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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
Written like a memoir of an 11-year old boy's 3week ship voyage from Sri Lanka to England, telling his adventures on board with 2 boys his age. I really enjoyed the wonderful character vignettes, including a few mysteries.
I loved this book, but my book group not so much. They prefer happy endings and realism.
I've never read or seen The English Patient, so I had not much context going into The Cat's Table. I picked it up in a Dutch rail station as one of the few English books that looked tolerable. (Not a crime fan.) It's definitely the sort of book my mom reads first and then recommends to me, and she probably would have recommended this one. Well-written, some memorable quotations and moments, only perhaps a little more dramatic than I expected. I wish we could give half stars, because some of my three-stars mean "meh." This one is more honestly, "I liked it but but can't muster the enthusiasm of really liked it."
I struggled to finish this. The flashing back and forth in time was distracting and pulled me out of the story each time. Lots of disjointed things happen and the order is unclear. New characters pop up and are focused on then rarely mentioned again. By 2/3 through I was wondering what the point was and bored. It reads like an autobiography but is fiction… but isn’t really an engaging story either. Is there a huge culmination of excitement at the end that gives it all meaning? No, there is not. The boat arrives. The kid gets off the boat.
I really enjoyed this book, which is told from the point of view of a young boy making his way to England on a boat. The book centers around the characters seated at The Cat's Table, which is the table furthest from the captain. It has a little bit of everything - adventure, intrigue, romance. Ondaatje is a phenomenal writer and this book just furthers that opinion.
I really loved a lot of his books. I have been struggling on and off with this one and
In short vignettes, Ondaatje gives us the experiences of a very unreliable narrator--11 year old Michael traveling from Sri Lanka to England in 1954 on a passenger liner to be reunited with his mother and attend boarding school. Slowly, the reader works out just *how* unreliable Michael and his friends are at describing the interactions of the eccentric and misfit passengers and crew of their "Cat's Table" far from the interest and social circle of the Captain and the First Class passengers, a realization that Michael only comes to as an adult, piecing together the events that led up to a spectacular tragedy he only now understands. Ondaatje writes convincingly in a new voice about familiar themes--exile, alienation, colonialism and lost love.
I love, love, loved the way this story was told and all the simple, wonderful details about this ship's voyage and the boys' experience on it. But then it shifted to the weird arc about the prisoner--traveling circus people, crazy escape attempts, poisoning, murder, what??? It kind of ruined it for me.
What a wonderful adventure and story of 3 boys who have nearly complete freedom for 3 weeks on a ship filled with mystery and excitement. Great listen. Recommend!