The cat's table
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a ship bound for England. Looking back from adulthood, the narrator relates a tale about the often forbidden discoveries of childhood and the burdens of earned understanding, about a life-long journey that began unexpectedly with a sea voyage.
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- ISBN: 0771068646
- ISBN: 9780771068645
- Physical Description 269 pages
- Publisher Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, [2011]
- Copyright ©2011
Content descriptions
General Note: | Shortlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize |
Immediate Source of Acquisition Note: | LSC 32.00 |
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The Cat's Table
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Summary
The Cat's Table
From Michael Ondaatje: an electrifying new novel, by turns thrilling and deeply moving -- one of his most vividly rendered and compelling works of fiction to date. In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly "Cat's Table" with an eccentric and unforgettable group of grownups and two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys find themselves immersed in the worlds and stories of the adults around them. At night they spy on a shackled prisoner -- his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. Looking back from deep within adulthood, and gradually moving back and forth from the decks and holds of the ship to the years that follow the narrator unfolds a spellbinding and layered tale about the magical, often forbidden discoveries of childhood and the burdens of earned understanding, about a life-long journey that began unexpectedly with a sea voyage.