The Cat's Table

The Cat’s Table
By Michael Ondaatje
Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 269 pgs. Historical Fiction

The Cat’s Table takes place in a mere three weeks in 1954 aboard an ocean liner departing Colombo, Sri Lanka for England, but in those short weeks, a lifetime occurs for 11-year-old Michael. Michael, nick-named Mynah is traveling alone to meet his mother who is already in England. He finds himself seated at the Cat’s Table, the least prestigious dinner table as it is farthest from the Captain’s table, along with two other boys his age and an odd assortment of adults. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, and into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, stealing food from first-class, tossing deck chairs into the pool, and very late at night spying on a heavily guarded prisoner who is allowed to walk in the fresh air. They also interact in varying ways with the adults aboard the ship and especially at their table; a tailor who doesn’t speak, a pianist who plays aboard the ship, a woman who is perhaps more than she seems.

The Cat’s Table is told from the perspective of Michael as a grown man through a series of vignettes that go back and forth through time and in this way reveals how even the smallest experiences can have lasting effects on a life.

Michael Ondaatje has a rare gift for language and his latest book does not disappoint. I simply wanted to savor each page in this book. I also found the connections to the author’s own childhood fascinating. Though Ondaatje clearly states at the end of the book that this is a work of fiction, I found it interesting that he named the main character after himself and he too took a voyage from Sri Lanka to England to meet his mother when he was a young boy.

AJ