15 h 0 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a cat's proud memoirs keep interrupting the life of a musical genius?
Murr learns to read and write, then sets down his life with magnificent self-importance. In E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, this ambitious cat turns friendship, love, and learning into reasons to admire himself. His worldly friend Ponto, a poodle, has lessons of his own to offer.
But Murr does not have the pages to himself. His memoirs mingle with the broken biography of Johannes Kreisler, a gifted, moody music director caught at a tiny court. Here, rank matters more than art. As Kreisler struggles to find his place, the stories interrupt each other, setting feline pride against an artist's pain.
What you’ll discover
- A gloriously self-important cat Meet a narrator whose pride makes even his lessons and romances occasions for comedy.
- Music against rank Follow Kreisler into a court where deep musical feeling clashes with ceremony and status.
- Friendship with a poodle Watch Ponto introduce Murr to the ways of humans and other animals.
- An organ builder's illusions Discover Master Abraham, whose crafts, tricks, and quiet protection connect the cat and musician.
- Stories that interrupt Enjoy the strange pleasure of two lives that cut across and comment on each other.
Who will love it
For readers who love satire, music, and stories that play tricks with their own form, with a self-important cat, a troubled musician, and a court where rank clashes with art.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A printer's mistake becomes the book
- A cat learns letters from his master
- A poodle teaches the cat about the world
- A mad musician arrives at a tiny court
- Love and rivalry among the court's young people
- Master Abraham and the shadows of the past
- Murr's love affairs and the cat students
- The artist and the philistine
- How the book is built and why it feels modern
Who’s who
- MurrA tomcat who learns to read and write and records his life with great pride, borrowing from the books in his master's study.
- Johannes KreislerA gifted, moody music director who feels music deeply and struggles to find a place among people who care more for rank than art.
- Master Abraham LiscovAn organ builder and illusionist, the cat's owner and Kreisler's old friend, who quietly guides and protects those near him.
- PontoA worldly poodle who befriends Murr and tries to teach him how to live among humans and other animals.
- JuliaA gentle, musical young woman at the court who becomes Kreisler's pupil and is drawn to him despite the court's plans.
- Princess HedwigaThe daughter of Prince Irenäus and Julia's close friend, whose future is shaped by the court's need for a good match.
- Prince IrenäusA prince without a real realm, who keeps up the ceremonies of a ruling court at Sieghartsweiler and likes to act as though his small state were great.
- MuziusA fellow tomcat who is Murr's friend and a guide into the world of the young cat students.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 15 h 0 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Lebensansichten des Katers Murr
by E. T. A. Hoffmann · 1819
A vain cat writes his memoirs as a gifted musician struggles to follow his heart in a court that prizes rank over art.
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In short
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr is a novel by E. T. A. Hoffmann, a German writer who was also a composer, a conductor, a lawyer and a draftsman. He wrote it between 1819 and 1821 and published it in two volumes.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A printer's mistake becomes the book
The novel opens with an editor, who speaks in a playful, fussy voice. He tells us that he has published the memoirs of a remarkable tomcat named Murr, and he asks us to forgive an accident. The printer, he says, took some pages from another work and mixed them into the cat's manuscript. Those pages are the biography of Kreisler. So the editor has to give us both texts as they came, in alternating chunks.
Murr has his own preface, and it is hard to forget. He addresses the reader with a flourish and announces that he is a cat of rare genius who is ready to share his wisdom with the world. He is nervous, but only in the way a vain person is nervous. He hopes to be admired and he fears being envied. The humor starts right there, because we can see how small his world is while he talks as if it were vast.
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What is The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr about?
It follows two stories cut together. A conceited tomcat writes his memoirs, while pages from the biography of the musician Johannes Kreisler appear between his chapters, as if a printer mixed the two manuscripts by mistake.
Why does the book have two stories mixed together?
Hoffmann invents a printing error. The cat wrote on the backs of pages from Kreisler's biography, and the printer set both texts. This device lets each story comment on the other and plays with the idea of the book itself.
Who is Kreisler in Hoffmann's novel?
Johannes Kreisler is a talented, unstable music director who appears in several Hoffmann works. Here he lives at a small German court, where his honesty and artistic passion bring him into conflict with rank and ceremony.
The author
E. T. A. Hoffmann
1776–1822 · German Romantic writer
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was a German writer, composer, and lawyer. He was born in Königsberg and died in Berlin. He wrote The Golden Pot (1814), The Devil’s Elixirs (1815–1816), Night Pieces (1816–1817), and The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (1819–1821).
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