Max and the Cats
SynopsisPlot
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.
Story
About this book
Max Schmidt grows up surrounded by animal pelts in his father's fur shop in Germany, where a stuffed tiger watches from the top of a wardrobe. As a young man, he begins a secret affair with a married employee of the store. When the woman's husband reports him to the Nazi secret police, Max flees to Hamburg and boards a freighter bound for South America. The ship sinks, leaving Max stranded on a small boat with a jaguar.
Survival at sea with a large predator becomes the novel's central situation, and Moacyr Scliar uses it as an allegory. The fear Max feels toward the animal mirrors the dangers he has already escaped in Europe, and the story draws a line between political terror and the raw threat of nature. When Max reaches the shore near Porto Alegre, Brazil, he faces the prospect of building a new life in unfamiliar territory.
Scliar, a Brazilian author from Porto Alegre, published this short novel decades before Yann Martel's Life of Pi appeared. The similarities between the two books prompted public discussion and some accusations of plagiarism, though Scliar chose not to pursue legal action. He said he considered Martel's work an appropriation of his premise rather than direct copying.
