''The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper'' is a complex

satirical novel Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n Romantic-era author E. T. A. Hoffmann. It was first published in 1819–1821 as ''Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern'', in two volumes. A planned third volume was never completed.

Synopsis

The text of the book states it is the

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

of a

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

named Murr who has learned to

write Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

. The content of the book is therefore the life and work of the cat Murr, as written by Murr. However, in between Murr's autobiography, there are pages of a biography of another

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

, Johannes Kreisler.

Reception

Critic

Alex Ross Nelson Alexander Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an American comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries ''Marvels'', on which he collaborated wi ...

writes of the novel: "If the phantasmagoric 'Kater Murr' were published tomorrow as the work of a young

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

hipster, it might be hailed as a tour de force of

postmodern fiction Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental ...

Jeffrey Ford Jeffrey Ford (born November 8, 1955) is an American writer in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humo ...

described the novel as a "complex, truly wild fiction" where Hoffmann "pieced together the fragments of his own shattered psyche and commented on the relationship of art and artists to society.""Curiosities''
''

F&SF ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spiva ...

'', April 1999

English translations

An English translation by

Anthea Bell Anthea Bell (10 May 1936 – 18 October 2018) was an English translator of literary works, including children's literature, from French, German and Danish. These include '' The Castle'' by Franz Kafka, ''Austerlitz'' by W. G. Sebald, the '' In ...

was published in 1999 by

Penguin Classics Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Western ...

Notes

References

External links

* * German fantasy novels Novels by E. T. A. Hoffmann Novels about cats 1819 German novels 1821 German novels 1810s fantasy novels 1820s fantasy novels {{1810s-novel-stub Metafictional novels