The Cat's Table

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England - a 'castle that was to cross the sea'. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly 'Cat's Table' with an eccentric group of grown-ups and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys become involved in the worlds and stories of the adults around them, tumbling from one adventure and delicious discovery to another, 'bursting all over the place like freed mercury'. And at night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner - his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. As the narrative moves from the decks and holds of the ship and the boy's adult years, it tells a spellbinding story about the difference between the magical openness of childhood and the burdens of earned understanding - about a life-long journey that began unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage, when all on board were 'free of the realities of the earth'. With the ocean liner a brilliant microcosm for the floating dream of childhood, "The Cat's Table" is a vivid, poignant and thrilling book, full of Ondaatje's trademark set-pieces and breathtaking images: a story told with a child's sense of wonder by a novelist at the very height of his powers.

ISBN 0224093614   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780224093613 (What's this?)   Pages 304 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd   Height (mm) 222 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 138 Publication date 25 Aug 2011   Academic level General DEWEY 813.6

"A completely original orchestration of a coming-of-age story, memoir, maritime adventure as powerful as Conrad or Stevenson.... Astonishing."--Howard Norman, "The Globe and Mail ""Ondaatje's most accessible, most compelling novel to date." --Robert J Wiersema, "The Vancouver Sun""Michael Ondaatje is the greatest living writer in the English language.... All that is great in his other books is fully present in "The Cat's Table"." --Aleksander Hemon, "The Wall Street Journal" (Favourite Book of 2011)"The most beautiful, haunting and ageless book I've read this year." --Pico Iyer, "The Hindu"

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