The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within the humdrum bustle of daily life, making The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (1820-22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the nineteenth century.
About the Author
E T A Hoffmann (1776 - 1822) was born in Konigsberg and became one of the best known and influential authors of his time. He exploited the grotesque and the bizarre in a manner unmatched by any other Romantic writer.
Jeremy Adler is Professor of German at King's College London.
Anthea Bell has received many awards for her translations including the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 1979, 1990 and 1995.
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No book stands in more need of a foreword than the present work, since without some explanation of the strange way in which it is put together, it is bound to seem an oddly assorted hotchpotch. Read the first page
Front Cover | Excerpt | Back Cover
No book stands in more need of a foreword than the present work, since without some explanation of the strange way in which it is put together, it is bound to seem an oddly assorted hotchpotch. Read the first page
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The final book of Hoffmann's life is also one of the strangest of the nineteenth century. 'Tomcat Murr' is the autobiography of a self-educated cat, charting his growth and education as he tries to find his place in the world. We are told that Murr wrote his story on waste paper on which the story of a man, Johannes Kreisler, had been written, and that the printers to which Murr's story was sent had become confused and printed both stories. Consequently, 'Tomcat Murr' is actually two stories - those of Murr and Kreisler - told in large interspersed segments. There is no real overlap between the stories, although Murr and his owner appear in both. They are, nevertheless, both very enjoyable.
Murr's story focuses on his attempts to educate himself, both academically and socially. He attempts to master poetry and foreign languages, as well as social interactions and the pursuit of the opposite sex. All of his refinements are coloured by the fact that he is still, at heart, a cat, and Hoffmann derives a lot of humour from Murr's struggles against his own animal nature. Murr's attempt to save his mother from starvation by bringing her a fish head, for example, is ruined because halfway in his journey to her, he eats it himself. Murr's justification is that he is a cat, and he was hungry. Murr's story therefore addresses issues such as the effects of nature and nurture, and the breaking of social boundaries.
The other story follows Johannes Kreisler, a musician and artist who joins the court of Prince Iraneus. Kreisler is the epitome of the artistic soul, finding beauty in art and ignoring the niceties of court life. He is something of an eccentric, evidenced by his friendship with the mystical Master Abraham and his unorthodox involvement with the ladies of the court. Kreisler's story finds him central to court intrigues, but the fragmentary nature of the manuscript means we never really get to the bottom of what is going on. Hoffmann is playing with his readers throughout Kreisler's story, building up scenarios before abruptly cutting back to Murr, and leaving intriguing gaps in Kreisler's story that are never filled.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Tomcat Murr', but I must confess that the reason for Hoffmann's juxtaposition of the two stories left me bemused. I couldn't really see the point in the book's unusual structure, but in a strange way, it seems to work. Despite not really having a clue what Hoffmann was trying to achieve, I found 'Tomcat Murr' to be a surprisingly enjoyable and easy read. It was very unusual and very odd, and well worth a look for all these reasons.
Murr's story focuses on his attempts to educate himself, both academically and socially. He attempts to master poetry and foreign languages, as well as social interactions and the pursuit of the opposite sex. All of his refinements are coloured by the fact that he is still, at heart, a cat, and Hoffmann derives a lot of humour from Murr's struggles against his own animal nature. Murr's attempt to save his mother from starvation by bringing her a fish head, for example, is ruined because halfway in his journey to her, he eats it himself. Murr's justification is that he is a cat, and he was hungry. Murr's story therefore addresses issues such as the effects of nature and nurture, and the breaking of social boundaries.
The other story follows Johannes Kreisler, a musician and artist who joins the court of Prince Iraneus. Kreisler is the epitome of the artistic soul, finding beauty in art and ignoring the niceties of court life. He is something of an eccentric, evidenced by his friendship with the mystical Master Abraham and his unorthodox involvement with the ladies of the court. Kreisler's story finds him central to court intrigues, but the fragmentary nature of the manuscript means we never really get to the bottom of what is going on. Hoffmann is playing with his readers throughout Kreisler's story, building up scenarios before abruptly cutting back to Murr, and leaving intriguing gaps in Kreisler's story that are never filled.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Tomcat Murr', but I must confess that the reason for Hoffmann's juxtaposition of the two stories left me bemused. I couldn't really see the point in the book's unusual structure, but in a strange way, it seems to work. Despite not really having a clue what Hoffmann was trying to achieve, I found 'Tomcat Murr' to be a surprisingly enjoyable and easy read. It was very unusual and very odd, and well worth a look for all these reasons.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In a word - fantastic. It is difficult to believe that this book was written in 1820. The novel is quite mad and surreal in a Bulgakov way: in fact there are many similar elements - a cat with human qualities and `the master' who seems to control everything. Once you get used to the language Murr is more laugh-out-loud than the Master and the Margarita. There are no weak patches in the novel and in its structure things are perfectly paced. I thought I might struggle to read it, particularly on a beach holiday, but once you adjust to reading the two narratives as fragments there is no problem. The musings of the cat are written on the back of a fictional biography of a musician named Kapelmeister. The cat has apparently ripped up the pages in a fit of piqué and so an episode breaks off and the other starts leaving much to the imagination. I have now realised that much of 20th century fiction was doing something begun 200 years before. One anecdote I read (via Norman Davies) was that Hoffman was an administrator for a time in Prussian Poland and was responsible for making sure all the population had surnames. Jewish and gypsy people would wait to be given names by him hoping that they would be receive something normal. If Hoffman had good fish for lunch then in the afternoon all the names would be fishy. Similarly, if dinner had been with a general then the names would be patriotic and martial. Apparently you wouldn't want to get him with a hangover. This is as strange and absurd as the episodes in his stories.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Definately a contender for best fiction I've read. This is two books in one: one is by the Tomcat Murr and the other is by his master. The intelligent cat writes on his master's papers so we have both stories interrupting each other! The cat's story is amusing and simple - in many ways it is a coming of age parody. The other story - the master's - is an excellent one and my advise is to be careful when reading it. The master's story does takes a while to pick up but by the end when everything comes together you realise that you should have paid more attention rather than skim reading it to get back to the cat's recollections! The fact that the stories interrupt each other is another reason why this book is hard to put down. I certainly was unable to! This is a massively original book that is very well written. I am astonished that it is not well known and that it took me this long to come across it. Enjoy!
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