Publisher's Synopsis
The cats in Ivan's poems bear strong resemblance to their owners - in fact, often seem to BE their owners. These stylish works of art are zany, quirky, cutting, sad, funny, frisky, boisterous, even at times reverential. They convey vast amounts of biographical information in easy to read bite-size pieces. Romanticism permeates Ivan's love lyrics, music lyrics and love-music lyrics. Even so, intense feeling is sometimes qualified by a kind of surrealism and by the use of striking puns which are paradoxically part of the lyricism. Whatever Romanticism remains in Ivan's other poems is sorely tested by his travels to arid regions and his portraits of unknown, well-known and too well-known characters. Vaclav Havel and Adolf Hitler share pages with 'Attila the Glum' and the deluded individual who could have been Beethoven-or perhaps Beethoven's cat.
