Posted by Steven on 6/6/2011, 21:29:28, in reply to "Re: The Bad Girl"
76.186.51.185
I enjoyed it as well. I wouldn't quite put Hoffman on the same level as Cervantes, Sterne and Diderot, but his writing does have some the same playful qualities we now call post-modern. As satire often does, Tomcat's humor loses much of its bite with the passage of time, as it depends on knowledge of contemporary culture, popular songs, etc.
I know what you mean about it seeming to take place in the middle ages. To some degree that is probably a reflection of the antiquated customs of the little German principalities. It may also have been intentional on the author's part to emphasize how archaic the aristocracy and the German university was.
Did you find it odd that Master Abraham appears in both story lines, yet nothing ties the two of them together in place or time?
Another oddity is the question of who is the author of the Kreisler "biography?" I don't recall the specifics, but there were events that said it wasn't likely to have been Master Abraham or anyone else who took part in the story. The author was too omniscient for it to be anything but fiction.
--Previous Message--
: As for XIXth Century's cat novels, I loved Murr. All
: differences regarded, it belongs right there with the
: Quixote, Jacques the Fatalist, and of course Tristram
: Shandy. It was a delightful read, I wanted to know
: everything about Kreisler, the court, the Princesses,
: Master Abraham, Murr and his adventures. It is witty,
: ironic, deals with serious subject in a most
: enchanting manner.
:
: Two other things: although I was always conscious that
: the novel was written around 1820, I kept imagining
: the action in the Middle Ages. Plus, I tended to
: imagine it sometimes in the flesh and sometimes in
: cartoons. I love that kind of interactive novel, like
: the ones already mentioned: literary artifices which
: talk to the reader, ponder their options, reflect on
: the act of writing, and peel layers of stories,
: inserting digressions which are frequently the most
: memorable parts. Anyone else liked it?
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