Max and the Cats - Softcover

Scliar, Moacyr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452284538 ISBN 13: 9780452284531

Publisher: Plume, 2003

Synopsis

Max Schmidt grew up in the stockroom of his father's fur store, cloaked among the foxes, minks, and leopards, hiding from the glaring eyes of a stuffed tiger atop the wardrobe. It is here he dreams of traveling to distant lands; and here, as a young man, he begins an affair with the store's married clerk.

Forced to flee when his lover's husband discovers the affair and denounces Max to the Nazi secret police, Max steals away to Hamburg, where he takes passage on a freighter destined for disaster. When the ship founders somewhere off the coast of South America, Max is trapped in a dinghy with a hungry jaguar. Max believes his days are numbered-until he washes ashore on the coast of tiny Porto Alegre, Brazil, prepared to begin anew in the tropical clime.

But when Max discovers his next-door neighbor is a Nazi hiding from persecution, he finds that for the first time in his life, he is the master of his own destiny, ready to take matters into his own hands...

About this title

About the Author

Moacyr Scliar was born in 1937 in the town of Porto Alegre, Brazil. The author of sixty-two books (translated into a dozen languages) and the recipient of numerous Brazilian literary awards, Scliar is recognized as one of the country's most outstanding writers of fiction. He is the author of The Centaur in the Garden, The Carnival of Animals, The One-Man Army, and The Gods of Raquel, among others.

Reviews

Originally published in Brazil in 1981, Scliar's novella tells, with a sharp eye but a glancing touch, the story of a boy at the mercy of terrible forces, who grows into a man similarly powerless, until he commits an act of violent defiance. German Max Schmidt, son of a brutish furrier and a gentle mother, is "morbidly sensitive," imagining escape to exotic climes. At university, Max befriends a troubled socialist and rekindles his affair with libidinous Frida, the fur store clerk who had deflowered him. But Frida is now married to a Nazi, who learns of the relationship, and Max must flee on a ship bound for Brazil. When the ship sinks-sabotaged by its evil captain and the owner of the menagerie of animals in the hull-Max barely survives, only to find himself in a tiny dinghy in the company of a jaguar, whom he imagines has been sent to torment him. Max is rescued and makes his way to Brazil, where he lives in relative comfort until he spies a man in a Nazi uniform across the courtyard. He flees again, this time to the hills, where he becomes a moderately successful farmer, marries a native and has a daughter. Max can be an irrational, not entirely likable hero, and in this slight but somber fable, there is little time for him to win readers' hearts, though he earns their sympathy. When another Nazi moves onto the hillside above him, Max finally stands up to fate and the forces of evil. Scliar's affecting story about the power of fear has what purports to be a happy ending, but the darkness lingers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0452284538
• ISBN 13: 9780452284531
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128