07888cam a2200517 4500 233402028 TxAuBib 20150605120000.0 ||||||s2011||||||||||||||||||||||||und|u 9780307700452 0307700453 B004J4X2RQ Amazon 106ece92-3f99-4843-80fe-17a4e3367d55 OverDrive (Reserve ID) 211856 559838 OverDrive (Product ID) TxAuBib Ondaatje, Michael, 1943- The Cat's Table [Libby eBook]. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011. Format: OverDrive Adobe EPUB eBook, Filesize: 1993kB. Format: OverDrive OverDrive Read. Format: OverDrive Kindle Book. HTML:In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table"--as far from the Captain's Table as can be--with a ragtag group of "insignificant" adults 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 tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: one man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. The narrator's elusive, beautiful cousin Emily becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself "with a distant eye" for the first time, and to feel the first stirring of desire. Another Cat's Table denizen, the shadowy Miss Lasqueti, is perhaps more than what she seems. And very late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and the boy's adult years, it tells a spellbinding story--by turns poignant and electrifying--about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage. From the Hardcover edition.. HTML:"A treasure chest of escapades from a pitch-perfect writer, an immaculate observer of the dance of humans, giving us an intoxicating mix of tenderly rendered boy's eye perspective and the musings of the older narrator looking back on this intensely formative voyage . . . It is a classic, perfect premise for a novel packed with possibilities. Put it in the hands of one of the most subtle and surprising masters of world writing, Michael Ondaatje, and unalloyed joy lies latent in every sentence and sensuous quirk of the narrative. This is simply blissful storytelling . . . Think the seafaring Joseph Conrad, with an invigorating infusion of Treasure Island, a touch of Mark Twain.". HTML:The Scotsman (UK.) HTML:"The Cat's Table is an exquisite example of the richness that can flourish in the gaps between fact and fiction . . . Ondaatje has an eerily precise grasp of the immediacy of a child's world view, and an extraordinary sense of individual destiny . . . It is an adventure story, it is a meditation on power, memory, art, childhood, love and loss. It displays a technique so formidable as to seem almost playful. It is one of those rare books that one could reread an infinite number of times, and always find something new within its pages.". HTML:Evening Standard (UK.) "A graceful, closely observed novel that blends coming-of-age tropes with a Conradian sea voyage . . . Beautifully detailed, without a false note: It is easy to imagine, in Ondaatje's hands, being a passenger in the golden age of transoceanic voyaging, amid a sea of cocktail glasses and overflowing ashtrays, if in this case a setting more worthy of John le Carré than Noel Coward . . . Elegiac, mature, and nostalgic--a fine evocation of childhood, and of days irretrievably past.". HTML:Kirkus Reviews (starred.) HTML:"A joy and a lark to read . . . Within a few pages of the book's opening, The Cat's Table has done a miraculous thing--it has ceased to be a book, or even a piece of art. It is merely a story, unfolding before the reader's eyes, its churning motor a mystery about what it is exactly that happened on this boat . . . Told in short bursts of exposition so beautiful one actually feels the urge to slow the reading down, the novel shows us how the boy assembles the man.". HTML:Boston Globe. "This book is wonderful, offering all the best pleasures of Ondaatje's writing: his musical prose, up-tempo; his ear for absurd, almost surreal dialogue, which had me laughing out loud in public as I read; his admiration for craftsmanship and specialized language in the sciences and the trades; and his sumptuous evocations of sensual delight . . . In many ways, this book is Ondaatje's most intimate yet.". HTML:Globe and Mail (Canada.) HTML:"The Cat's Table is just as skillfully wrought as Ondaatje's magnum opus The English Patient, but its picaresque childhood adventure gives it a special power and intimacy . . . He is a master at creating characters, whom he chooses to present, memorably, as individuals. This choice is of a piece with the freshness and originality that are the hallmarks of The Cat's Table.". HTML:Wall Street Journal. HTML:"Ondaatje's best novel since his Booker Prize--winning The English Patient . . . [An] air of the meta adds a gorgeous, modern twist to the timeless story of boys having an awfully big adventure . . . As always, Ondaatje's prose is lyrical, but here it is tempered; the result is clean and full of grace.". HTML:Publishers Weekly (starred.) HTML:"Ondaatje's wondrous prose feels more alive to the world than ever before . . . This is a simpler story, more simply told, than Ondaatje has accustomed his readers to . . . Yet The Cat's Table is no less thrilling in its attempts to capture beauty in its various and terrifying forms.". HTML:Financial Times (UK.) "Ondaatje is justly recognized as a master of literary craft . . . The novel tells of a journey from childhood to the adult world, as well as a passage from the homeland to another country, something of a Dantean experience.". HTML:Annie Proulx, The Guardian (UK.) "Richly enjoyable, often very funny, and gleams like a really smart liner on a sunny day . . . The magic of this fine book is in the strange inve. HTML:Daily Telegraph (UK.) Literature. Fiction. Media Type: eBook. Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee. Notable Books for Adults. 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