Reviews of non-fiction titles occasionally get attacked and denounced (for being too subjective, for example), but it's much more rare that there is a big fuss about a review of a novel overstepping bounds -- sure, occasionally one can argue that a reviewer was too tough on a debut-work, or maybe invoking: "your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating" goes a step or two too far, but that's usually the extent of it -- but a recent review in Germany has kicked up a veritable shitstorm of criticism.
The book in question is Christian Kracht's Imperium (see the KiWi foreign rights page for an (English) introduction, or get your copy at Amazon.de (where its sales-rank was six, last I checked -- controversy remains very good for sales ...)), the review in question Georg Diez's lengthy but unfortunately not available online one in the current issue of Der Spiegel.
Not only did publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch feel obliged to respond, saying that the review: "sprengt die Grenzen der Literaturkritik" ('bursts the limits of literary criticism') and accusing Diez of "journalistischen Rufmord" ('journalistic defamation'), but quite a collection of authors have responded in a huff: boersenblatt.net prints an open letter to Der Spiegel signed by, among others, Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Stamm, and Daniel Kehlmann, arguing that with this review Georg Diez 'crossed the barrier between criticism and denunciation' and warning of the consequences of such an approach being tolerated (concluding that that would mean the end of 'free art').
love german books has a good overview of what's at issue, in the book and the review -- but look for lots more about this.
The book in question is Christian Kracht's Imperium (see the KiWi foreign rights page for an (English) introduction, or get your copy at Amazon.de (where its sales-rank was six, last I checked -- controversy remains very good for sales ...)), the review in question Georg Diez's lengthy but unfortunately not available online one in the current issue of Der Spiegel.
Not only did publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch feel obliged to respond, saying that the review: "sprengt die Grenzen der Literaturkritik" ('bursts the limits of literary criticism') and accusing Diez of "journalistischen Rufmord" ('journalistic defamation'), but quite a collection of authors have responded in a huff: boersenblatt.net prints an open letter to Der Spiegel signed by, among others, Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Stamm, and Daniel Kehlmann, arguing that with this review Georg Diez 'crossed the barrier between criticism and denunciation' and warning of the consequences of such an approach being tolerated (concluding that that would mean the end of 'free art').
love german books has a good overview of what's at issue, in the book and the review -- but look for lots more about this.