The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje
Very loosely based on Michael Ondaatje's own life, The Cat's Table is a ficticious description of a journey he made as a child from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to England. The narrator (also named Michael) is an adult, reflecting on a three week period of time that took place in 1954 when he was eleven years old and as such the bulk of the novel is written in a hazy golden cloud of memory.
Traveling on the ocean liner the Oronsay, Michael's only guardian is an aunt in first class who can barely be bothered to keep an eye on her nephew. While his aunt Flavia and his beloved cousin Emily are also on deck, Michael has little interaction with them as at dinner he is seated at the cat's table, that being the table furthest away from the ship's captain where people of no-rank are seated. The novel takes not only its name from the table, but also a sort of structure from it as well. It is the odd assemblage of interesting characters that are seated beside him at dinner who are Michael's friends and teachers and also the focus of many small side stories.
The book has very little plot to speak of; the bulk of the novel is made up of small observations and rambling stories that go on for a page or a page and a half. But it is these fragments that prove to be the most memorable. A woman who reads crime mysteries by the deck pitches them head long into the ocean when she grows tired of reading them. An Australian girl taking a shower leaves wet footprints on the deck that evaporate with the rising morning sun. Hundreds of spoons are spilled into the ship's pool and the residents gather to cheer on two small boys who dive in again and again to retrieve them. Ondaatje creates so much wonder and brilliance in these small nothings, imbuing them with a touch of magic that makes us understand how they have lived on so long in Michael's memory.
Traveling on the ocean liner the Oronsay, Michael's only guardian is an aunt in first class who can barely be bothered to keep an eye on her nephew. While his aunt Flavia and his beloved cousin Emily are also on deck, Michael has little interaction with them as at dinner he is seated at the cat's table, that being the table furthest away from the ship's captain where people of no-rank are seated. The novel takes not only its name from the table, but also a sort of structure from it as well. It is the odd assemblage of interesting characters that are seated beside him at dinner who are Michael's friends and teachers and also the focus of many small side stories.
The book has very little plot to speak of; the bulk of the novel is made up of small observations and rambling stories that go on for a page or a page and a half. But it is these fragments that prove to be the most memorable. A woman who reads crime mysteries by the deck pitches them head long into the ocean when she grows tired of reading them. An Australian girl taking a shower leaves wet footprints on the deck that evaporate with the rising morning sun. Hundreds of spoons are spilled into the ship's pool and the residents gather to cheer on two small boys who dive in again and again to retrieve them. Ondaatje creates so much wonder and brilliance in these small nothings, imbuing them with a touch of magic that makes us understand how they have lived on so long in Michael's memory.