Morder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript

by John Hulme

Nursery rhymes are rewritten in homophonic nonsense German and accompanied by satirical commentary

Genres: Poetry, Humor

39 pages, Hardcover

Published September 2, 1981

Reviews

[Osiris Oliphant · Rating 4 out of 5]

"By combing the goatskin on his bagpipes, he thawed out a row of things without an attic."

"His cousin was inwardly tired of dive-bombers"

"Probably William Tell yet again, although there is no historical evidence of his interest in ornithology."

"It is doubtful whether this poem refers to the legendary Swiss hero. This Mr Tell is such a story-teller that he tears into you, drills holes in you and torments you deeply."

"The poet draws a series of remarkable comparisons to illustrate the force of a thistle's prickle. It is like the chains on a nightmare; it stands high as a cathedral; it is like the crashing of a steed; like being hit on the head with a special kind of roof-tile;"

"In spite of her prayers, however, she receives only a broken raccoon."

"She deposits the creature at the zoo and goes into a convent."

[Angela Randall]

This book is awesome. It's mother goose rhymes (the ones you know in English), but written using random German words that have the same phonetic sounds. So, if you read the German it's completely non-sensical, but if you just try to pronounce the words aloud (with proper German pronunciation) you'll hear the nursery rhymes. It's very very clever.

There's also a similar book in French: Mots d'Heures

We have two editions of Mörder Guss Reims:

Morder Guss Reims and Morder Guss Reims.

[Kyle Maschmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, but can only be appreciated by a narrow slice of humanity. You need to have grown up with English nursery rhymes, which rules out any appeal to native German speakers (who confusedly try to interpret the German as German and are left nonplussed). It can only appeal to anglophone Teutophiles who are actually good at pronouncing German as written. So that rules out 99.99% of the potential English speaking audience. A brilliantly funny book that's only funny to 0.001% of humankind.

[Laurie Connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

😂😂👍🏽❤ Totally messes with your head, balancing the sounds of familiar English nursery rhymes with the nonsense German sentences.  

Equally entertaining is the French one: Mors d'Heures: Gousses, Rames, The d'Antin Manuscript.