Kay's Bookshelf

The cat in the story, going by his chosen name of The Cat, is a pretty thing judging from the cover picture, “tabby and white with silver highlights” by his own description. He is a bit vain, a bit hypochondriac, a bit egotistical (well, a bit more), but also quite intelligent and very well read for a cat — he even mentioned Ceausescu once, leaving me totally amazed at the vastness of his knowledge (despite his actually mistyping the first name). His narrative style is quite disjointed, many times starting with an idea and ending the phrase talking about something completely different :)

One of the things I liked about The Cat was that he had very strong opinions on almost everything: British/US spelling (I have always thought that Americans cared about ‘U’ after all they are always wishing one, ‘You have a nice day,’), hygiene (“Is there anything more hygienic than a Cat?“), taking notes (“it is a little like talking to one’s self and therefore should be kept to a minimum because it must be a sign of madness“), “The Nutty Professor” (“dreadful”), and many many more. Nevertheless he does admit he cannot know it all, usually justifying it by saying something like “what do I know, I’m just a cat” :)

The book started out pretty promising, with The Cat letting us know his plans for the future of his diary:

I am going to have to study my enemies very closely and get to know their habits. And that is why I have decided to keep a Diary; it will help me review Humankind, well Humans [...].
The keeping of a Diary will also allow me to catalogue the injustices and wrong doings of my Captors, because there will, I am confident, be many of those and I will expose as many as I can while I am here, but hopefully I won’t be here long.

Sounds boring? Not at all, this small cat’s life is filled with adventures: he destroys toys because he thinks mini surveillance cameras are hidden in them, hides in the vacuum cleaner hoping he’ll be taken out (and has sense enough to cover his ears with the remains of a plush toy), gets into the freezer looking for prawn, trains the dog to help him with getting food from the fridge, tries to build a time travel machine, knits an invisibility cloak, tries to leave home in disguise (covered in his mistress’ make-up and wig), plays dead in hopes he’ll be thrown out, gets superglued to the wastepaper bin while trying to build a rocket and many many more. Some of this adventures even have serious consequences, such as the time when he blows up various walls of his owners’ home and once, on a memorable occasion, he actually destroys the whole neighborhood while trying to dig a tunnel to freedom.

The book contains some pretty funny scenes, one of my favorites being the part where Cat’s “Captors” try to acquaint him with the litter box. When I got my cat one of the first things I did was to look up on Google how does one get a cat to use the litter box. The answer was something along the lines of “show him the litter box, then take its front paws and dig around a bit”. Which is what I did (and luckily my cat got the idea from the first) and also what Cat’s owners (slash “Captors”) did. It was thus interesting to see the situation I’ve been in through Cat’s eyes — he considered it to be forced labor! :) :)

It is perhaps worth mentioned that reading this book has been a novel experience for me, because I was, for the very first time, rooting for the main hero not to succeed. His beloved freedom that he held so dear was for me an image of his being trapped in a world that’s mostly cruel and unmerciful with stray cats. This being said, I was very very happy to see the turn the things took near the end of the book, although the very ending sort of disappointed me — I did want the best for Cat, of course, but the ending sort of lacked credibility, at least in my eyes (strangely enough since I could readily believe everything else :P ).

Ever since first looking at the author’s site I have been amazed to see the book advertised as being (approximate quote) “400 pages of humor”. In my opinion a funny book shouldn’t have a lot of pages. Don’t get me wrong, I love chunksters (I tend to enjoy good books over 450 pages more than the shorter ones), but this does not apply when it comes to books that are meant to be funny, because it is a very hard feat for one to keep it fresh for so long, sooner or later it will start to get repetitive. I for one would rather have a 150-pages of laugh out loud humor than a 400-pages of just-funny-and-occasionally-laugh-out-loud. Having read the book my opinion still stands (and I am sorry to say that, as I have grown to love the “small tabby and white cat“). And yet, the book was funny but I think it would have been a lot better had it been about half shorter.

Come to think about it, I even have suggestions for some cuts: I was absolutely amazed to see the Cat having a really really bad memory! An example: in one of the first “days of captivity” the Cat tells the story of a girl, a relative of his Humans, that has dressed him up like a doll; many days later he re-tells the same story (as having happened in the current day), only in a bit more detail and without any reference of it having happened before (on the contrary he finds it completely unexpected). Same goes for the TV — Cat watches movies, then wonders what the black box is, watches more movies and TV shows, then wonders what the “wobbly flashing box” is, as if he hadn’t already discovered the whole TV concept many days before. Another example of Cat’s forgetfulness (that at least didn’t come with repeating previous adventures) was when the Cat is taken to the vet and neutered; days after he ends up at the vet again and hints at awful unknown things that he’s heard can happen to one when at the vet (completely leaving out his previous experience and the fact that those awful things have already happened to him and therefore cannot happen again). And so on, detracting from the overall experience.

What I liked most: Ever since I first read about the book on the author’s site I have found its topic fascinating :) A cat writing a diary about escaping? Such a great idea, I thought, remembering something I once read online (second half, of course). Speaking of which it is perhaps worth noting that the author must have read it too, as there are a few similarities between the two diaries :)

Since I am talking about the first impression, I just have to also mention the wonderful cover, with a picture of a cat (The Cat actually) looking “caught in the act” (of escaping?). Pretty amusing, especially as somewhere in the book the cat actually mentions thinking about what would be his best pose for the cover, deciding on the one I have just described. As he puts it, “I thought that we could fake some action shot, with me very high up looking just a little worried“. :) Not to mention that on the cover, instead of “Written by” it says “Translated from the original Cat by” :)

What I liked least: Its sheer length. Way too long to sustain my interest (although I have started out very enthusiastic, by the last page I ended up saying, like The Cat himself, “The End, thank goodness“). A pity as, properly edited, I think it would really have some potential (especially for cat lovers such as I). All the more so since I had the impression, at times, that the author was simply struggling with it, to write some more, to make it large.

Recommend it? I have definitely loved it for the first 100-something pages, so I do encourage you to give it a try.

See also
The book site

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