Guess I'm a little weird. I studied German in high school and college and love German poetry — people still read Rilke, don't they? — and the German novelle (an exquisite form). Read Theodor Storm's Immensee sometime, folks. I've reviewed Houllebecq. But also Torgny Lindgren, who I think deserves the Nobel Prize. The late Umberto Eco sold well on these shores, at least for a while. It wasn't that long ago that Hermann Hesse was all the rage. What has happened?
Rilke is at least well enough remembered to form part of a joke in Woody Allen's To Rome with Love. I don't know whether you are weird or not, but I doubt either of us is a fair sample of the reading population of the Anglophone world. I will say that my wife has read all of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels--I gave her the first as a present, but have read none--and her other book club read one of them.
ReplyDeleteI do find Amis's attitude strange.