from passionate support or dismissal of works. During WWII, Reich-Ranicki was deported to Poland on account of being Jewish, but his love of German language and literature was so great that he returned to Germany two decades later and rose to become the most prominent German literary critic of the modern era. He became known to the general public through a well-liked book discussion show called "Das Literarische Quartett". After a successful 13 year run, the show went out with a bang over a heated (on-air) exchange between Reich-Ranicki and the female co-host about the erotic scenes in Haruki Murakami's "South of the Border, West of the Sun". For those who know some German, here's the video of it: link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFCSHEfQvY4)

obituary in NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/marcel-reich-ranicki-german-literary-critic-from-the-warsaw-ghetto-dies-at-93.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

[Nick Capozzoli]

I thoroughly enjoyed the video! The moderator did a wonderful job of mediating the heated interchange between MRR and Frau L (whoever she is or was...I'm guessing some sort of feminist critic). My conversational German is merely passable, but I could follow the banter. What really impressed me was that this sort of literary discussion could make its way onto mainstream German TV and that the audience seemed to be following it and reacted enthusiastically. Would that we here in the US could have such debates on, say, Oprah or The View. I've seen some good literary interviews on Charlie Rose, but they lack the studio audience.