ZETTEL’S TRAUM is a novel published in 1970 by German author Arno Schmidt. The novel was inspired by James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’, particularly Schmidt’s use of columns (his “SpaltenTechnik”). The gargantuan novel was published in folio format with 1,334 pages. The story is told mostly in three shifting columns, presenting the text in the form of notes, collages, and typewritten pages. Some critics dismissed Zettel’s Traum as non-art, or sheer nonsense, and Schmidt himself as a “psychopath.”
