The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
Rave reviews for the new novel from Michael Ondaatje…
“In a novel superbly poised between the magic of innocence and the melancholy of experience, Mr. Ondaatje probes what it means to have a cautious heart.” The Economist
“Ondaatje’s most accessible, compelling novel to date. It may also be his finest…A breathtaking account not only of boyhood, but of its loss….Universal in its themes, heartbreakingly so, and a journey the reader will never forget.” Vancouver Sun.
The Cat’s Table deserves to be recognized for the beauty and poetry of its writing: pages that lull you with their carefully constructed rhythm, sailing you effortlessly from chapter to chapter and leaving you bereft when forced to disembark at the novel’s end.” The Telegraph (UK)
“Ondaatje’s great achievement is demonstrating that fiction can be stranger than truth.” The Spectator (UK)
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table”-as far from the Captain’s Table as can be-with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: one man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. Very late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.
As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and the boy’s adult years, it tells a spellbinding story-by turns poignant and electrifying-about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage.
$16 Publisher: Knopf (October 4, 2011) Amazon.com
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