I suppose the Grass-Walser syndrome is triggered off by the Reich Ranicki-Response, and thus specific for Germany. :)
Marcel Reich Ranicki (http://lostfort.blogspot.com/2005/07/marcel-reich-ranicki-author-of-himself.html) is an extremely popular though also much-hated critic with a TV show of his own (Oprah, this time with more intellect) who kept telling Günter Grass for years that his books are too long. Grass hates him on a personal level for that, and so do others for the reviewas he gives them - nonewithstanding the fact books RR shreds sell like hot cakes. Then Martin Walser wrote a book where a professional critic who is a thinly disguised RR gets killed by an enraged author. The book sucks, but because RR is Jew, some idiot - not RR himself - used it to hang an anitisemitism debate on it, surely more attention than the sorry thing was worth.
What distinguishes authors with the Grass-Walser syndrome is that they take reviews personal in a way you won't expect from professionals, and surely not from men. And they write Literature.
Though I should try to figure out if the (in)famous German Fantasy writer reacts to his dissappointed fans in the Rice-Hamilton manner to see if there's a spreading disease among German genre writers as well.
BTW Anyone remember Anne Golon, of Angelique fame? She identified with her heroine to a point it made you wonder, and got mad at people who pointed out that Angelique was an unrealistic creation in the later books. Really, Angie is married I don't know how many times, gets raped in almost every book, sleeps her way through the court of the Sun King, gets sold into some seraglio and, and ..... but remains the beautiful woman no man can withstand for like 30 years and 20 volumes. Clear case of Rice-Hamilton Disorder in pre-internet times.
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Date: 3 Jan 2007 08:03 pm (UTC)Marcel Reich Ranicki (http://lostfort.blogspot.com/2005/07/marcel-reich-ranicki-author-of-himself.html) is an extremely popular though also much-hated critic with a TV show of his own (Oprah, this time with more intellect) who kept telling Günter Grass for years that his books are too long. Grass hates him on a personal level for that, and so do others for the reviewas he gives them - nonewithstanding the fact books RR shreds sell like hot cakes. Then Martin Walser wrote a book where a professional critic who is a thinly disguised RR gets killed by an enraged author. The book sucks, but because RR is Jew, some idiot - not RR himself - used it to hang an anitisemitism debate on it, surely more attention than the sorry thing was worth.
What distinguishes authors with the Grass-Walser syndrome is that they take reviews personal in a way you won't expect from professionals, and surely not from men. And they write Literature.
Though I should try to figure out if the (in)famous German Fantasy writer reacts to his dissappointed fans in the Rice-Hamilton manner to see if there's a spreading disease among German genre writers as well.
BTW Anyone remember Anne Golon, of Angelique fame? She identified with her heroine to a point it made you wonder, and got mad at people who pointed out that Angelique was an unrealistic creation in the later books. Really, Angie is married I don't know how many times, gets raped in almost every book, sleeps her way through the court of the Sun King, gets sold into some seraglio and, and ..... but remains the beautiful woman no man can withstand for like 30 years and 20 volumes. Clear case of Rice-Hamilton Disorder in pre-internet times.