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Die besten deutschen Erzählungen
Diese Auswahl deutscher Erzählungen von den Anfängen bis Christoph Ransmayr (also etwa bis zum Ende des vergangenen Jahrhunderts) verspricht viele Stunden Lesespaß sowie ein Wiedersehen mit alten Bekannten („Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten“ (Gebrüder Grimm), „Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…“ (Heinrich Böll), „Die Ermordung einer Butterblume“ (Alfred Döblin), „Das Brot“ (Wolfgang Borchert)).
Aber Reich-Ranicki wählt die Geschichten für seinen Kanon nicht nach Bekanntheit aus, sondern nach der literarischen Qualität der Geschichten. Und so finden sich auch einige Texte, die vielen Lesern eher unbekannt sein dürften, wie z.B. „Der Mann mit dem Gedächtnis“ von Peter Bichsel, „Das Judenauto“ von Franz Fühmann oder „Ein Kaffeehaus“ von Wolfgang Koeppen.
Wie bei Marcel Reich-Ranicki nicht anders zu erwarten, sind die ausgewählten Geschichten brillant erzählt und zeugen durchweg von der außergewöhnlichen Begabung der Autoren. Die chronologische Anordnung der Erzählungen ermöglicht dem Leser (und hier gerade auch dem jungen Leser!) einen umfassenden Einstieg in das deutsche Erzählwerk von der Weimarer Klassik bis zur jüngsten Gegenwart.
Aber Reich-Ranicki wählt die Geschichten für seinen Kanon nicht nach Bekanntheit aus, sondern nach der literarischen Qualität der Geschichten. Und so finden sich auch einige Texte, die vielen Lesern eher unbekannt sein dürften, wie z.B. „Der Mann mit dem Gedächtnis“ von Peter Bichsel, „Das Judenauto“ von Franz Fühmann oder „Ein Kaffeehaus“ von Wolfgang Koeppen.
Wie bei Marcel Reich-Ranicki nicht anders zu erwarten, sind die ausgewählten Geschichten brillant erzählt und zeugen durchweg von der außergewöhnlichen Begabung der Autoren. Die chronologische Anordnung der Erzählungen ermöglicht dem Leser (und hier gerade auch dem jungen Leser!) einen umfassenden Einstieg in das deutsche Erzählwerk von der Weimarer Klassik bis zur jüngsten Gegenwart.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
20 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Marcel Reich-Ranicki
164 books42 followersMarcel Reich-Ranicki was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the literary group Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the field of German literature and has often been called Literaturpapst ("Pope of Literature") in Germany.
Source: wikipedia.com
Source: wikipedia.com
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 29, 2018
Reading a collection of short stories covering the German literature from Goethe to Ransmayr has a special charm.
Like with a box of chocolates, you find yourself tasting a completely different flavour each time you start a new story. Styles, characters, plots, worldviews, even semantics change over the course of two centuries. The Brothers Grimm tell stories with a moral message, while Döblin and Böll remind us of the darkest chapters in German history. Kafka, Handke and Bernhard and their likes lure the reader into an explosive language experiment, entering the deepest layers of human consciousness by mastering their native tongue brilliantly.
The story that touched me most, and took me completely by surprise, was "Spiegelgeschichte" (mirror story) by Ilse Aichinger, an author that I now want to explore more fully, as my short introduction to her prose blew me away. What if you tell the story of life backwards? A young woman in a coffin is carried out of the morgue, back to the funeral, and then over her last breath back to suffering, then to health and hopes for the future, and ultimately back to her earliest childhood, unlearning everything she knew until it is time to be born... As before being born is when you are truly disappearing...
Short story collections are of course biased, and the literary critic that chose these stories is far from an objective personality in the German literature boxing ring. He is so controversial that it becomes a challenge in itself to evaluate the "validity" of his picks. In short: there is none. And there can't be. But still, the fact that one can spend a couple of afternoons getting small snacks of German literature served in a nice pocket format, and that one can get an appetising glimpse of which authors one would like to further explore, make up for all the doubts regarding the combative person who chose his own favourites.
After all - I know Christa Wolf is a brilliant short story writer anyway, I don't need Reich-Ranicki to add her to his Olymp.
So for those of you who are interested in getting an overview of narrative styles in the German-speaking world over the past centuries, I highly recommend this volume!
Moving on to the English speaking world of short stories next...
Like with a box of chocolates, you find yourself tasting a completely different flavour each time you start a new story. Styles, characters, plots, worldviews, even semantics change over the course of two centuries. The Brothers Grimm tell stories with a moral message, while Döblin and Böll remind us of the darkest chapters in German history. Kafka, Handke and Bernhard and their likes lure the reader into an explosive language experiment, entering the deepest layers of human consciousness by mastering their native tongue brilliantly.
The story that touched me most, and took me completely by surprise, was "Spiegelgeschichte" (mirror story) by Ilse Aichinger, an author that I now want to explore more fully, as my short introduction to her prose blew me away. What if you tell the story of life backwards? A young woman in a coffin is carried out of the morgue, back to the funeral, and then over her last breath back to suffering, then to health and hopes for the future, and ultimately back to her earliest childhood, unlearning everything she knew until it is time to be born... As before being born is when you are truly disappearing...
Short story collections are of course biased, and the literary critic that chose these stories is far from an objective personality in the German literature boxing ring. He is so controversial that it becomes a challenge in itself to evaluate the "validity" of his picks. In short: there is none. And there can't be. But still, the fact that one can spend a couple of afternoons getting small snacks of German literature served in a nice pocket format, and that one can get an appetising glimpse of which authors one would like to further explore, make up for all the doubts regarding the combative person who chose his own favourites.
After all - I know Christa Wolf is a brilliant short story writer anyway, I don't need Reich-Ranicki to add her to his Olymp.
So for those of you who are interested in getting an overview of narrative styles in the German-speaking world over the past centuries, I highly recommend this volume!
Moving on to the English speaking world of short stories next...
January 23, 2019
Interessanter Querschnitt durch deutsche Kurzgeschichten, ausgewählt von Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Mir war einiges neu, manches verstörend und im ganzen bereichernd. Es wird ein breites Spektrum an Zeitgeschichte abgebildet.
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October 27, 2020thomas bernhard: die mütze
November 22, 2023
Oof, done it. That took a while, lol. Good collection with some top-notch short stories
June 25, 2019
Ausgezeichnet
June 8, 2022
Very good german literature, high class!
In particular the Stories from Thomas Bernhard impressed myself.
In particular the Stories from Thomas Bernhard impressed myself.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews