''Pfitz'' is a 1997 novel by Scottish

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

Andrew Crumey Andrew Crumey (born 1961) is a novelist and former literary editor of the Edinburgh newspaper ''Scotland on Sunday''. His works of literary fiction incorporate elements of speculative fiction, historical fiction, philosophical fiction and Menip ...

. It concerns an 18th-century

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

who dedicates his life to the

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

of imaginary

cities A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

. The name Pfitz is taken from an

inhabitant In law and conflict of laws, domicile is relevant to an individual's "personal law", which includes the law that governs a person's status and their property. It is independent of a person's nationality. Although a domicile may change from time t ...

of one of the prince's fanciful cities, Rreinnstadt. In 1997, the book was named a notable book of the year by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. In that newspaper Andrew Miller said it, "makes for rewarding reading – cerebral, adroit, not afraid to take chances but never allowing itself to be seduced by theory, by mere cleverness." It was published in Germany as ''Die Geliebte des Kartographen'' ("The Cartographer's Lover") and was the subject of a prize-winning television feature by Eva Severini. In 2013 the Scottish Book Trust selected it as one of the 50 best Scottish books of the last 50 years.

Critical analysis

Mark C. Taylor related the multiple "authors" in ''Pfitz'' to complexity theory. "''Pfitz'' is not just ''about'' emergent complexity but is a brilliant enactment of it. One of the strategies Crumey and his coauthors use to generate complexity is to create multiple self-reflexive loops by folding authors and readers into each other until the line separating them becomes obscure." Stephen J. Burn sees ''Pfitz'', Tom McCarthy's ''Men in Space'' and David Mitchell's ''

Number9dream ''number9dream'' is the second novel by English author David Mitchell. Set in Japan, the 2001 novel narrates 19-year-old Eiji Miyake's search for his father, whom he has never met. Told in the first person by Eiji, it is a coming of age and pe ...

'' as examples of a subgenre he terms "multiple drafts" novels, with ''Pfitz'' being "the earliest—and arguably the most representative—example of this form." Burn's term "multiple drafts" is borrowed from Daniel Dennett's model of consciousness. Burn writes that ''Pfitz'' shows "evident familiarity with Daniel Dennett's work" and says it "might be considered to provide the hidden internal blueprint for different levels of the novel's action." Toon Staes sees ''Pfitz'' as a " systems novel", a term coined by

Tom LeClair Thomas LeClair (born 1944) is a writer, literary critic, and was the Nathaniel Ropes Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati until 2009. He has been a regular book reviewer for the ''New York Times Book Review'', the ''Washington Post ...

who applied it to writers including

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter, and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as consumerism, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, televi ...

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...

John Barth John Simmons Barth (; May 27, 1930 – April 2, 2024) was an American writer best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include '' The Sot-Weed Facto ...

and

Ursula Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...

. In Staes' usage, "systems novels feature multiple nonlinear and fragmented narrative strands that gradually fix the reader's attention on a network of relationships," with ''Pfitz'' being "an interesting test case." Colin Manlove described ''Pfitz'' as a "'

postmodernist Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

' fantasy" with "a vision of a universal machine of wheels and cogs that churns out infinite textual universes, each of which has no 'reality' as we commonly know it."

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web , url = https://lccn.loc.gov/97015517 , title = Pfitz / Andrew Crumey , website = catalog.loc.gov , publisher = Library of Congress Catalog , access-date = 2024-03-27 {{cite web , first=Andrew , last=Miller , date=1997-10-19 , title=Castles in the Air , work=The New York Times , url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/19/reviews/971019.19millert.html , accessdate=2011-01-07 {{cite web , title=Pfitz, a novel , publisher=MacMillan , url=http://us.macmillan.com/pfitz , accessdate=2011-01-07 {{cite web , title=Notable Books of the Year 1997 , date=7 December 1997 , work=The New York Times , url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/07/reviews/notable-fiction.html , accessdate=2011-01-07

External links

''Pfitz'' at Internet Archive
1995 British novels Novels by Andrew Crumey Novels set in Germany Novels set in the 18th century