The Cats Table by Michael Ondaatje

The Cats Table Reviews

• 
  Jim Fonseca

  The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
  
  In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy from Colombo, Sri Lanka (Ceylon back then) boards a ship bound for England. He has been living with an aunt and uncle but is going to live with his mother who has been gone for four years. 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 of his age. [I’m paraphrasing from some of the blurbs.]
  
  
  
  The boy is an only child. “When my parents abandoned their marriage, it was never really admitted, or explained, but it was also not hidden. If anything it was presented as a mis-step, not a car crash.”
  
  As the ship makes its way on its 21-day journey across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another. 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. Another never speaks, but it turns out that’s a sham. The narrator's elusive, beautiful older cousin becomes his confidante.
  
  Every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, headed for trial in England, his crime and his fate a mystery that they uncover little by little. A botanist aboard takes them to his below-ships garden of rare plants. A musician instills a fascination of music in him. He gets conned into working with a ship-board thief.
  
  Meanwhile the boys have the run of the ship, hiding out in the lifeboats, eating the supply of emergency chocolate, splashing guests with “cannonballs’ into the pool, eavesdropping on conversations, smuggling a dog aboard that they bought in a port. There’s a terrible storm.
  
  Some of the themes include lifelong friendship, and on-and-off again friendship, and how chance childhood friendships can help shape your life. For example, he ends up marrying a sister of one of the boys. There’s the theme of how a dramatic early life event at that age, such as the sea voyage, can help shape you for life. For example, decades later the boy goes to an art exhibit by one of the other boys he traveled with and discovers all the paintings are scenes from the ports they went through at night – almost hallucinogenic in style.
  
  
  
  There are a lot of mysterious goings-on aboard ship. An elderly wealthy man on his way for medical treatment in England dies and the boys feel they had something to do with it. There’s a murder – was his cousin involved? There’s an attempted escape by the prisoner and people die – or did they?
  
  Almost everyone is protecting someone else, the way his cousin protects him.
  
  The sea story is interspersed with chapters about much later events in the young man’s life. Some of these mysteries are solved decades later by letters and by chance encounters.
  
  I enjoyed the story – a bit implausible but that’s ok, it’s fiction.
  
  
  
  Ondaatje, best known for his novel, The English Patient, was born in Sri Lanka. His ancestry was a mix of native Sinhalese and Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin, but the European part predominated since they were a member of the small minority of Christians on the island and certainly upper class. He left the island in 1954, when he was eleven, to move to England with his mother. He went to college in Canada and became a Canadian citizen. He has written about a dozen other books which, beside The English Patient, include Warlight and Anil’s Ghost.
  
  Top photo: an ocean liner lounge from the 1950's from insider.com
  Middle: Colombo in the 1950's from lankapura.com
  The author from lithub.com
  
• 
  Sawsan

  بعض تفاصيل الحياة لا تبدو واضحة ومفهومة إلا بمرور السنين
  يمارس الكاتب السريلانكي مايكل أونداتجي طقوس الحكي بمهارة
  في رحلة على ظهر باخرة لمدة 3 أسابيع من سريلانكا إلى انجلترا في عام 1954
  يلتقى 3 أولاد في قاعة الطعام بالباخرة على مائدة القط وهي الأبعد عن مائدة القبطان
  يكتب أحدهم بعد مرور سنوات طويلة عن صداقتهم ومشاهداتهم خلال الرحلة
  مغامرات ونزهات ليلية, اكتشاف لخبايا الباخرة وتلصص على المسافرين
  صداقات مع الكبار وحكايات عن كل شخصية ومواقف غريبة وخطيرة أحيانا
  خلال السرد ينتقل الراوي للمستقبل ويحكي عن مسار حياتهم بعد ما افترقوا بدون وداع
  لكن كل ما مر بهم من شخصيات وعلاقات وأحداث ظل في الذاكرة وترك أثر في النفس والقلب
  مزيج جميل من لحظات المرح والإثارة, الخوف والحزن, الحب والفقد
  والترجمة ممتازة للكاتبة والمترجمة العُمانية زوينة آل تويه
• 
  Fionnuala

  Finishing a book and feeling compelled to turn to the first page again to reread it is not something I do a lot but
  The Cat's Table is just such a book. The writing is quietly beautiful and the description of the long vanished world of a 1950's trip on an ocean liner is perfect. The reread offers extra insights into that world and underlines the complexity of Ondaatje's story telling. There are many hints of the events to come but they remain quite subtle, not at all menacing. In fact the dramatic events which enfold are always secondary to the descriptions of the passengers and the slices of their lives which we are offered so compellingly. In any case, Ondaatje doesn't really bother too much with tying up the loose ends of the plot - he leaves some things to our imagination.
  
• 
  Glenn Sumi

  No one writes poetic prose like Michael Ondaatje. But his gorgeous, sensuous language and piercing insights into the human condition sometimes impede the flow of his latest novel.
  
  The Cat's Table takes place on a ship called the Oronsay in the early 1950s, heading from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to England, where Michael (we'll get to that name later), the 11-year-old narrator, is heading to live with his estranged mother.
  
  The title refers to the dining table for the ship's misfits, who include the narrator, two other preadolescent boys and a handful of single adults. Far removed from the first-class passengers and captain's table, they're far more interesting to a burgeoning writer like the narrator. Mr. Mazappa, one of the ship's musicians, shares exotic stories of Gay Paree, and Mr. Daniels maintains a lush garden in the bowels of the ship.
  
  Also capturing everyone's imagination is a mysterious prisoner who's led out for a nightly walk. And then there's Michael's beautiful older cousin Emily, whose life will connect with the others' in unpredictable ways.
  
  Obviously, there are bits of autobiography here, from the narrator's name to the fact that the author took a similar journey on a ship called the Oronsay in the same era.
  
  The young Michael learns about social hierarchies and the power of storytelling, and Ondaatje gives us another perspective later in the book when the narrator, now a successful writer living in Canada, ponders the mysteries of what happened during the trip.
  
  But is it a memoir? A novel? It seems like some unsatisfying hybrid that never really soars.
  
  The sentences themselves are thrilling, though. Ondaatje lets you see the meaning in how a young woman adjusts the strap on her dress or how someone catching his reflection in a mirror may suddenly see himself move from boyhood to youth.
  
  Starting out, the book seems like a grand adventure reminiscent of something by Kipling or Conrad but with a more knowing take on colonialism and class.
  
  Alas, the pieces never come together into something as fluid and magical as The English Patient or Anil's Ghost or as funny and touching as his actual memoir, Running In The Family.
  
  Originally published in NOW Magazine:
  https://nowtoronto.com/art-and-books/...
• 
  Elyse Walters

  I have wanted to read this book forever….(not sure what happened - distractions? - forgetfulness? - out-of-sight - out of mind?)….
  Thankfully a local friend - Taya- reminded me to ‘read it’ or ‘listen to it’. I jumped on it right away….(thanks Taya)
  Read & listened!
  
  Michael Ondaatje’s voice narration mirrored beautifully the way his characters were being portrayed.
  
  The audiobook was 7 hours long
  
  There are already 25,307 ratings….and 3,229 reviews with an overall 3.61 rating….
  So - nobody needs me to reinvent the blurb-wheel….
  
  I enjoyed my time (finally my turn), taking the three-week journey with the characters on the Oronsay ocean liner. The year was 1954…….[but this is a looking back story/fictionalization/memoir novel].
  We meet Michael, (narrator), Cassius, and Ramadhin who are the young pre-teen boys who engage in mischievous adventures— including spying on a prisoner who was on the ship.
  
  …Emily (Michael’s older cousin)….is in the first class section on the ship —-[NOT at the Cat’s Table where the young boys are — in the lower class section]…
  Emily will prove over time to have made a life long profound impact on Michael’s life.
  Michael has those first pre-teen desires towards her….(she becomes his confidante—who opens his eyes to the world around him and to himself)….but it isn’t until adulthood —when ‘Emily-transforming-Michael’ was realized.
  
  The adults on the ship — at the ‘Cat’s Table’ (mealtime assigned clan) were interesting and diversified characters…..
  ….they charmed, influence, and subtly taught the boys about the pleasures and sadness that life is.
  
  The writing is superior and intelligent. The rhythm of the sentences are wonderful.
  The mood is felt…chapter-by-chapter… quiet - reflective gorgeous prose.
  At the end…..I was left wondering how ‘much’ the tales in this book were autobiographical …..
  Either way….
  ….the adventures from boyhood to manhood were charming……PULCHRITUDINOUS!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Cynthia

  A Trip through the Liminal
  
  It's hard to imagine today but in 1953 Michael, who was eleven years old, traveled by ship from his native Sri Lanka to England with virtually no adult supervision. He had an `aunt' traveling in first class who chatted with him a few times throughout the trip when they happened to meet on deck but other than that he was on his own. There was a vast distance between steerage, where Michael berthed, and first class. In steerage he mixed with the crew, an odd assortment of academics and even some criminals. Anything could happen in these nether regions. The worst that could happen in first class was gossip over cards. Michael immediately bonded with two other `tween boys, Ramadhin and Cassius, when they're seated together at the cat's table. The cat's table was the designation for the lowliest table set furthest away from the glitter of the captain's seating. Michael's new friends were as unfettered as he was and they roamed the boat freely spying on their fellow passengers and watching the ever changing and amazing scenery pass by. There was a criminal in chains on board whose guards led him out during the late evening hours. The boys hid in lifeboats and watched as he walked in chains around the deck. They speculated what horrible crime he'd committed since no one seemed to know any facts. Michael shortly cavorted with an onboard thief who enlisted him to help steal. Emily, Michael's beautiful and wild seventeen year old and much admired cousin, puts an end to this when she realizes what he's doing. In short the boys have the adventure of their young lives.
  
  On landing in England and reuniting with his mother, Michael quickly merges into his new life but stays in touch with Cassius. Most of "Cat's Table" is written from the perspective of an eleven year old but there are sections written from Michael's adult self is looking back on a great adventure and reevaluating its meaning. What appeared to be truth to an eleven year old takes on different meanings through the experience of middle age. His two friends changed the trajectory of his life. At eleven his travels seemed like just a blip but looking back what seemed minimal actually influenced large swaths of his life.
  
  Anyone whose read Ondaatje is aware how lush his language is and how profound his insights are and happily"Cat's Table" is no exception. The two weeks of their ship journey was a suspension of life. A pit stop. Their lives were on hold and anything was possible. They formed associations at whim. They stayed up to all hours. They stole. They were free from constraints. They spied on adults. The future seemed irrelevant. They didn't question their friendship. Yet this trip influenced the rest of their lives. It was a small journey that became large. This is a trip through the liminal. A demarcation between one world and another, from Sri Lanka to England, from childhood with kind but distant relatives and freedom to roam the lush Sri Lankan sights, sounds and people to a barely remembered mother and an alien England.
  
  I've read Ondaatje's "Divisdero", "In the Skin of the Lion" and "The English Patient" (That's also the order of my preference.) and compared with them "Cat's Table" feels more restrained. As always Ondaatje sprinkles truths and cogent observations about the tragedy and beauty of life but he never hits you over the head. He leaves it to the reader to take away what's relevant for themselves.
  
• 
  Margitte

  
  Michael was eleven years old that night when, green as he could be about the world , he climbed aboard the first and only ship of his life, the Oronsay, sailing for England from Colombo.
  
  Unbeknownst to him, the twenty-one days at sea would become twenty-one years of schooling, molding him into the adult he would one day be, when he joined the cat's table, the least important place to eat on the ship.
  
  The lessons he picked up from the adult company filled up several pages of his old school exercise books. He still had time to make those notes, amid the adventures in which he and his friends, Ramadhin and Cassius, engaged in on the ship. They witnessed an adult world filled with thieves, adulterers, gamblers, teachers, authority, natural healers, dreamers and schemers. Oh yes, and a shackled, dangerous prisoner. Each one of them becomes important in the three boys' lives through either their words or conduct. The ship had lots to offer for three young boys to keep them occupied. So many people, so many stories, so many intrigue. And then there was the ports of call...
  
  Miss Perinetta Lasqueti was one of the guests around the Cat's Table who would become one of the biggest influences in their lives. Their first impression of her manner was that of being like faded wallpaper, but the more they found out about her, the more convinced they became that 'she was more like a box of small foxes at a country fair'. She would become one of the biggest surprises on their life's journey.
  
  Mr. Mazappa - the boisterous, loud pianist would change their newly acquired perspective on old paintings with his approach to the angelic Madonnas in them, saying: "‘The trouble with all those Madonnas is that there is a child that needs to be fed and the mothers are putting forth breasts that look like panino-shaped bladders. No wonder the babies look like disgruntled adults."(p.213 - kindle edition)
  
  Mr. Larry Daniels, the botanist, would teach them much more about his plants than they would ever need to know in their lifetimes.
  
  Mr. Fonseka, the teacher, had a "serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by."
  
  I wanted to read this book for such a long time now. There was just something about it that told me it would roll me over and tie me down in its prose. It did. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered its popularity on Goodreads. Some books just put themselves where it can be read because it is really that good. It is multifaceted. It is thought-provoking. It is excellent. It is one of those books you cannot walk away from easily. It has all the elements to promise that it will become a classic in time. I want to reread it. I just have to. Period.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Annet

  Beautiful book...
• 
  Megan Baxter

  Sitting at the Cat's Table is the least prestigious seat, but the one from which you can see the most. The Captain's table is on display, for others to look at - at the Cat's Table, you have all your time free to watch everything going on about you.
  
  Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision
  here.
  
  In the meantime, you can read the entire review at
  Smorgasbook
• 
  Michael

  A very satisfying read that left me with a lot of lingering emotions. And delayed insights about the mysteries of how we grow into our adult selves. Michael reflects back on a long journey on an ocean liner he took in the early 50’s when he was 11, travelling from his life with his emotionally distant father in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to his mother in England, where she moved after a divorce.
  
  He is poorly supervised by a female family friend who travels in first class. Michael makes friends with two other boys who together engage in a lot of adventures, pushing all limits that they can. This includes spying upon and making up stories about the multicultural mix of adults on the ship, starting with the passengers who share the “Cat’s Table” with the kids in the dining room. Sometimes their shenanigans cross too many boundaries and sometimes their fantasies about nefarious activities or secret affairs of certain adults turns out to reflect reality. A mystery involving his favorite cousin, Emily, in her late teens, becomes quite an obsession with Michael, whose affection for her evokes his first erotic experiences.
  
  Ondaatje captivates the reader with his vision of youthful freedom and escape. It’s not exactly comic like a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and it’s not exactly dark like “Lord of the Flies”. Somewhere on the middle of the scale from comic to tragic scale. Bit by bit, we learn about Michael’s loneliness in his past life and apprehensions for the future. Then slowly and deftly the author turns the boy’s present on the boat voyage into a gateway to Michael’s choices and experiences in his later life, first in England and later as an immigrant in Toronto. Initially the lapses forward felt distracting from the adventures on the ship, but then the story turns into a masterful revelation on coming of age and on how experiences at a critical time in youth can resonate throughout one’s life. That Ondaatje is a poet assures some well crafted delights in the writing in this novel.
  
  Despite disclaimed that everything in this novel is fiction, one can’t help wonder how many of the parallels with Ondaatje’s own life reflect autobiographical elements. Here is a passage about Michael learning some insights from a filmmaker on the trip, which seems to invoke a forgiving attitude in looking at one’s past and people experienced along the way:
  He spoke of how viewers of his films should not assume they understand everything about the characters. As members of an audience we should never feel ourselves wiser than they; we do not have more knowledge than the characters have about themselves. We should not feel reassured or certain about their motives, or look down on them. I believe this. I recognize this as a first principle of art, although I have the suspicion that many would not.
  
  Here is a passage that captures some of his regard for Emily:
  A writer, I cannot remember who, spoke of a person having “a confusing grace.” With an uncertainty alongside her warmth, that is how Emily has always been for me. You trusted her but she didn’t trust herself. She was “good”, but she was not that way in her own eyes. Those qualities still had not balanced out somehow, or agreed with each other.
  
  The dawning erotic sense Michael experiences with Emily opens a lot of doors in his mind, beautifully captured in this passage:
  Yet where had it come from? And was it a pleasure or a sadness, this life inside me? It was as if with its existence I was lacking something essential, like water….I felt in that moment that I had been alone for years. I had existed too cautiously with my family, as though there had been shards of glass always around us. … Whatever small props of necessary defence I’d surrounded myself with, which contained and protected me, and which had marked an outline of me, were no longer there.
  Sometimes we find our true and inherent selves during youth. It is a recognition of something that at first is small within ourselves that we will grow into somehow.
  Looking back, I am no longer certain who gave me what pieces of advice, or befriended us, or deceived us. And some events only sank in much later.
  
• 
  Tahani Shihab

  2.5 stars
• 
  Ken

  Cat's Table -- the ocean liner equivalent of the kiddie's table, only leavened with a motley group of adult ne'er-do-wells as well. It's where little Michael Ondaatje, age 11, sat on a memorable (thus, the book) voyage aboard the Oransay many decades ago.
  
  In this book, we meet not only Michael but his comrades-in-mischief, bad-boy Cassius and thoughtful Ramadhin. The three of them do what bored boys do -- get into trouble and spy on interesting adults, especially interesting women like Michael's cousin Emily, who plays a role in the end.
  
  Ah, the end. Suffice it to say that the book goes awry somewhere along the voyage, drifting from a creditable coming-of-age slash descriptive marvel to a murder melodrama (or something) centering on minor characters we as readers have little capital in. Can you say "Yawn"? Can you ask "Why?" OK, so I just did. Really, Ondaatje was on to something with the world-through-boys'-eyes bit when he suddenly switched horses midstream (or mid-ocean, if you will). Whatever possessed him? By the time the book finally makes port, it is taking on water. Badly.
  
  If you're an Ondaatje fan, you'll find the plot more accessible and the diction less dense. Whether that's good or bad, I cannot say.
  
  If you're not an Ondaatje fan, don't feel bullied into loving this because of reviews or because of his hallowed name. Big-name writers have to perform, too, after all. Earn their daily bread with the readers, so to speak.
  
  Four stars until it hits a 2-star iceberg, then. I'll split the difference.
• 
  Vicki

  The Cat's Table would have been enchanting as just a series of character sketches and picaresque vignettes, culminating in an affecting reassessment as an adult of the connections made as a child. That a genuine mystery emerges during that short but momentous voyage - gravitating around a menacing, shackled prisoner who is only let out under highly and unusually protected conditions at night - is a splendid, intriguing bonus.
  
  If The Cat's Table is not Ondaatje's best novel yet (oh, but I think it is ...), it is certainly his most straightforwardly told and emotionally accessible story. It's a yearning tribute with an almost fairytale-like aura to the memories of awe that pervade our dreams (and nightmares and fears), and the memories of sometimes unlikely affiliation and love and what we mistake as love that pervade and haunt our hearts, guide us or sometimes lead us astray.
  
  Read my full review here:
  http://bookgaga.posterous.com/the-cat...
  
• 
  John C.

  The author’s most famous claim to fame is his novel ‘The English Patient’ which when on to become a successful movie at the box office. That was a good movie and the book was extremely well received.
  The reviews on this novel ‘The Cat’s Table’ seem mixed although my review is straightforward. It bored me to tears. Why I even finished it I will never know.
  The story revolves around a few adolescences on an ocean liner set sail from Colombo headed for Britain. I believe it was set in the late forties or early fifties, can’t remember and really don’t care. Being virtually without supervision, they get themselves into all kinds of trouble and interact with a whole strew of odd and interesting characters. At least that is the premise though I guess I missed the ‘interesting’ parts.
  It is rumoured to be semi-autobiographical however the author denies it with a sly grin. Some people seem to find this interesting. On the contrary I could not possibly care less about that tidbit of useless information, the book still stunk! This novel wasted my time.
  There it is...I said it.
  
  John Archibald, March 2012
  
• 
  Joy D

  “There is a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discover the carapace that will contain and test your character. You find in this way the path of your life.” – Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table
  
  In 1954. eleven-year-old Michael is traveling by sea from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to England, where he will rejoin with his mother after staying with an uncle. Onboard the Oronsay, he meets two other similar age children, Cassius and Ramadhin. Only minimally supervised, they become mischief-makers. When dining, they are seated with a group of adults at the least prestigious table, known as the Cat’s Table. It is told through Michael’s eyes, and there are “flash-forwards” to his later life, where he recounts what has happened to some of the people he met on the voyage. What appears at first to be a series of short interludes told about an assortment of eccentric characters becomes more complex and interrelated as the narrative progresses.
  
  This book is an excellent example of a journey that becomes a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. As Michael looks back on his voyage, he discovers lessons that escaped him at the time, but has influenced his thinking. A few of the curious characters that come together in this intriguing story include:
  - Michael’s distant older cousin, Emily, who is also changed profoundly by the journey
  - The Hyderabad Mind, a member of the Jankla Troupe of shipboard circus performers
  - A botanist that oversees a garden in the bowels of the ship
  - A prisoner that walks the deck at night and is observed by the children
  - A thief that influences Michael to help him
  
  It will require a bit of patience to read this book, not that it is long (it’s not), but it takes a while for all the separate threads to converge. In the meantime, there are plenty of wonderfully realized colorful characters and juvenile shenanigans to maintain interest. Ondaatje’s writing is top tier and will appeal to fans of literary fiction.
  
• 
  Paul

  It is a long while since I read The English Patient and I had forgotten how well Ondaatje writes. This is the tale of a journey. Michael is 11 and travelling unaccompanied on an ocean liner (the Oronsay) from Colombo to London (via Aden, the Suez Canal, the Med), where he is to meet his mother. There is a relative aboard who will keep a distant eye on him, but Michael is pretty much left to his own devices. Michael teams up with two other boys in a similar situation; Cassius and Ramadhin. They sit on the lowest table in the dining room, known as the Cat’s table; hence the name. The boys are suitably mischievous and have adventures, get into trouble, annoy the adults and generally behave like boys should.
  There is an interesting and eclectic cast of supporting characters, including an acrobatic troupe, a mysterious prisoner and his daughter, Michael’s cousin Emily and a fair selection of decidedly eccentric misfits. The whole thing is told from the point of view of Michael in later life. The whole thing has an unreal feel as though the ship is in suspended animation for the duration of the voyage. Routines are set up, romances and flirtations considered. There are a few scandals and disasters and a decently worked through mystery. I felt the present in which Michael was writing and the past didn’t quite gel, but the whole was very satisfying and it drifted by very easily. I’m also reading Mulligan Stew at the moment and that doesn’t drift; it assaults the senses. The contrast was an interesting one. Both books are playing with the nature of memory and the links between the past and present. In the same way, I think as The Go-Between; for ship read country house. Each of the characters filters the past differently.
  There is also an element of coming of age about it; I’ve been reading a few of these recently hmmmm; here comes dotage!!
  Anyway I enjoyed it and reading it was a little like drifting along on a cruise
  
• 
  Jonathan

  Ondaatje's latest novel is, perhaps, his most "approachable" yet. It lacks the (somewhat) "foreign-ness" of Anil's Ghost and the "intellectual-ness" of Divisadero. (It's been too long since I read The English Patient to adequately come up with a comparison.) But most importantly, it has the same almost lyrically beautiful prose of other novels. It also reads faster. It is a page turner – not so much because the story is riveting, but because the prose flows so easily.
  
  The Cat's Table takes place, mostly, on a ship as an 11-year-old boy sails from Sri Lanka to England. (Approximately 100 pp into the novel, we learn the boy – who narrates – is named Michael, but an author's note at the end tells us, explicitly, that this is a novel and not a memoir.) The novel itself, in some ways, is a series of vignettes, more than a narrative with a full arc. On the ship, Michael meets two other boys his age, and they proceed to cause mischief of various kinds – stealing food from first class and hiding in life boats to eat; tossing deck chairs into the pool; creating a fort in the turbine room. They also cross paths with a diverse cast of characters at the table where they dine – The Cat’s Table: a botanist who is transporting a garden in the ship’s cargo hold; a pianist who plays with the ship band; a tailor who doesn’t speak; and a woman whose demeanor is able to arise the budding sexual fantasies of the boys.
  
  The Cat’s Table is not a “coming of age” story in the traditional sense. In my opinion, it takes place over too short a period of time to be that; the bulk of the action takes place only over the three week journey from East to West. But the story on the ship does include brief “pauses” that take us into Michael’s future (the general present/recent past) and show the way in which the short period of time really did inform and shape his life. In some ways, these realizations for him seem to happen only as a result of writing about and reliving his time on the ship. Thus, we are sharing in his self-discovery; he is not telling us about it after the fact.
  
  It is in this sense that the novel is extremely personal. We are drawn into his life to share the way in which this brief period from his past informs his present. Many of us have a story similar to Michael’s time on the ship – a time where we were living in the moment, enjoying our life, meeting people, not thinking about how events, although exciting, might reverberate through the years. Here is a book to discover that feeling while soaking in beautiful images and prose.
• 
  Maciek

  The Cat's Table is the story a 11 year old boy named Michael, told by him and describing his three week journey from the land that was once called Ceylon to the grand country of England by sea. Michael is a lone traveler, leaving the only country he knows for a completely unknown one. On the ship he quickly befriends two other fellows his age, and the merry brigade is up to do some mischief, hear the stories that adults tell and spy on the mysterious shackled prisoner. With such a premise, The Cat's Table should read like a breeze - only it doesn't.
  For such a short novel it took me quite some time to finish - i never got to like or even appreciate the characters, and the episodic structure of the novel didn't help. It feels more like a collection of vignettes than a coherent text; there is little glue that would bind the spine to hold them in one place. Events happen, people go on and off the stage, timelines change, only there is little reason to care about any of this, so little that the novel became an effort for me to finish. Perhaps it is too personal of a text? Although in the afterword the author states that the story is cut from the whole cloth, just by glancing at his biography one can see that he has undergone similar experiences as the young narrator whom he conveniently decided to grace with his own name. Maybe this is an effort to recapture the past; to relive the adventures of the early youth; bring back the period that is long gone? I don't know, and neither does anybody else. Judge for yourself - pick it up, read it, and if it fails to attract your interest don't hesitate to put it aside, unfinished, and move onto something more pleasant to the palate.
• 
  Chrissie

  Michael, the story's narrator, a boy of eleven, travels alone on an ocean liner from Ceylon to England. The year is 1954. The trip is a coming of age experience. What is real and what is not is not always clear. Why? Because Michael doesn’t fully understand what is going on around him. Michael’s experiences in later years are thrown in too. This may sound confusing, but it is not!
  
  I have thoroughly enjoyed this. It is imaginative. It is creative. I like how all sorts of different information about places and literature and people out of the ordinary are thrown together. We rub shoulders with a botanist, a schoolteacher, circus performers, a ship dismantler, thieves and a criminal or two. We compare Michael’s thoughts with those of two school friends there on the boat too. These three and others of low status share their meals together at the “cat’s table”, the table furthest form the captain’s table. Where you eat and sleep and spend your time on the boat is a clear indicator of your social standing. The common denominator for all those we meet is that they are in some way unusual. The author sparks our interest in each. In addition, we are never quite sure what has really happened or what might have been misunderstood by the boys. We are invited into a magical world of uncertainty.
  
  What plays out in Aden, Yemen, is merely one example of the boys’ mini-escapades. We are treated to many. A snippet about a Weimaraner is another I fell for.
  
  I like the lines. I like that when Michael puts on his shoes, his socks “crowd” his feet. I like that Emily, Michael’s distant cousin, tells us she left her husband because it was like living in a “cold building”. She couldn’t stand it anymore! Ondaatje’s metaphors, word plays and phrases appeal to me! They make me alternately smile or think.
  
  There are some similarities between the author and the Michael in the story, but the author has said that this is a book of fiction. What writer isn’t influenced by events in his own life?!
  
  Terence Wilton narrates the audiobook. I really have not much to say about the narration. It’s quite good but not exceptional. I did sometimes have to rewind to make sure I had understood that which he had said, but I think the need to rewind was more due to the author’s words being ambiguous. I believe this was at least partially intentional. We are in the head of an eleven-year-old and the world is a mystery to him. The narration I have given four stars.
  
  A large dose of creativity and imagination make this book special. Add to that good writing. I like it when authors give us books different from their earlier books. I want the plotlines and the writing style of each to be unique. I don’t want the same thing over and over again! I recommend you read this. It’s very good!
  
  ******************
  
  *
  In the Skin of a Lion 4 stars
  *
  The English Patient 4 stars
  *
  Anil's Ghost 4 stars
  *
  The Cat's Table 4 stars
  *
  Warlight 3 stars
  *
  Running in the Family 3 stars
  *
  Divisadero 3 stars
• 
  Julie

  Read this quiet, poignant book for the quality of its prose, but prepare to be surprised by the force of its plot. The Cat's Table is the story of a three-week sea voyage on the ocean liner Oronsay, as seen through the eyes of 11-year old Michael. It is 1954 and Michael has set sail from his native Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) en route to London, where his mother awaits. It is not unlike the voyage the author took in the same era, at the same age as his main character, though the author's end notes assure the reader that this is a work of fiction.
  
  Although Michael makes the journey alone, he is monitored lightly by an aunt who is keen to keep her distance from the lower class passengers (Michael is traveling, if not in steerage, then at the lower end of second class) and lovingly by an older cousin, Emily, whose secrets Michael stumbles upon in the course of this brief but life-altering journey.
  
  The ship, Oronsay, is a universe in Limbo, an in-between world. Its passengers tarry there, being slowly transported between continents, through several seas, into uncertainty and new lives, or perhaps returning to former lives after many years away. It is a complete world, with social classes, economics, politics, geography, love, crime and death.
  
  It is at the "Cat's Table"- the dining room assignment that is farthest from the enviable situation of the Captain's Table- that Michael, nicknamed Mynah, befriends Cassius and Ramadhin, two boys also traveling alone from Ceylon. The three boys do what comes naturally to pre-teens confined to large boat for weeks on end: they mischieve with gusto. Their insignificance as passengers renders them nearly invisible to the ship's crew, so they explore at all hours of the night, discovering a shackled prisoner who is brought the deck late every night, a young women who trains on her roller-skates in the pre-dawn stillness of the dining room, a mural of naked women gracing the engine room. Michael even aids robbery in the high seas when he is coated in motor oil and sent slithering through a small window to open the door to a well-mannered thief. The boys risk several lives in their greatest shenanigan, which occurs during a raging storm.
  
  While the rest of the passengers are focused on the end of their journey and the start of their new lives in Europe, the trio of boys lives entirely in the present. It is through Mynah's keen awareness of the now that we come to know a host of fascinating and bizarre characters. And it is through the voice of the narrator, Michael/Mynah as an adult, that we realize the profound importance these three weeks and these characters have on Michael's intellectual and emotional development.
  
  As the Oronsay advances toward England, the narrative shifts more often from the voyage to Michael's teenage years and young adulthood. He reveals gradually what happens to his partners in adventure, Cassius and Ramhadin, and leads us into his middle years and the present. It is as gentle a transition as sailing on a calm sea. At first it seems as if the scenery never alters until suddenly land looms ahead. You realize a tremendous shift has taken place, that cultures and climates have been transformed in the slow change of latitude.
  
  Ondaatje's writing is so beautiful; it is contemplative, effortless, supple and elegant. Not a word feels superfluous. No emotion is overwritten, no scene overly-dramatized. He moves quietly but steadily forward, never leading, just merely taking the first step that you willingly follow. Flawless.
  
  
  
• 
  Leslie

  About a week after goodreads friend Lisa Shorney added the title to her TBR list, I saw this book at the library and decided to borrow it. A breath of fresh air! Full of surprising imagery and strange words like coelacanth and trireme. This is the first book by Michael Ondaatje that I have ever read and it probably won’t be my last. I guess he is best known for The English Patient (1992) and other prose works but Ondaatje has also published at least 11 volumes of poetry, and a poetic style informs this book.
  
  In the early 1950s three 11/12-year-old boys who are strangers to each other become fast friends during a 21-day voyage from Colombo (in Sri Lanka) to England aboard the ship Oronsay. What Mynah, Cassius, and Ramadhin have in common is that each of them make the journey unaccompanied by parents, and all are assigned to enjoy their meals at “the cat’s table”---a potluck group of miscellaneous individuals intentionally seated far from the captain’s table.
  
  Years later, Mynah becomes a successful writer and this adventuresome tale is his account of the fun, foolishness, danger, and intrigue of their time together, and the imprints it left on his soul.
  
  “That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.” (page 75)
• 
  Cheryl

  I love the cover on this book. The font, the sepia tones, the old-fashioned liner being tossed atop a sea that looks askew, all hint at a journey of the past that did not go smoothly. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of an older man recalling the past; it is of himself as an 11 year old leaving his life in Sri Lanka to join his mother in England. "Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence." He must go alone on a 3 week journey by ship. He is still a child, but childhood is ready to fall behind him. Strong friendships develop quickly in the concentrated atmosphere of shipboard relationships. Childish exploits blend with adult events but the nature of these confusing times can never be properly understood or placed in context by the young still struggling to understand the grown-up world that surrounds them. "Sometimes we find our true and inherent selves during youth. It is a recognition of something that at first is small within us, that we will grow into somehow." We are taken back and forth from his childhood perspective to his adult one as he puzzles out the meanings of various shipboard incidents culminating in a shocking action.
  The first half of the book especially felt like a series of short sharp episodes, standing out in relief against a blurred background. Ondaatje's prose as usual is smooth and effortless. "In our twenties we are busy becoming other people."
• 
  Tony

  It's not the opening sentence. Stuff happens before that. Our narrator, 11 year-old Michael, aka Mynah, but not aka Michael Ondaatje (we are told in an afterword), has already boarded a ship from Colombo and bound for England. He is assigned to the Cat's Table, that one farthest from the Captain's table in distance and prestige, and he meets two boys his age.
  
  And then, there it is:
  
  Sleep is a prison for a boy who has friends to meet.
  
  Spend a year, spend five years, and try to write a better sentence than that.
  
  ----- ----- ----- -----
  
  So this is an adventure story. Except for the poetic writing, the symbolism and hidden meanings, the literary allusions. Miss Lasqueti appears at a ball dressed as Proust. Otherwise, she walks around carrying - but not apparently reading - The Magic Mountain. I liked that so much better than the adventure.
  
  Which, I guess, is my way of saying I don't think this book ever figured out what it wanted to be.
  
  I totally get those that say they went back to the first page and re-read. I understand the impulse anyhow. And I might have, if TBR shelves weren't groaning.
  
  Instead, I took what this book book gave me on first read: a very nice journey. And lots of moments. My favorite moments revolved around Miss Lasqueti.
  
  She had a laugh that hinted it had rolled around once or twice in the mud.
  
  And, she was capable of disarming with dinner conversation such as:
  
  Spanish is a loving tongue --- is it not, Mr. Mazappa?
  
  As Michael, Mynah but not Michael Ondaatje (we are assured), observed, "We were learning about adults simply by being in their midst."
  
  
• 
  Jonfaith

  But for me Emily was still the unreachable face.
  
  A generous three stars for a novel of half commitment and an awkward reading experience for this reader—the book was endorsed and given to me by a family friend. It details an ocean passage from Ceylon to London in the early 50s. It’s easy to confuse the racial politics. I found myself aground in subconscious bias. The prose didn’t help but there are flourishes exhibiting the author’s panache as poet. It’s a coming-of-age, it’s an immigrant account; there’s intrigue, a wonderful origin story for a minor character and middle age dissipation for the rest. Yawn.
• 
  Algernon (Darth Anyan)

  How could i not love a book that starts with a quote from Joseph Conrad "Youth" ? The hero of that short story is a wide eyed innocent in love with the sea and laying eyes for the first time on the mystery and vibrant life of the Orient.
  Mirroring this story, The Cat's Table is not about cats, but about the voyage of an 11 year old boy from the exuberant life of Sri Lanka to the cold shores of England. It taps into the magic of the ocean liner, from the Titanic, to Lusitania, to movies like La Leggenda del Pianista sul'Oceano or Ship of Fools. When Michael first lays eyes on it, the Oronsay is a floating castle, full of lights and wonderful things to explore, people to know and stories to be listened to. I checked with google and there actually was a liner named Oronsay, although Ondaatje claims it is no relation to the one in the book
  
  The first part of the book, from Colombo to Port Said is a boys adventure, as Michael and his two new friends run around all over the ship with little concern for the world of adults. The are really wild, something that was still possible in the 1950's when a boy could escape constant supervision by an adult eye. They are aptly called "feral" by the author, these free-range urchins that are harder to catch than quicksilver: 'The Oronsay tribe – irresponsible and wiolent.’
  
  After Port Said, the story turns maudlin and sometimes leaves the ship to explore the later life of some of the actors as they leave childhood and try to find new meanings to the events from the voyage. There will be love, and loss and loneliness and some explanation of the central mystery of the man in chains.
  
  As usual Ondaatje spins his magic web of words and paints vibrant tableaux of powerful storms in the Indian Ocean, exotic markets in Aden or the night crossing of the Suez Canal. Secondary characters are sketched with attention to details and a loving touch.
  
  Why the Cat's Table? What is so interesting about the lowest place on the social scale? A key is offered in this passage:
  "That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves."
  
  I , for one, am sold on this topic.
• 
  Frances Greenslade

  I heard Michael Ondaatje being interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on CBC radio the other night. She spent the first portion of the interview asking him about the autobiographical aspects of the novel and, strangely, he said, somewhat dismissively I thought, that he wasn't interested in writing about himself. He said his writing is driven by curiosity, implying that autobiography isn't.
  
  He then went on to confirm all the parallels between the novel and his own life. I don't begrudge him the fictionalizing of his life, and the insistence that it is fiction. I once worked with a creative writing professor who kept calling me by the name of my novel's protagonist. He then asked me if I'd always been a loner (because my character was). It was an awkward moment. But I'm curious about Ondaatje's apparent dismissal of autobiography, (during the interview, he called Running in the Family a "fake autobiography") as if it's somehow a bit shameful to write about yourself. I find this a peculiarly Canadian perspective. And maybe I take it a bit personally, since my first two books were memoir. Writing memoir is also driven by curiosity, and by a need to order our own experiences and give them shape. Writers like Annie Dillard, Alexandra Fuller and Karen Armstrong all write autobiography driven by curiosity and a need to understand.
  
  My own experience is that in writing memoir, the self becomes almost a character and the critical distance from myself is like what happens in writing fiction. Sharon Butala, in The Perfection of the Morning, has an insightful passage about this: "I had been tending toward writing what is dismissively referred to by scholars as 'confessional' writing as it was.... I wanted to cut away what I had been taught...and only write from the deepest part of myself, to say how things seem to me, what I honestly think about my life and the lives of women, or further, what I honestly feel before thought, but I would see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears, sense it with my own body." I love this passage, because it confirms my own feeling that writing is far more than an intellectual act.
  
  I like Ondaatje's fiction, but I bet I'd like his autobiography too.
• 
  ·Karen·

  Perhaps I'd better start with the novel in case it appears inconsequential, just tagged on to the end as an afterthought. I might give the impression that it was lacking in some way, that it failed to engage me. Not so, not so. It was as wondrous as I'd hoped and wished for, maintaining a breathtaking balance between re-enacting the naivety of that eleven year old on the boat and the seasoned hindsight of the man that he became. But there was something else that intrigued me that has no great bearing on the novel or its narrator.
  
  Young Michael - he of the novel, who, we're told, is not necessarily identical with the author, even though some events in their lives, and the names, are parallel - travels from Colombo to Great Britain on the Oronsay. Why, I wondered, would the Orient line, sailing here between Australia and Britain, name this ship after a small and fairly obscure Inner Hebridean island? At first I thought that it must have been built at John Brown's or the Napier yard in Clydebank, but when I googled it, I found that it in fact came from Vickers Armstrong at Barrow. BUT this was Oronsay II. The original Oronsay, built in 1925, came indeed from John Brown Ltd at Clydebank. She was converted to a troop transporter in 1939, and was torpedoed in 1942 while on a voyage from Capetown, carrying a curiously mixed cargo of oranges, copper and 'Distressed British Seamen' which seems to have been an official title, all capitalized. (See:
  http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/des...) The original ship's provenance may, I suppose, go some way to explaining her name. And according to
  this website where you can see lots of pictures of SS Oronsay the 1951 liner actually became known as the ship with a Scottish heritage - no doubt there was a subtle use of tartan in the decor. (Can tartan ever be subtle?) I'm sure, too, that shipping lines would be glad to associate their vessels with the fine tradition of Scottish engineering. It just sits a little oddly, I felt, a ship that was sailing the world, with such a local name, one more suitable for the ferries that serve the Hebrides, I'd have thought, or one of the Clyde paddle steamers that provided my favourite day out when I was a wee one.
  
  So this review turns out to have far more to do with Ondaatje's novel than I'd thought myself when I started out on my journey. Because research into the name was the key to some memories of my own sea travel as a child. That Clyde paddle steamer: well, of course the famous one is the Waverley, which has survived, lovingly restored by enthusiasts: you can see the results
  here. And thanks to the Wonders of Modern Communication Technology, there's even
  a YouTube clip of the steam engine which I always found mesmerising, the first place to go on the trip to Greenock, Gourock and Dunoon. It's odd the things that give us a warm fuzzy feeling isn't it? And shipbuilding in Clydebank was the foundation of our family: my dad did his apprenticeship and later worked as an engineer (and lost most of his hearing) in the family firm of
  D & J Tullis, which supplied and fitted the ships with their large laundry machines.
  
  Anyway, I suppose I ought to get back to a book review. There's the gorgeous prose, and there's the voice that is sweetly melancholic, but curious too about this boy he once was. And then there is the brilliant structure: at almost exactly the half-way point of the novel, just at the very moment when you look to see how many more pages there are, and wonder how many more wild and entertaining adventures the narrator can have on board ship, suddenly you are pulled forward in time and it becomes clear that the boyhood friendships made in the hotbed of the enclosed ship's company not only continue into later life, but are of utmost significance to the narrator. Then three quarters of the way through, when you're beginning to wonder quite where the significance lies, the tension is ratched up a further notch with a mysterious letter..... Brilliantly done.
  
  
  
  
• 
  T.D. Whittle

  There are quite a few good reviews on The Cat’s Table already, so I am not going to go into explanations about plot, etc. I rarely choose books based on plot, anyway, and discussing it too much bores me. When I do get in the mood to read for plot, I read genre books or popular fiction, not Ondaatje. What I believe brings most of us readers to Ondaatje is his lyrical language, his exquisite sense of style, and his rendering of subtle and complex characters whom one imagines it would be fascinating to know in real life. He rarely fails in any of these aspects, in my opinion.
  
  I finished The Cat’s Table just last night, and I ended up really appreciating it, but it was a slow start for me and it took me ages to finish. I kept stopping to read other things. I always find Ondaatje’s writerly eloquence beautiful, and his insights subtle, layered, and deeply moving – as one would expect from a celebrated poet. But I found the first part of this book rather exhausting to get through; in hindsight, I believe it is because we are pretty much stuck the whole time with the perspective of a fairly ordinary eleven-year-old boy – which I got bored with quickly. Ondaatje did not call upon the voice of the adult Michael in the first half of the book all that often, but he is, of course, a much more interesting and reflective person than the wild child on the boat.
  
  I can and do enjoy other writers who give us boy child narrators, but Ondaatje is a writer of such restraint that I found this child tiresome. My thoughts on this are that if you are going to use a child narrator, then it might be useful to drop the restraint in your narrative, in order to mirror the natural lack of restraint in children, in general, and in this child, in particular. Other characters report back to the adult Michael that he was “constantly in trouble,” “naughty,” and even a bit of “a devil” (in Emily’s words). Although Ondaatje described the children behaving in reckless and run-amok ways, he did so with such artful and delicate prose that, to me, it muffled the effect of the boys he was describing and kept me at a distance from them. I was vaguely amused but not too interested in them or their antics until halfway through the book.
  
  Once Ondaatje began expanding our social circle, so to speak, I found the book delighted me, both in its character descriptions, and in the way their stories were shared: most especially, the characters of the anarchic and mysterious Ms. Lasqueti, the elusive Emily, and Asuntha, the acrobat child of the prisoner. I felt that bringing the women more into the picture made a tremendous difference in my ability to engage with the book, as I found the narrator at his most tender and eloquent when discussing these characters (and also when discussing Ramhadin – a beautifully rendered character, in my opinion).
  
  Having said all that, I would not have kept pushing myself with most writers as I did with Ondaatje, and it is out of respect for his other work that I did not abandon the book. It seems that many people have loved the book from beginning to end, though, so that just goes to show how much reactions can vary, even amongst long-term fans of a writer.
  
  (Plot Spoiler) The dramatic plot line about the prisoner and his daughter were well done, though I think it would have seemed like ridiculous, contrived melodrama in the hands of a lesser writer. Ondaatje pulled it off, and I cherished the moment Ms. Lasqueti covertly shot Mr. Giggs in the hand, presumably to satisfy her own sense of power as the subtle enemy of autocratic bullies, and to prove to herself that she was indeed the superior marksman. Undoubtedly, she was also attempting to protect Emily and Asuntha, who were dangerously ensnared by powerful and unethical men, just as she herself had once been.
  
  Another reviewer mentioned being confused by Ondaatje writing this book as a novel, rather than an autobiography, even though much of the tale draws upon his own life experiences. I, too, found it confusing initially when I realised that, although it reads like a memoir, it was indeed published as a novel (I checked myself just to be sure, because I was so in doubt). However, in reflection, I wonder if Ondaatje does not believe that telling an autobiographical truth about one’s past is possible, due to the elusive and mercurial nature of memory, and our own limited perceptions of ourselves and our participation in the lives of others.
  
  All stories we tell about the past are a blend of fact and fiction, and fiction probably wins out more often than not. I think this is widely recognised as true by writers of history: that history is not the truth about the past; it is stories we tell ourselves about the past. I believe, too, that making the character Michael into a fictitious narrator gives Ondaatje an aesthetic and emotional distance not available to writers of autobiography. Having said all that, I enjoy autobiography and biography, in their own right. I suppose it depends, for writers, on what they hope to achieve with the particular tales they are telling. Of course, those are my own opinions, and may not reflect Ondaatje at all. These may be just a stories I tell myself about him to make sense of what I’ve read.
• 
  Diane S ☔

  I have never read this author before, not his English Patent nor saw the movie, but I loved this book. Micheal is a 11 yr. old traveling alone aboard a ship from Sri Lanka to England. He meets to other boys, also traveling alone, and are seated at the Cat's table, the table farthest away from the captains. Their adventure and tragedies as well as the people they meet will affect them all into the future. His prose is wonderful and the novel flows seamlessly from past to present, when Michael is thirty. Wonderful coming of age fiction.
• 
  Mohamed Khaled Sharif

  
  
  
  تدور أحداث الرواية عن ثلاثة أطفال وجدوا أنفسهم مُتجمعين لكونهم من أقل الفئات الموجودة على رحلة بحرية، كُلاً يحمل طموحه وكُلاً يحمل توقعاته ويتمنى أن يمحو خيباته.. ليجدوا أنفسهم في مُغامرات مُتتالية وأحداث وشخصيات مُختلفة ومتنوعة.
  
  لم تعجبني الرواية تماماً، أوقات كثيرة لم أشعر أنني أتماشى مع خط سير الرواية، ولا أعلم إذا كان موجوداً أو لا.. حكايات مُتتالية بدون رابط قوي، وبدون تسلسل معين.. رُبما أحياناً بعض الأخطار ولكن لا شيء أكثر!
  الترجمة كانت جيدة صراحة، لم تكن المُشكلة فيها، ولكن مشكلتي كانت مع الأحداث نفسها.
  
  تجربة مُخيبة للآمال مع كاتب كُنت أتوقع منه الكثير للآسف.