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Oct 22, 2011

Cynthia rated it:

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 a More...

38 comments like (23 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2012

Vicki rated it:

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, bu More...

6 comments like (12 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2011

Newengland rated it:

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 l More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2012

Jamie rated it:

It's a four-star book with five stars. I'll explain in a minute.

I'm still thinking on the Cat's Table. I've enjoyed Ondaatje's poetry more than his novels and this book seems to straddle those categories a bit. He writes beautifully on the visual and emotional fronts. He structures long works creatively and I'm still trying to decide how well this one works for me.

The Cat's Table is, primarily, a story of a three-week voyage by ship, from Colombo to London. Its focus is o More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 05, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

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 easil More...

6 comments like (11 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2011

Barbara rated it:

November 1, 2011:
I'm reading The Cat's Table. My husband is listening to it on audio book. It's a race.

November 9, 2011:
My husband won the race. I ended up borrowing his audio book and alternatively listening to and reading the novel. We both enjoyed listening to the texture and cadence of Ondaatje's voice. My husband finds it a pleasure to hear a book read by its author.

The Cat's Table takes place in a mere 21 days, but in those few weeks, a lifetime occurs. More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Pat rated it:

The most beautifully written book I have read in a long time. It is the adventures of 3 young boys unchaperoned on an ocean liner and their adventures with the people at their table, the cat's table, the one furtherest from the captain's, of course. I think it is Michael Ondaatje's best - so full of beautiful figurative language you read every word and don't want it to end! Don't miss this relatively short but awesome book. My daughter Kelly recommended it to me and I highly recommend it More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 10, 2011

Mark added it

I read this for possible review as an Adult Book 4 Teens, and all I can say is that I am thrilled that I can say that I don't think it has much teen appeal, because I have no idea what to say about it.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Joan rated it:

Everyone in my book club enjoyed this book. A three-week sea voyage is a very long time in the life of an eleven-year-old who is leaving his native country for the first time. Ondaatje uses flash forwards to show that the narrator is an older man reflecting on his childhood experience. An intriguing motif is his wondering about how this voyage affected himself and his two boy companions, as well as his seventeen-year-old girl cousin Emily. Near the end of the book Michael and Emily meet again in More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2012

John rated it:

Michael Ondaatje returns once more to his youth to craft a memorable, and at times poignant and electrifying, odyssey of a young boy's sea voyage from his native Ceylon to distant England in "The Cat's Table", which is a notable addition among his novels in a long, productive, and illustrious literary career, though it falls short of his earlier classics "The English Patient" and "Anil's Ghost" (However, I do regard it as among the best novels published this year th More...

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Feb 15, 2012

Victoria rated it:

At a point in this book, one of the main characters, since grown up, has an art exhibition of paintings made of the voyage that this book is about. The voice of the book, Michael, comments that what was unique about the exhibition is that it showed the voyage from a child's perspective, and not that of the adult that the character had become by the time he painted the art.

This book also is a delight because it shows the three week voyage from Ceylon to England from the perspective of More...

0 comments like

Feb 12, 2012

Ms.pegasus rated it:

As to intent, is it a fictional memoir; a Coming of Age fable; a cautionary tale about the frailty of relationships; a celebration of irreverence; or something impossible to articulate?

Like an ocean liner, CAT'S TABLE is crowded with characters: Michael the 11 year old narrator, his 2 friends Ramadhin and Cassius, the 5 adults who share the Cat's Table, a hemp-smoking professor of literature, Michael's 17 year old cousin Emily, and her half-deaf friend Asuntha. In addition there are More...

0 comments like

Feb 05, 2012

Chuck rated it:

Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart, $32) landed atop many of the lists of favourite books posted at the end of 2011. I’d been resisting it all fall. His previous novel, Divisadero, failed to hook me (something about sex amidst broken glass turned me off). But I’m delighted with The Cat’s Table and have been using a quote from it on my email signature: “There is a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discov More...

0 comments like

Feb 03, 2012

Rhiannon rated it:

Many moons ago, back in a immigrant lit course, I was introduced to the wonder of Michael Ondaatje's beautiful writing. The English Patient was a transcendent experience for me, and then later I read In The Skin of the Lion and decided this was officially an author I deeply admired. So when The Cat's Table arrived from Random House I could hardly wait to dig in and savour it.

Mynah is being sent by his aunt and uncle from India to England to reunite with his mother. He is traveling b More...

0 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Lianne added it

I got this book for Christmas and enjoyed it. The author, Michael Ondaatje, wrote "The English Patient." This work has some of the same texture to its tale. This story is a fictionalized version of an ocean voyage from Sri Lanka to England that the author actually experienced as a 12-year old boy. Remarkably, he and several other children made the crossing as unaccompanied minors and this was typical at that time. He was going to England to be reunited with his mother who had been gone More...

0 comments like

Dec 04, 2011

Jim rated it:

"I don’t think you can love me into safety." There are plenty of evocative lines and insights to be found in this latest work from the author of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, but this one--spoken platonically from one cousin to another--might be my favorite, as it goes far to sum up the character and motivations of Michael, who serves as the story's protagonist and narrator. As an 11-year-old boy at the outset of the novel, Michael is being sent alone on a 21-day trip from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 25, 2011

pinknantucket rated it:

A lovely book; the story of "Mynah" (Michael), a boy from Sri Lanka, on board the cruise ship Oronsay en route to London, travelling alone. The 'Cat's Table" of the title refers to a table of miscellaneous, eccentric and designated "unimportant" people at which he finds himself seated for meals - as opposed to the Captain's Table, for example, where all the important people on board sit.

Mynah and his two young voyage-friends (Cassius & Ramadhim) waste no moment More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 24, 2011

Algernon rated it:

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 mo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Frances is currently reading it

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 More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2011

Benjamin rated it:

[Another entry in my reading-theme: Books About People Away from Home.]

I have had mixed feelings about Michael Ondaatje novels. Granted, I have only read half of the novels he has written, but they always struck me as being written beautifully, but lacking in a driving plot or meandering though seemingly unconnected moments. I would finish his book and think, "That was lovely, but what am I supposed to take away from it?"

This novel was different, however. There is a More...

2 comments like

Nov 06, 2011

Carl rated it:

Once again, a critical success by an acclaimed major writer leaves me wondering what the fuss is all about.
The first half is mostly an entertaining story about 3 boys romping through the end of their childhood, relatively free of adult restraints on their voyage from Ceylon to England. There are HINTS (hint, hint) of darkness in the future, and in fact the narrative jumps around quite a bit. (I guess one can’t be critically acclaimed anymore by writing straightforward narrative, just as More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Felice rated it:

The Cat’sTable was not a book I picked to read. I haven’t always had the best luck with Michael Ondaatje , The Cat’s Table is a coming of age story which is not my favorite kind of tale and the book it is short. Shortness has nothing to do with quality of course but it does have everything to do with what attracts me to a book. Oh yeah and it has an incredibly awful cover.

Why did I read The Cat’s Table? I had gotten sent a copy and set it aside to pass onto someone else. A few days lat More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

The Cat's Table was a joy to read. Ondaatje's language is always a treat and his young narrator, Michael and his escapades with his two friends on the ship voyage from Sri Lanka to Britain were entirely believable. Although Ondaatje said that the story was entirely fictional, it was written like a memoir of a young boy making the voyage. I found it interesting that the author chose to use his own name for the young narrator's voice. This is a novel based on character, not plot, and the chara More...

1 comment like

Nov 02, 2011

Tony rated it:

THE CAT’S TABLE. (2011). Michael Ondaatje. ****.
Ondaatje is a marvelous writer, whose prose has the magic of putting the reader into the position of listening directly to him. His words fly off the page to produce instant images on your brain. It doesn’t take long for us to get to know the narrator of this memoir-like novel. (The author specifically claims that this is a novel, not a memoir; although he uses the form.) His name is Michael, and he is on a ship, the Orowsay, going fr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 21, 2011

George rated it:

A writer reminisces about a voyage he took in the early 1950s, when he was 11, from Sri Lanka to England. The setting allows Ondaatje to present most of the book as a series of vignettes -- some short character sketches of the boy's fellow passengers, some the type of mini-adventures that childhood is made up of, and some accounts of later interactions with various people who were also on the ship. About halfway through, some of the threads start to weave together into an actual plot. Having onl More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2011

DH rated it:

Michael Ondaatje’s admirers await his books with patient anticipation. In return, Ondaatje crafts works such as The Cat’s Table, one of those rare literary achievements that combines page-turning storytelling with perfectly shaped prose. Each word and each scene has been chosen with care, and the book comes together in a harmony of ideas, memories, and narratives.

I say narratives because The Cat’s Table encompasses many stories: in its seemingly straightforward telling of a boy’s 21 da More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Rachael rated it:

I have never met an Ondaatje novel I didn't love and this was no exception. It's strikingly different from many of his other novels -- there's a density to the language and prose of my favorites, IN THE SKIN OF A LION and DIVISIDARO (and yes, there's a marked dreaminess as well), and that falls in here but closer to the end, when the voice transitions from that of the child in to the adult deep in remembrance. As always, he's mired in the ideas of loss, memory, and chance -- here these things co More...

2 comments like

Oct 19, 2011

David rated it:

This is a beautiful tale that unwinds itself at a leisure pace and packs a wallop ending ( which I won't tell). Based on the real event of Ondaatje's own travel from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to England when he was a young boy, the tale centers around a young boy called Michael traveling to see his mother after years of absense (Ondaatje does point outbthat most of the events and characters were made up). The Cat's Table refers to the table the boy and his companions are positioned to eat at which incl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 14, 2011

Jenny rated it:

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/...

The Cat's Table
Michael Ondaatje
(Knopf, $26)

“You must never feel unimportant in the scheme of things,” a passenger on the Oronsay, a ship sailing from Sri Lanka to England in 1954, tells Michael, the 11-year-old narrator of Michael Ondaatje's novel The Cat's Table. Although Michael is seated for meals at the “cat's table… the least privileged place” on the Oronsay, he proves to be integral to the scheme of things on this vo More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

Steven rated it:

Ondaatje is the master of complex, multi-layered novels, with intricate flashbacks and scene changes that reveal character yet force the reader to deal with shifts in focus and perception that are often demanding. So what is striking about this new book is above all its surprisingly straightforward arc -- a young boy gets on a ship in Ceylon and voyages to England. Yet what a voyage it is! Full of remarkable characters, dramatic episodes and life-changing insights -- briefly glimpsed at th More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

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