Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (Penguin Classics) by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Anthea Bell, Jeremy Adler ISBN: 0-14-044631-1 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: 'A supreme example of literary bravado'
Comment: The introduction claims this is an extraordinary book and it surely is. It does bare some resemblance to 'The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy' but is markedly more inventive, more engaging. Partly it is because it is two stories entwined but also disengaged. And each is of great complexity - the one being a truly captivating mystery but one that progresses ever so slowly, almost catching me unawares and making me wonder - for a while - if this wasn't the first detective story, and the other being the musings of the character of the title - Tomcat Murr. Yes, a cat actually writes the story! By the end of the novel - and it was a long and slow read for me - every character was someone I felt totally at sympathy with (which is not something I could say for the characters in Tristam Shandy). ...
I found this novel a long, hard read - the ideas and interrelationships are dense. But by the end of it I loved all the characters, they are part of my family. It is no wonder that Hoffmann had such a great impact in the world of music - his writing can get right under your skin - well, it certainly got under mine. I will read this novel again. It is simply so good, so captivating...
Rating: 5
Summary: A Masterpiece
Comment: A remarkable example of the simply astoundig gifts of Hoffmann's writing, one of the few unquestionable genius in literature's history. E.T.A Hoffmann manages to blend, with overpowering skill and boldness, fantasy, wittiness, irony, sharp political criticism and lyricism, giving to the cultivated reader an endless cornucopia of sophisticated, intelligent gladness.
Rating: 5
Summary: The first Post-Modern novel?
Comment: Hoffmann was one of the most influential writers of the early 19th cventury. A composer and critic as well as writer of often bizarre fiction, Hoffmann set the tone for much of Romantic literature (especially the combination of the bourgeois and the supernatural), and provided the plots for operas and ballets (including Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker). This novel, which intersperses the memoirs of a cat (appropriately named Murr) with the "random pieces of wastepaper" the cat shredded out of a biography of the composer Kreisler (Hoffmann's alter ego?). In the late 20th century, we came to take the idea of intercutting two unrelated narratives for granted as a Post-modern breakdown of narrative authority. Yet here is the same device, in 1820! Just when you're emotionally invested in one story, it abruptly shifts back to the other. Moreover, Murr's "cat's eye view" of human interaction turns the entire book into a sly critique of the declining aristocrats and rising bourgeois of Europe at the time. A brilliant, compelling, often hilarious read. You'll understand why Schumann, Brahms, and so many others thought of Hoffmann as their favorite writer.
 |
Title: The Tales of Hoffmann (Penguin Classics) by E. T. A. Hoffmann, R. J. Hollingdale ISBN: 0140443924 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1990 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: The Golden Pot and Other Tales (Oxford World's Classics) by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Ritchie Robertson ISBN: 0192837230 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
 |
Title: The Best Tales of Hoffmann by E. T. A. Hoffmann ISBN: 0486217930 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 April, 1979 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: The Marquise of O--, and Other Stories by Heinrich Von Kleist, Heinrich Von Kleist, David Luke ISBN: 0140443592 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1978 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Novel by Novalis, Palmer Hilty ISBN: 0881335746 Publisher: Waveland Press Pub. Date: August, 1990 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
