Synopses & Reviews
Marcel Reich-Ranicki is remarkable for both his unlikely life story and his brilliant career as the "pope of German letters." His sublimely written autobiography is at once a fascinating adventure tale, an unusual account of German-Jewish relations, a personal rumination on who's who in German culture, and a love letter to literature.
Reich-Ranicki's life took him from middle-class childhood to wartime misery to the heights of intellectual celebrity. Born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1920, he moved to Berlin as a boy. There he discovered his passion for literature and began a complex affair with German culture. In 1938, his family was deported back to Poland, where German occupation forced him into the Warsaw Ghetto. As a member of the Jewish resistance, a translator for the Jewish Council, and a man who personally experienced the ghetto's inhumane conditions, Reich-Ranicki gained both a bird's-eye and ground-level view of Nazi barbarism. Written with subtlety and intelligence, his account of this episode is among the most compelling and dramatic ever recorded.
He escaped with his wife and spent two years hiding in the cellar of Polish peasants--an incident later immortalized by Günter Grass. After liberation, he joined and then fell out with the Communist Party and was temporarily imprisoned. He began writing and soon became Poland's foremost critical commentator on German literature.
When Reich-Ranicki returned to Germany in 1958, his rise was meteoric. In short order, he claimed national celebrity and notoriety as the head of the literary section of the leading newspaper and host of his own television program. He frequently flabbergasted viewers with his bold pronouncements and flexed his power to make or break a writer's career. His list of friends and enemies rapidly expanded to include every influential player on the German literary scene, including Grass and Heinrich Böll. This, together with his keen critical instincts, makes his memoir an indispensable guide to contemporary German culture as well as an absorbing eyewitness history of some of the twentieth century's most important events.
Review
"[T]his autobiography is far more than the account of a literary career; it is an unforgettable piece of Holocaust literature."
--Peter Graves, Times Literary Supplement
Review
This is an extraordinary autobiography written in a unique style that is very smooth, conversational, and frank. Reich-Ranicki is the most important literary critic on the German scene and has had a singular influence on German culture. His life reads like a novel.
Review
This is a remarkable book. Reich-Ranicki has produced a beautifully written and sharply observed testament to a lifelong love/hate relationship with the Germany that fascinated him as a youth, destroyed his family and his prewar world, and finally--ambivalently and deeply ironically--anointed him as its pope of literature.
Review
"One of the great literary memoirs of the twentieth century."
--Edward Timms, Times Literary Supplement
Review
"It is understandable why Mr. Ranicki's autobiography has become such a huge bestseller in Germany. His personal experiences are not only woven around the most critical historical events but they have intersected with the lives of the most prominent German authors such as Joachim Fest, Heinrich Boll, and Gunter Grass. Mr. Ranicki is above all respected for his honesty and clarity and he spares no one from the thrust of his literary insight."
--Janusz Bugajski, The Washington Times
Review
"Reich-Ranicki's accounts of life in the Polish ghetto are some of the most vivid and compelling ever written. . . . The book headed the German best-sellers list for more than a year when it came out."
--Library Journal
Review
"Narrated in an engaging, matter-of-fact style void of sensationalism, this book transforms Reich-Ranicki's story into an unforgettable document of modern times."
--Choice
Review
"[An] unforgettable book. Reich-Ranicki's position in German culture is unimaginable in any other country except perhaps, Russia. For more than twenty years, German writers have trembled, fumed, wept, and on occasion preened themselves over his verdicts on their work. . . . [H]e established an almost imperial ascendancy over German literary criticism."
--Neal Ascherson, New York Review of Books
Review
"Written in a deceptively simple and beautifully wrought German and ably translated, . . . [this] is one of the most poignant and important memoirs of the last century. . . . Reich-Ranicki is the quintessential outsider, and few lives reveal as much about the past century and where the new one may be headed."
--Jacob Heilbrunn, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
"An unforgettable piece of Holocaust literature that forces the reader to consider the long-term effects of unimaginable loss."
--Elaine Margolin, Partisan Review
Review
"[Reich-Ranicki] is an eloquent, thoughtful critic, prodigiously well read in German language literature, who, despite the loss of his family in the Holocaust and his experiences in the Warsaw ghetto, never lost his passion for that literature. That enduring love is the cornerstone of his autobiography."
--Tess Lewis, The New Criterion
Review
An unforgettable piece of Holocaust literature that forces the reader to consider the long-term effects of unimaginable loss. Jacob Heilbrunn - Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
[T]his autobiography is far more than the account of a literary career; it is an unforgettable piece of Holocaust literature. Peter Graves
Review
One of the great literary memoirs of the twentieth century. Times Literary Supplement
Review
It is understandable why Mr. Ranicki's autobiography has become such a huge bestseller in Germany. His personal experiences are not only woven around the most critical historical events but they have intersected with the lives of the most prominent German authors such as Joachim Fest, Heinrich Boll, and Gunter Grass. Mr. Ranicki is above all respected for his honesty and clarity and he spares no one from the thrust of his literary insight. Edward Timms - Times Literary Supplement
Review
Reich-Ranicki's accounts of life in the Polish ghetto are some of the most vivid and compelling ever written. . . . The book headed the German best-sellers list for more than a year when it came out. Janusz Bugajski - The Washington Times
Review
Narrated in an engaging, matter-of-fact style void of sensationalism, this book transforms Reich-Ranicki's story into an unforgettable document of modern times. Library Journal
Review
[An] unforgettable book. Reich-Ranicki's position in German culture is unimaginable in any other country except perhaps, Russia. For more than twenty years, German writers have trembled, fumed, wept, and on occasion preened themselves over his verdicts on their work. . . . [H]e established an almost imperial ascendancy over German literary criticism. Choice
Review
Written in a deceptively simple and beautifully wrought German and ably translated, . . . [this] is one of the most poignant and important memoirs of the last century. . . . Reich-Ranicki is the quintessential outsider, and few lives reveal as much about the past century and where the new one may be headed. Neal Ascherson - New York Review of Books
Synopsis
"This is an extraordinary autobiography written in a unique style that is very smooth, conversational, and frank. Reich-Ranicki is the most important literary critic on the German scene and has had a singular influence on German culture. His life reads like a novel."--Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota
"This is a remarkable book. Reich-Ranicki has produced a beautifully written and sharply observed testament to a lifelong love/hate relationship with the Germany that fascinated him as a youth, destroyed his family and his prewar world, and finally--ambivalently and deeply ironically--anointed him as its pope of literature."--Atina Grossmann, Cooper Union
Synopsis
Marcel Reich-Ranicki is remarkable for both his unlikely life story and his brilliant career as the "pope of German letters." His sublimely written autobiography is at once a fascinating adventure tale, an unusual account of German-Jewish relations, a personal rumination on who's who in German culture, and a love letter to literature.
Reich-Ranicki's life took him from middle-class childhood to wartime misery to the heights of intellectual celebrity. Born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1920, he moved to Berlin as a boy. There he discovered his passion for literature and began a complex affair with German culture. In 1938, his family was deported back to Poland, where German occupation forced him into the Warsaw Ghetto. As a member of the Jewish resistance, a translator for the Jewish Council, and a man who personally experienced the ghetto's inhumane conditions, Reich-Ranicki gained both a bird's-eye and ground-level view of Nazi barbarism. Written with subtlety and intelligence, his account of this episode is among the most compelling and dramatic ever recorded.
He escaped with his wife and spent two years hiding in the cellar of Polish peasants--an incident later immortalized by Günter Grass. After liberation, he joined and then fell out with the Communist Party and was temporarily imprisoned. He began writing and soon became Poland's foremost critical commentator on German literature.
When Reich-Ranicki returned to Germany in 1958, his rise was meteoric. In short order, he claimed national celebrity and notoriety as the head of the literary section of the leading newspaper and host of his own television program. He frequently flabbergasted viewers with his bold pronouncements and flexed his power to make or break a writer's career. His list of friends and enemies rapidly expanded to include every influential player on the German literary scene, including Grass and Heinrich Böll. This, together with his keen critical instincts, makes his memoir an indispensable guide to contemporary German culture as well as an absorbing eyewitness history of some of the twentieth century's most important events.
Synopsis
"This is an extraordinary autobiography written in a unique style that is very smooth, conversational, and frank. Reich-Ranicki is the most important literary critic on the German scene and has had a singular influence on German culture. His life reads like a novel."--Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota
"This is a remarkable book. Reich-Ranicki has produced a beautifully written and sharply observed testament to a lifelong love/hate relationship with the Germany that fascinated him as a youth, destroyed his family and his prewar world, and finally--ambivalently and deeply ironically--anointed him as its pope of literature."--Atina Grossmann, Cooper Union
Synopsis
Marcel Reich-Ranicki is remarkable for both his unlikely life story and his brilliant career as the "pope of German letters." His sublimely written autobiography is at once a fascinating adventure tale, an unusual account of German-Jewish relations, a personal rumination on who's who in German culture, and a love letter to literature.
Reich-Ranicki's life took him from middle-class childhood to wartime misery to the heights of intellectual celebrity. Born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1920, he moved to Berlin as a boy. There he discovered his passion for literature and began a complex affair with German culture. In 1938, his family was deported back to Poland, where German occupation forced him into the Warsaw Ghetto. As a member of the Jewish resistance, a translator for the Jewish Council, and a man who personally experienced the ghetto's inhumane conditions, Reich-Ranicki gained both a bird's-eye and ground-level view of Nazi barbarism. Written with subtlety and intelligence, his account of this episode is among the most compelling and dramatic ever recorded.
He escaped with his wife and spent two years hiding in the cellar of Polish peasants--an incident later immortalized by Günter Grass. After liberation, he joined and then fell out with the Communist Party and was temporarily imprisoned. He began writing and soon became Poland's foremost critical commentator on German literature.
When Reich-Ranicki returned to Germany in 1958, his rise was meteoric. In short order, he claimed national celebrity and notoriety as the head of the literary section of the leading newspaper and host of his own television program. He frequently flabbergasted viewers with his bold pronouncements and flexed his power to make or break a writer's career. His list of friends and enemies rapidly expanded to include every influential player on the German literary scene, including Grass and Heinrich Böll. This, together with his keen critical instincts, makes his memoir an indispensable guide to contemporary German culture as well as an absorbing eyewitness history of some of the twentieth century's most important events.
Table of Contents
Foreword vii
PART ONE: 1920-1938
1. 'What Are You Really?' 3
2. 'Half Dragged, Half Plunging, so He Sank . . .' 14
3. Herr Kastner: 'To Be Applied to the Soul' 21
4. Reverence for Writ 29
5. Racial Theory 44
6. Several Love Affairs at the Same Time 54
7. My Most Wonderful Refuge - the Theatre 71
8. A Suffering which Brings Happiness 88
9. The Door to the Next Room 98
10. With Invisible Luggage 103
PARRT TWO: 1938-1944
11. Poetry and the War 113
12. Hunting Down Jews Is Fun 123
13. The Dead Man and His Daughter 131
14. From Quarantine District to Ghetto 138
15. The Words of a Fool 144
16. 'If Music Be the Food of Love . . .' 151
17. Death Sentences to the Accompaniment of Viennese Waltzes 161
18. An Intellectual, a Martyr, a Hero 179
19. A Brand-new Riding Crop 176
20. Order, Hygiene, Discipline 183
21. Stories For Bolek 193
PART THREE: 1944-I958
22. My First Shot, My Last Shot 209
23. From Reich to Ranicki 222
24. Brecht, Seghers, Huchel and Others 235
25. Josef K., Stalin Quotations and Heinrich Boll 247
26. A Study Trip with Consequences 261
27. A Young Man with a Massive Moustache 269
PART FOUR: I958-1973
28 Recognized as Germans 281
29. Group 47 and its First Lady 287
30. Walter Jens, or the Friendship 297
31. Literature as Awareness of Life 304
32. Canetti, Adorno, Bernhard and Others 312
33. A Tavern and a Calculating Machine 327
PART FIVE: 1973-1999
34 The Sinister Guest of Honour 339
35. Make Way for Poetry! 344
36. A Genius only during Working Hours 353
37. The Magician's Family 358
38. Max Frisch 367
39. Yehudi Menuhin and Our Quartet 373
40. Joachim Fest and Martin Walser 382
41. 'Tis a Dream ...' 391
42. Thanksgiving 393
Index 395