Kepler's 2020 Project in the News:
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Of course Michael Ondaatje’s Cat’s Table would garner wide critical review but I didn’t pick it up, there was internal caution staying my hand. So the trim volume, graced with its blurry ship photo waited for me, several weeks in fact. When, finally my inner struggle ended, vanishing like vaporous fog, I happily picked up Cat’s Table and immediately entered into this rich layered story. Three young boys set off for school on a three week voyage bound for England. They have slight supervision from a distant aunt and a glamorous cousin who remain on the boys’ periphery, pursuing their own interests and intrigues. Their home base is established at the first dinner aboard the ship – they sit at the “cat’s table” set for single passengers and three boys, far from the captain’s glittery table. Aware their lives are changing in some profound but unknown ways, they take to the journey with the thrill of a chase, exploring all manners of passengers and passageways throughout the ship, often underfoot and always observant. Ondaatje’s storytelling skills weave magic and discovery into the book’s stories; back and forward through time, always circling the boys from incidents of the characters to their adult reminiscence of their time aboard the ship and its life-altering voyage. I savored the wild boys roaming and chaotic behavior, picturing their wildness and unmasked joy of youth. Then, I would reread whole sections for the story’s beauty and the elegance of Ondaatje’s writing and I will, of course, read it again with pleasure. --Marilyn S. |
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