The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatjie

Original title: The Cat's Table 
ISBN 0224093614 (ISBN13: 9780224093613) 
Edition language: English 
Genre : Murder mystery, crime drama, literary fiction, cultural 
Kindle Edition : 290 pages 
Other Formats : Hardcover; Mass Market Paperback; Kindle, Nook, Audio CD 
Publishing date: August 30th 2011 by McLelland (first published January 1st 2011) 
Literary awards: Hammett Prize Nominee (2011), Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2011), Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2012) 
Purchase from Amazon , Barnes@Noble

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Amazon book blurp:

'What had there been before such a ship in my life? A dugout canoe on a river journey? A launch in Trincomalee harbour? There were always fishing boats on our horizon. But I could never imagine the grandeur of this castle that was to cross the sea'.

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner in Colombo bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the lowly 'cat's table' - as far from the Captain's table as can be - with a ragtag group of adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship crosses the Indian Ocean the boys tumble from one adventure to another,and at night they spy on a shackled prisoner - his crime and fate a mystery that will haunt them forever...

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REVIEW: Michael was eleven years old that night when, green as he could be about the world , he climbed aboard the first and only ship of his life, the Oronsay, sailing for England from Colombo.

Unbeknownst to him, the twenty-one days at sea would become twenty-one years of schooling, molding him into the adult he would one day be, when he joined the cat's table, the least important place to eat on the ship.

The lessons he picked up from the adult company filled up several pages of his old school exercise books. He still had time to make those notes, amid the adventures in which he and his friends, Ramadhin and Cassius, engaged in on the ship. They witnessed an adult world filled with thieves, adulterers, gamblers, teachers, authority, natural healers, dreamers and schemers. Oh yes, and a shackled, dangerous prisoner. Each one of them becomes important in their lives through either their words or conduct. The ship had lots to offer for three young boys to keep them occupied. So many people, so many stories, so many intrigue. And then there was the ports of call...

Miss Perinetta Lasqueti was one of the guests around the Cat's Table. Their first impression of her manner was that of being like faded-wallpaper, but the more they found out about her, the more convinced they became that 'she was more like a box of small foxes at a country fair' . And with a good hand at shooting to prove it.

Mr. Mazappa - the boisterous, loud pianist would change their newly acquired perspective on old paintings with his approach to the angelic Madonnas in them, saying: "‘The trouble with all those Madonnas is that there is a child that needs to be fed and the mothers are putting forth breasts that look like panino-shaped bladders. No wonder the babies look like disgruntled adults." (p.213 - kindle edition)

Mr. Larry Daniels, the botanist, would teach them much more about his plants than they would ever need to know in their lifetimes.

Mr. Fonseka, the teacher, had a "serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by."

I wanted to read this book for such a long time now. There was just something about it that told me it would roll me over and tie me down in its prose. It did. Some books just put themselves where it can be read because it is really that good. It is multifaceted. It is thought-provoking. It is excellent. It is one of those books you cannot walk away from easily. It has all the elements to promise that it will become a classic in time. I want to reread it. I just have to. Period.

ABOUT THE AUTHORMichael Ondaatjie was born to a Burgher family of Dutch-Tamil-Sinhalese-Portuguese origin. He moved to England with his mother in 1954. After relocating to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. Ondaatje studied for a time at Bishops College School and Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, but moved to Toronto and received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and began teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. In 1970 he settled in Toronto. From 1971 to 1988 he taught English Literature at York University and Glendon College in Toronto.

Ostrich by Matt Greene

Genres : Coming-off-age, Young adult, contemporary, satire, fiction 
Formats: Paperback( 336 pages), Kindle, Nook, 
Publishing date: August 27th 2013 by Ballantine Books 
ISBN 0345545214 (ISBN13: 9780345545213) 
Edition language: English 
Purchase links: Amazon , Barnes & Noble 

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Amazon Book Blurp: 
Alex has a story to tell. He just doesn't know what kind it is yet.

He's got a lot of the same concerns most of us do growing up (exams, puberty and, in his case, a punctuation obsession plus a little quantum mechanics) but lately, ever since his brain surgery, everyone in his life is behaving more than a little mysteriously.

Maybe it's adjusting to life after epilepsy or maybe it's the pressure of his pending scholarship application, but Alex is starting to see the world through different eyes. He's certain there's something rotten at the heart of his parents' marriage, and when his beloved hamster Jaws 2 starts acting up as well he decides it's time to investigate.

So begins the journey that takes him to the limits of his understanding, the edge of his endurance, the threshold of manhood, and the country music aisle in Virgin Megastore. And eventually, on the eve of his English Composition exam, to the door of his mother's home-made dark room. But will Alex have the courage to expose the terrible secret that lies beyond? Or would it be better for everyone if he buried his head in the sand?

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REVIEW: 

"I already know what it's like to feel ostrichized, which is a better word for excluded (because ostriches can't fly, so they often feel left out).

Alex's epistemological view on life, on everything, would have me in stitches, even at five in the morning with the first cup of coffee in hand. His scientific approach to pornography had my laughter sound like a 1948-Fordson tractor with locked bearings - combustion inhibited by gaseous protests!

Talking about gas. "I attribute Mum's insomnia to her concerns about The State of Her Marriage. It can be helpful to use the word state when describing a marriage because it makes you think of the people involved as particles. Right now Mum and Dad's marriage is a gas."

I am sure he would have made Einstein proud as well (not only P.G.Wodehouse & Co).

Einstein : "How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there not some more valuable work to be done in his specialty? That's what I hear many of my colleagues ask, and I sense it from many more. But I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching — that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not just their quick-wittedness — I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through tenacious defense of their views, that the subject seemed important to them."

The wit and humor influences of P.G.Wodehouse, Woody Allen and alike is evident everywhere in this tragicomedy.

With everything the courageous young Alex went through, he never lost his sense of reason and his urge to dissect even the minced meat in his school lunch with a paint brush he borrowed from the Art department!

Mr. Sinclair: "Try and imagine your brain as an orchestra." ( I try, but it's difficult, because my brain is already a circuit board, a dog kennel, a water park, and a hostage negotiation.)"

Did Einstein fatally compromise himself? I think not. Not at all. And Einstein was also ostrichized by an educational system and society which could not accommodate his genius!

Before I venture too deeply into the epistomology about this book I should stop. Laughter can be deadly too, you know! If dissected, it becomes really a scary phenomenon! I'm sure Alex will agree with me!

Those staff members who taught Alex comment that his record of work was consistently good. They spoke to the keen interest and intellectual curiosity that he brought to the classroom. His written work was described as imaginative, fiercely logical, strongly argued, lucid, and unwaveringly grammatical. His command of concepts was confident and advanced."

That is what Alex and this book is all about. A skilfully crafted plot, a masterful tying together of all the detailed elements of the story line. It must have been quite a challenging novel to write. Thought-provoking - YES! Compassionate - YES!

BRILLIANT first novel. I am a fan forever!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Matt Greene was born in Watford in 1985 and studied English language at the University of Sussex. OSTRICH is his first novel.

Influences include: Kurt Vonnegut, Anne Tyler, Joseph Heller, P.G. Wodehouse, J.D. Salinger, John Swartzwelder, David Foster Wallace, Richard Yates, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Lorrie Moore, John Kennedy Toole, and, of course, the Jewish Holy Trinity: Philip Roth, Woody Allen and Larry David.