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judyward 's review for:
The Cat's Table
by Michael Ondaatje
In the early 1950s, Michael, aged 11, travels alone, on the cruise ship Oronsay, from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to England to meet his divorced mother whom he hasn't seen in four or five years. For meals, he is seated at the "cat's table"--a table as far as possible in both distance and prestige from the Captain's Table--with two other boys also traveling alone and an assortment of adults who don't fit in easily with the rest of the passengers. During the 21-day voyage across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, passing through the Mediterranean Sea, and finally into the Atlantic, Michael and his two friends from the cat's table have free run of the ship and, of course, they stay in trouble. A poignant story that alternates between the time spent on the Oronsay, Michael's youth in Ceylon, and his adult years. The Cat's Table takes readers on an adventure at sea that has implications that carry over to Michael's adult life. This is a coming of age tale filled with vivid, and sometimes heartbreaking, character studies and it is also a well-written description of the English class system which was at full play in the middle of the 20th century.