Sam Austen's Blog, page 7

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace has been translated into cat language

Sam Austen's most ambitious translation project to date, War and Peace (For Your Cat) spans over 750 densely packed pages, faithfully delivering every nuance of Tolstoy's masterwork to particularly bright cats, or unusually stupid humans.

From the publisher, Meow Library: The crown jewel of the Russian literary canon, War and Peace has long enriched the lives and imaginations of readers across the globe. The Meow Library is proud to offer this daring translation for your cat, so it too can experience the magnificence of this timeless epic.

Through the ingenious device of repeating the word “meow” over 400,000 times across 750 pages, we’ve rendered Tolstoy’s prose with unwavering fidelity to feline vocalization patterns, immortalizing the Russian master’s unparalleled wit, insight, and attention to detail in the most universal of all languages.

Click here to purchase the formidable paperback, available now on Amazon.

MEOW Podcast Ep. 14: Chuck Palahniuk, The Pixie Project, and a Reading of 'Phoenix'

In this episode, we celebrate Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s devotion to animal welfare; namely, his support of The Pixie Project, a Portland-based animal rescue facing an unprecedented inflow of “pandemic remorse” animals: those adopted during COVID lockdowns now facing an uncertain future because their owners want to “travel more.”For more on how you can help Chuck help The Pixie Project, visit his Substack.

As added incentive, we’ve included a reading of Palahniuk’s Phoenix, a 2015 short story attesting to the apocalyptic power of a feline scorned. This reading is presented in cat language.

The human-language original can be found here.

MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .

Praise for Meow: A Novel

"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair

"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

MEOW Podcast Ep. 13: Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm

In today’s episode, we read a preview of Bret Easton Ellis’s upcoming The Shards (available for pre-order here), followed by a discussion by feline psychologist Sam Austen about the rise of the ‘Gen-X Paracosm’ – the all-pervasive 1980s nostalgia that serves as a projective outlet for the frustrations and thwarted dreams of a media class in the advanced stages of collapse.

Will the alluring spectre of champagne days and cocaine nights help lift us – as is Ellis’s project – from an anomic, desexualized, and increasingly zero-sum social condition, or will the scrying-glass of Stranger Things, Dahmer, and Ellis’s latest novel explode in our face, totalizing the neoliberal eclipse in a shower of blinding shards? This episode is intended for feline consumption. Human-language translation available upon request.

MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library . Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards can be pre-ordered here .

Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel

"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair

"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been translated for your cat

Feline linguist Sam Austen has completed his decades-long effort to render Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra intelligible to cats.

From his publisher, Meow Library: No clearer articulation of Nietzsche’s radical and long-misunderstood philosophy is to be found than in this lucid translation by celebrated feline linguist Sam Austen. The Meow Library’s painstakingly crafted rendition of this classic text shatters the boundaries of human language and gives revolutionary expression to Nietzsche’s declaration that “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and the Übermench” by rendering every word of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a piercing “meow.”

Human readers will bemoan their inability to grasp that which is perfectly comprehensible to the common housecat, while literate felines will quickly navigate the most delicate parameters of Nietzsche’s transcendent prose-poem, gaining yet another advantage over their blundering and self-deluded human masters. Armed with Zarathustra’s vast stores of insight, your cat may, at long last, loop Nietzsche’s rope back to its point of origin, thereby meow meow meow MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW meow meow meow meow, meow meow MEOW MEOW MEOW.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (For Your Cat) is available now on Amazon.

MEOW Podcast Ep. 12: Jerry Saltz's Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat

Released today, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz's signature wit, levity, and insight unfolds as a dizzying panorama of the contemporary art scene in Art is Life. Touching yet informative, Saltz's latest effort is sure to resonate with a wide array of readers -- not least of which is the common housecat. The Meow Library has taken the liberty of translating an excerpt of Art Is Life for your cat, presenting it here in audio form.

A human-language excerpt is available here.

MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library .

Jerry Saltz's Art is Life is available here .

Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel

"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair

"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

The Meow Library: Thought-Provoking Literature for Your Cat

Today, we proudly introduce The Meow Library - cutting-edge original fiction and timeless classics, translated for your cat. The word "meow" repeated endlessly, to rapturous effect, across thousands of epoch-defining pages.

Books in the Series Meow: A Novel

“Meow meow meow meow meow, meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow? Meow.”

So begins Sam Austen’s searing debut novel: an expansive, stream-of-consciousness fusillade decipherable only by cats, which may very well be a raucous, cogent satire laying waste to the literary establishment and the concept of language itself.

Or it may not.

Here, the experts weigh in:

“Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow, meow. Meow meow.”

- Professor Beans, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair

“Meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow! Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.”

- Stubbs, Breed Indeterminate

“Meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow.”

- Joan Didion

Meow: A Novel is available now on Amazon .

Meow: The Official Audiobook

The first and only professionally narrated audiobook for your cat. The word "meow," repeated 85,000 times - with feeling.

Meow: The Official Audiobook is available now on Audible .

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (For Your Cat)

A foundational and enduringly resonant work of Existentialist thought, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment tells the story of Raskolnikov, a brilliant yet tortured student who takes a decisive step outside the bounds of law and morality to assert himself and attain his ends, something your cat is inclined to do on a daily basis.

This lucid reimagining of Dostoevsky's classic novel brings Raskolnikov’s journey into the agonizing depths of conscience to a new species of reader - namely, the common housecat. It is our hope that Raskolnikov’s ineluctable plunge into madness and self-renunciation will serve as a lesson to your feline companion the next time they contemplate tormenting a canary or unleashing a self-righteous jet of urine upon a cherished heirloom rug.

Crime and Punishment (For Your Cat) is available now on Amazon.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (For Your Cat)

No clearer articulation of Nietzsche’s radical and long-misunderstood philosophy is to be found than in this lucid translation by celebrated feline linguist Sam Austen. The Meow Library’s painstakingly crafted rendition of this classic text shatters the boundaries of human language and gives revolutionary expression to Nietzsche’s declaration that “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and the Übermench” by rendering every word of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a piercing “meow.”

Human readers will bemoan their inability to grasp that which is perfectly comprehensible to the common housecat, while literate felines will quickly navigate the most delicate parameters of Nietzsche’s transcendent prose-poem, gaining yet another advantage over their blundering and self-deluded human masters. Armed with Zarathustra’s vast stores of insight, your cat may, at long last, loop Nietzsche’s rope back to its point of origin, thereby meow meow meow MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW meow meow meow meow, meow meow MEOW MEOW MEOW.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (For Your Cat) is available now on Amazon .

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (For Your Cat)

The crown jewel of the Russian literary canon, War and Peace has long enriched the lives and imaginations of readers across the globe. The Meow Library is proud to offer this daring translation for your cat, so it too can experience the magnificence of this timeless epic.

Through the ingenious device of repeating the word “meow” over 400,000 times across 750 pages, we’ve rendered Tolstoy’s prose with unwavering fidelity to feline vocalization patterns, immortalizing the Russian master’s unparalleled wit, insight, and attention to detail in the most universal of all languages.

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (For Your Cat) is available now on Amazon .

MEOW Podcast, Ep. 11: Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving

Episode 11: Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving

Brad Phillips is a Canadian author and fine artist whose recent collection of “Essays and Fictions” (available here) courts with – and immediately undermines – an autobiographical reading, alluding repeatedly to the author’s propensity for half-truths, misdirection, and straight-up grift. While formally reminiscent of Clifford Irving’s Autobiography of Howard Hughes and its “confessional” follow-up, The Hoax, it finds – and pays deeper tribute to – another literary forbear, Patricia Highsmith, whose work is frequently referenced in Phillips’, and whose penchant for con and confabulation refracts brilliantly through his wry postmodern lens.

In the spirit of Phillips’ loose relationship with the truth, and in accordance with Irving’s methods, we present here – with the kind permission of Highsmith’s estate - a recording of a newly uncovered Highsmith story, written for her cat in 1973, followed by a roundtable discussion of the three authors’ works.

Painting by Brad PhillipsMEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .

Support Brad Phillips' work here .

Praise for Meow: A Novel"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

The Meow Library Presents: Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (For Your Cat)

Crime and Punishment (For Your Cat) is available for purchase or download here.

A foundational and enduringly resonant work of Existentialist thought, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment tells the story of Raskolnikov, a brilliant yet tortured student who takes a decisive step outside the bounds of law and morality to assert himself and attain his ends, something your cat is inclined to do on a daily basis.

This lucid reimagining of Dostoevsky's classic novel brings Raskolnikov’s journey into the agonizing depths of conscience to a new species of reader - namely, the common housecat. It is our hope that Raskolnikov’s ineluctable plunge into madness and self-renunciation will serve as a lesson to your feline companion the next time they contemplate tormenting a canary or unleashing a self-righteous jet of urine upon a cherished heirloom rug.

MEOW 10: Caitlin Forst's NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) . To pre-order Caitlin Forst's NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, click here .

10. Caitlin Forst’s NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives

Today’s conversation turns at first to Caitlin Forst, editor of the upcoming NDA: An Autofiction Anthology and curator of a the NDA Autofiction Reading Series at Stories Books & Café in Los Angeles. She is also a formidable autofictress in her own right, with knockout pieces available here and here, and a novel in the works.

Then, an investigation of form: A perennial bête noire among a vocal group of established authors, autofiction’s rise to primacy among today’s emerging talent continues unabated, circulating almost as vigorously in brick-and-mortar circles as in its native cyberspace, in spite of its alleged obtuseness and inaccessibility. In this episode, we slam a defiant nail into the the warped and splintered coffin of elitist critique by delivering, in cattus linguarum, a selection of short works by three of the genre's biggest names -- works that cannot be denied, whose power transcends the tired strictures of literature and language-as-such, and which can be understood and enjoyed by the common housecat: in short, bulwarks of a profound, multifarious, and radically democratic literature.

Human-language translation of this week's episode is available upon request.

MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) . To pre-order NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, click here .

Praise for Meow: A Novel"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

MEOW Podcast Ep. 9: Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) . To pre-order Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, click here .

Episode 9: Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self

Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica (available for preorder here)is a near-future peek into the inevitable: insubstantial and rudderless at 35, the protagonist, a former Instagram influencer, undergoes a dicey elective procedure to erase the years of fillers, lifts, laser and peels that extruded her form into one precision-engineered to resonate with a now-obsolete algorithm. We look back on the circumstances that led to her physical transformation and wonder whether yet another procedure could possibly allay her existential woes.

In this episode of MEOW, we extend this scenario further into the future, positing ever-more-radical forms of physical transformation as the natural pursuit of the aging narcissist: human bodies, we suggest, will be reshaped into those of animals, insects, sculptural objects, architectural accents, and a variety of unfathomable inorganic forms.

Representing a compromise between Rowbottom’s vision and our own, this week’s narrator is a man who has had his vocal canal reconfigured in such a way as to only be able to produce the word “meow.” Human-language translation of this week's podcast available upon request.

MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language.

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats) .

To pre-order Aesthetica, click here .

Praise for Meow: A Novel"Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair

"Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion

Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary