From the cover sleeve: "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."
Monday, 27 February 2012
Murr
From the cover sleeve: "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."
Sunday, 30 August 2009
The engine owl
We cut to an excavation scene, in the icy tundras of MOUNT MOD MOON MONO TUTU...
...where a rather large bum is sticking up in the air...
...the bottom of a certain Sir Hugo Clarence Washington-Smythe.
ASSISTANT (IDA TWEEDLE)
Sir, look, I think... I cannot say for sure, but I do believe I have unearthed the mythical Engine Owl of Ancient Zion!
SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON-SMYTHE
Oh, that! I discovered that, back in uh... back in uh... the day...
Sir Hugo: give it here, right this minute, or I'll have you tried for high treason and perverting the course of justice!
Sir Hugo: I'll have your wages cut, and other things cut that you wouldn't care to be... cut.
ZOLUMBOO (Narrator)
Now I'm no detective... oh wait! I am!... but I think that guy's a phoney! Wait, something important's happening, let's get back to the story!

ASSISTANT (
With all due respect, Sir, you can't claim every victory!
Ida Tweedle: I found that owl fair and square, and you've spent the whole day sitting on your oversized rump, hogging the hot water bottles and moaning about the cold! From now on I will be working for myself. Hmph!
SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON-SMYTHE
Don't talk to me like that! I'll decide how this story ends!
He takes a large dark starry book from his coat and and unlocks it with a rusty key.
Ida turns slowly, and sees the open pages like mirrors.
We see her face reflected in the mirrors and then the empty space where she once stood.
Washington-Smythe holds the book up triumphantly.
SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON SMYTHE
Now I've trapped you, you'll never steal from me again.
Sir Hugo: You're nothing but a fictional character, doomed to spend the rest of your days in writing. 
[HER WORDS APPEARING AS TEXT ON THE
Ida Tweedle: Your precious artefact is with me, Washington-Smythe. The engine-owl is fictional too now.
