Murr, so the editor apologizes, had, while writing his memoirs, torn up the biography of Kreisler in order to use its pages as writing pad and blotting paper. When Murr had his
work published, the printer mistakenly thought the sheets from Kreisler’s life to be part of the tomcat’s autobiography, so that in the finished product two very dissimilar stories
interrupt each other with maddening regularity.
In Murr’s account, Hoffmann parodies the educational novel, the bildungsroman, of
his day. Murr, a smugly egotistical tomcat, pompously details the stages by which he
planned to advance himself in the world. With all the naïveté of his inflated ego, he tells how he first embarked on an academic career, then felt free to pursue romantic love, became involved in the political arena, and finally aspired to be recognized as a true gentleman. At the end, the reader is informed that the splendid cat has unfortunately died, a fate common to those who achieve too much at too early an age.
That Murr’s penmanship at least left much to be desired might be gathered from the
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fact that about two-thirds of all pages in the book were apparently needed as blotting paper. These pages tell of the life of Johannes Kreisler. The story opens at the small court of Sieghartsweiler, where for some time now the former mistress of Prince Irenäus has spun
an intrigue that is to lead to a marriage between Irenäus’s half-witted son Ignaz and her own daughter, the beautiful and sensitive Julia.
The plot gets under way as the eccentric musician Kreisler joins the tedious life at the miniature court. He soon is asked to give Julia and Hedwiga, Prince Irenäus’s only daughter, music lessons, and the two girls are quickly attracted to Kreisler by the strange powers that his curiously extravagant behavior reveals. Their idyllic association is destroyed by the news that Hedwiga is to marry the handsome but unscrupulous Prince Hektor. Hektor,
assured that in time he will possess Hedwiga, promptly sets out to seduce Julia. For a
while, Kreisler manages to foil Hektor’s plans, until an attempt on Kreisler’s life forces the musician to flee from court. He takes up residence in a nearby Benedictine abbey and
there resumes work as composer and music director. Unfortunately, Kreisler has barely
achieved peace in his new surroundings when an urgent letter from Sieghartsweiler im-
plores him to return to court, where a double wedding joining Hektor and Hedwiga as well as Ignaz and Julia is about to take place. Whether Kreisler was able to prevent this impending misfortune remains unclear, as the novel breaks off in the middle of a sentence.
Throughout the story, evidence accumulates suggesting that Kreisler, whose identity is
the central mystery of the plot, may well be the victim of a long-standing court intrigue.
The attraction that Kreisler’s character exerts, however, seems to depend even less on the unraveling of a web of fateful family relations than does the account of the friar Medardus.
What the torn-out pages of Kreisler’s biography tell about the torn-up life of its hero, no clandestine schemes could possibly bind together. Kreisler’s existential rootlessness is ultimately the result not of clever machinations from without but of his own self-lacerating quest for human perfection in a petty environment. Sheltering a highly idealistic and
highly vulnerable personality behind masks of cynicism and eccentricity, Kreisler is
plagued by the sudden shifts of an artistic vision that shows the trivial to be sublime as often as it shows the sublime to be trivial. Thus barred from any consistent perspective on world or self, he is forced to vacillate between ecstatic joy and despondent frustration: ecstatic joy at the world’s grandeur, despondent frustration at its inevitable depreciation at the hands of unresponsive men. In contrast to Medardus, who could still reconstruct his divided will from the secure vision of an undisputed faith, Kreisler’s divided perception
finds no such security; even his monastic retreat offers him hardly more than a brief respite from his self-tormented life.
It would be inaccurate, however, to think of The Life and Opinions of Kater Murr as a thoroughly pessimistic novel. It must not be forgotten that Hoffmann chained Kreisler’s
volatile idealism to the pedestrian common sense of the tomcat Murr. If the musician un-
masks the cat’s vain shallowness, Murr, too, provides a mocking mirror for Kreisler’s pursuit of perfection at the Lilliputian court of Sieghartsweiler. How serious Hoffmann was 136
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about seeing the perspectives of the conformist animal and of the nonconformist artist as complementary becomes clear when Murr ends his memoirs with the remark that hence-forth he will live with a new master, the concertmaster Kreisler.
Murr’s death, of course, leaves it to the reader to imagine what the unlikely compan-
ions could have meant to each other. For Hoffmann, the outcome of their partnership can-
not be in doubt. Whenever people admit to being part self-serving cat and part self-effacing idealist, self-irony—the tolerant smile at one’s own incongruous personality—will
turn the menace of a divided ego into the promise of a healthily deflated, less commanding but also less aggressive self. Although Hoffmann’s creatures have not yet attained their creator’s humorous wisdom, the reader understands and is invited to rise to its challenge.
Joachim Scholz
Other major works
short fiction: Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier, 1814-1815 ( Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner, 1996); Nachtstücke, 1817; Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober, 1819 ( Little Zaches, Surnamed Zinnober, 1971); Die Serapionsbrüder, 1819-1821 (4 volumes; The Serapion Brethren, 1886-1892); Prinzessin Brambilla: Ein Capriccio nach Jakob Callot, 1821 ( Princess Brambilla: A “Capriccio” in the Style of Jacques Callot, 1971); Meister Floh: Ein Märchen in sieben Abenteuern zweier Freunde, 1822 ( Master Flea: A Fairy Tale in Seven Adventures of Two Friends, 1826); Four Tales, 1962; The Best Tales of Hoffmann, 1967; Selected Writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann, 1969 (2 volumes); The Golden Pot, and Other Tales, 1992.
nonfiction: Briefwechsel, 1967-1969 (3 volumes; correspondence); Tagebücher, 1971 (4 volumes; diaries); Selected Letters, 1977.
musical compositions: Liebe und Eifersucht: Oper, 1807; Trois Canzonettes, 1808; Arlequinn: Ballett, 1811; Undine, 1816; Musikalische Werke, 1922-1927.
Bibliography
Chantler, Abigail. E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Musical Aesthetics. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. Hoffmann was a music critic and composer as well as a writer, and this book describes his aesthetic ideas about music, placing them within the context of late eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth century philosophy. Also discusses the significance of
Hoffmann’s literary works.
Daemmrich, Horst S. The Shattered Self: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Tragic Vision. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1973. Important study of Hoffmann’s literary
work begins with an introduction that places Hoffmann in historical context and out-
lines critical appraisals of his work. Analysis of Hoffmann’s major themes and motifs
finds in the author’s work a portrayal of “the disintegration of the individual in a world of uncontrolled forces.” Includes extensive notes, bibliography, and index.
Hewett-Thayer, Harvey W. Hoffmann: Author of the Tales. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton 137
Hoffmann, E. T. A.
Critical Survey of Long Fiction
University Press, 1938. Classic work, intended as an introduction for both students and
general readers, that provides a comprehensive biography of Hoffmann and discus-
sion of his works, with very readable story analyses. Informative footnotes include
suggestions for further reading as well as the original German for many pas
sages when
these appear in English translation in the main text. Supplemented by a listing of
Hoffmann’s literary works with dates of publication, a bibliography, and an index of
names and works.
Kohlenbach, Margarete. “Women and Artists: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Implicit Critique of
Early Romanticism.” Modern Language Review 89, no. 3 (July, 1994): 659-673. Ex-
amines the Romantic philosophy of love in the novel The Life and Opinions of Kater
Murr and in Hoffmann’s other works. Argues that the character Johannes Kreisler expresses ideas about love that are at variance with Hoffmann’s writings as a whole and
explains the significance of this divergence.
McGlathery, James M. E. T. A. Hoffmann. New York: Twayne, 1997. Interesting introduction to Hoffmann’s life and work analyzes his major works of fiction and also dis-
cusses the critical reception of Hoffmann’s writings and Hoffmann’s own works
of criticism.
Negus, Kenneth. E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Other World: The Romantic Author and His “New
Mythology.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965. Very readable monograph focuses on Hoffmann’s development of a coherent body of myth in his
fantasy world—a “new mythology” founded on an inner spiritual (or psychological)
world but extending to form a “cosmic myth.” Examines all of Hoffmann’s major liter-
ary works as well as many of his minor works with a view to laying a critical founda-
tion for his narrative art. Includes select bibliography and index.
Riou, Jeanne. Imagination in German Romanticism: Re-thinking the Self and Its Environment. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. Examines the works of Hoffmann and other Ger-
man writers and philosophers to explore the Romantic concept of the imagination and
the imagination’s critique of reason.
138
STEPHEN KING
Born: Portland, Maine; September 21, 1947
Also known as: Stephen Edwin King; Richard Bachman; John Swithen; Eleanor
Druse
Principal long fiction
Carrie, 1974
‘Salem’s Lot, 1975
Rage, 1977 (as Richard Bachman)
The Shining, 1977
The Stand, 1978 (unabridged edition 1990)
The Dead Zone, 1979
The Long Walk, 1979 (as Bachman)
Firestarter, 1980
Cujo, 1981
The Gunslinger, 1982 (revised 2003; illustrated by Michael Whelan)
The Running Man, 1982 (as Bachman)
Christine, 1983
Cycle of the Werewolf, 1983 (novella; illustrated by Berni Wrightson)
Pet Sematary, 1983
The Eyes of the Dragon, 1984, 1987
The Talisman, 1984 (with Peter Straub)
Thinner, 1984 (as Bachman)
The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King, 1985 (includes Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man)
It, 1986
The Drawing of the Three, 1987 (illustrated by Phil Hale)
Misery, 1987
The Tommyknockers, 1987
The Dark Half, 1989
Needful Things, 1991
The Waste Lands, 1991 (illustrated by Ned Dameron)
Gerald’s Game, 1992
Dolores Claiborne, 1993
Insomnia, 1994
Rose Madder, 1995
Desperation, 1996
The Green Mile, 1996 (six-part serialized novel)
The Regulators, 1996 (as Bachman)
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Wizard and Glass, 1997 (illustrated by Dave McKean)
Bag of Bones, 1998
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, 1999
Storm of the Century, 1999 (adaptation of his teleplay)
Black House, 2001 (with Peter Straub)
Dreamcatcher, 2001
From a Buick Eight, 2002
Wolves of the Calla, 2003 (illustrated by Bernie Wrightson)
The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital
Incident, 2004 (as Eleanor Druse)
The Dark Tower, 2004 (illustrated by Michael Whelan)
Song of Susannah, 2004 (illustrated by Darrel Anderson)
The Colorado Kid, 2005
Cell, 2006
Lisey’s Story, 2006
Blaze, 2007 (as Bachman)
Duma Key, 2008
In addition to his novels, Stephen King has published many short stories, including the
collections Night Shift (1978), Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), and Everything’s Eventual: Fourteen Dark Tales (2002). The collections Different Seasons (1982) and Four Past Midnight (1990) contain novellas, two of which are of central importance to King’s body of work. In The Body, a boy’s confrontation with mortality shapes his developing identity as a writer. In The Mist, King in his satirical and apocalyptic mode brings Arma-geddon to the Federal Foods Supermarket as an assortment of grade-B film monsters that
inhabit a dense fog.
The relations of King’s fiction with the electronic media are many and complex. Much
of his fiction has been adapted to both the large and small screens, although it usually plays best in the mind’s eye. Several of King’s screenplays have been produced, including Maximum Overdrive (1986), a film he also directed. A relatively successful mixed-media venture was his collaboration with George Romero on Creepshow (1982), a film anthology inspired by the D.C. Comics’ blend of camp and gore and based on King’s own book
version. Creepshow II, written by Romero and based on King’s stories, appeared in 1987.
King’s teleplays include The Stand (1994), which is based on his novel, and Storm of the Century (1999), which was written expressly for television broadcast. In 2002, he wrote the script for the television miniseries Rose Red. In addition to his works of fiction, King has published numerous articles as well as a critical book, Danse Macabre (1981). In 2000, he published On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and in 2003, he began to publish occasional columns on popular culture in Entertainment Weekly magazine.
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King, Stephen
Achievements
Stephen King is perhaps the most widely known American writer of his generation,
yet his distinctions include publishing as two authors at once: Beginning in 1966, he wrote novels that were published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. He won many British
Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards, including the latter for overall contributions to the
genre in 1980. King was at first ignored and then scorned by mainstream critics, but by the late 1980’s his novels were reviewed regularly in The New York Times Book Review with increasing favor. Beginning in 1987, most of his novels were main selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, which in 1989 created the Stephen King Library, committed to
keeping King’s novels “in print in hardcover.”
King was People magazine’s Writer of the Year in 1980. One of his most appropriate distinctions was the October 9, 1986, cover of Time magazine, which depicted a reader, hair on end, transfixed by “A Novel by Stephen King.” The cover story on the “King of
Horror” correctly suggested that his achievement and the “horror boom” of the 1970’s and 1980’s are inseparable. Like Edgar Allan Poe, King turned a degenerated genre—a matter
of comic-book monsters and drive-in films—into a medium embodying the primary anxi-
eties of his age. His revitalization of the horror genre and his increasingly good reviews from mainstream newspapers and journals culminated in his receiving his most illustrious award in 2003: the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters.
King’s detractors attribute his su
ccess to the sensational appeal of his genre, the main purpose of which, as King readily confesses, is to scare people. His fiction is graphic, sentimental, and predictable. His humor is usually crude and campy. His novels are often long and loosely structured: It, for example, comprises more than eleven hundred pages. In an environment of “exhaustion” and minimalism, King’s page-turners are the summit of the
garbage heap of a mass, throwaway culture. Worst of all, he is “Master of Postliterate
Prose,” as Paul Gray stated in 1982—his writing takes readers mentally to the movies
rather than making them imagine or think.
On the other hand, King’s work provides the most genuine example of the storyteller’s
art since Charles Dickens. He has returned to the novel some of the popular appeal it had in the nineteenth century and turned out a generation of readers who vastly prefer some
books to their film adaptations. As Dickens drew on the popular culture of his time, King reflects the mass-mediated culture of his own. His dark fantasies, like all good popular fiction, allow readers to express within conventional frames of reference feelings and con-
cepts they might not otherwise consider. In imagination, King is not merely prolific; his vision articulates universal fears and desires in terms peculiar to contemporary culture.
Biography
The second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King, Stephen Edwin King has
lived most of his life in Maine, the setting for most of his fiction. Two childhood traumas, 141
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neither of which he remembers, may have been formative. In 1949, when he was two
years old, his parents separated and his father disappeared. In 1951, he apparently saw a train dismember a neighborhood friend.
King’s conservative Methodist upbringing was supplemented early with a diet of
comic books and Weird Tales. When twelve, he began submitting stories for sale. In 1970, he graduated from the University of Maine, Orono, with a B.S. in English and a minor in
dramatics. He encountered two lasting influences: the naturalist writers and contempo-
rary American mythology. He also met Tabitha Jane Spruce, whom he married in 1971.
After graduation, he worked in an industrial laundry until 1971, when he became an