Das Buechernoergele - Marcel Reich-Ranicki

About this artwork

My tribute to the great literature critic and member of the "Literarische Quartett", who passed away on 18th September 2013. This drawing was created almost exactly a year after his death. Now that his fellow colleague Hellmuth Karasek died, too, I thought it was the time for uploading this. The title refers to Michael Ende's novel "Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch" (English title: The Night of Wishes: Or the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion), where the wizard Beelzebub Preposteror keeps a little creature, the Büchernörgele, in his collection. This creature's facial features resemble those of Reich-Ranicki a lot. It is known that Reich-Ranicki didn't held much of Fantasy-stories and I bet he criticised Ende's work, too. Büchernörgele translates to something like "book-nagger".