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Cat People, by Michael Korda (2005) |
There's nothing wrong with this book (unless you consider the 156 small pages and $20 price) but there's nothing special about it either. The opening is the best part, with a brief and mildly-informative history of the domestication of felines. The book points out that dogs were domesticated when people needed hunting companions and guards, and cats once we'd developed agriculture and needed a way to protect our storehouses of grain against mice and other pests. It's obvious once you think about it, but I'd never heard it stated that way before, and that, at least, I'll remember from this book. Other than that, it's just a bunch of short vignettes about rich people and their cats. A few are about society people, batty old women who took their cats with them when they flew from New York to Paris, or who demanded their pets be served at the table in fine restaurants, etc. After those the book moves on to short tales about the multiple wild cats and half dozen pet cats the author and his wife have entertained at their horse ranch, over the years. These cover the last 2/3 of the slim tome. I enjoyed some of the stories, but none of the events were out of the ordinary, and they all started to blur together after a bit. A good writer could have pulled it off, infusing the mundane anecdotes with enough wit and humor to keep the reader's interest. As it is, the writing is okay and the cat stories are unremarkable, so cat lovers might find some fun, but I was frequently bored and found myself skipping paragraphs in this very brief book. Cats have different likes and dislikes, cats puke on their carpet and sharpen claws on expensive furniture, cats sleep in different places, cats get old and die, and new cats come in to replace them. It's kind of a hamster wheel of a book, with no plot or theme or rising action or resolution. Just short pieces about a lot of interchangeable cats, written without any special insight or wit. The authors (Michael Korda's wife is co-credited and contributes some of the material, but the writing voice is uniform throughout) aren't very clever about their cat stories, and they're far less clever about actually owning cats. In their country estate, the little dears are apparently treated as furry forces of nature, and are not controlled in any way. There are innumerable passages bemoaning the cat damage done to expensive, name-brand upholstery and fabrics, but there's never a single mention of training the cats not to scratch things. Most of the cats leap up right on the table, knock over knickknacks, chase and fight viciously, wake the house at dawn, act finicky about their food, and so on. And why not, when neither of their owners ever do anything to discipline them? Cats aren't dogs, but you can certainly train them in a few basics. Neither Malaya or me are big on training the beasts, but our two are not allowed on my desk, a living room shelf covered in bamboo plants, or the kitchen counters. And they don't go there, a rule reinforced by clapping and shouting and chasing when (very occasionally) needed. More crucially, I clip the claws of our cats every couple of weeks, and we therefore need nothing more than some water and soap when we get a scratch from a leaping cat. The authors of Cat People mention at least half a dozen emergency room level wounds from their animals, and that's wounds to people, not just to the other cats, of which there are dozens more detailed. Our cats get dry food, with very occasional wet as a treat, and they're happy and healthy, and they don't wake us up at dawn yowling to be fed. Dozens of pages in Cat People are spent bemoaning dawn wake ups, cats getting very fat and lazy, cats getting finicky and refusing to eat what they'd previously enjoyed, and so on. I'm not a cat training expert, but I found it hard to believe the two rich, educated adults who wrote Cat People would allow their pets to so control their lives, and to run so wildly out of control through their house. It's certainly not a book for aspiring cat owners to learn from, but despite my criticisms, it's not a horrible book if you like cats. I got it from the library and read it in two idle 20 minute sessions, mostly with Dusty in my lap, and enjoyed it for that. If it were $5 I would give it an okay for a gift to a cat lover in your life. At the outrageous $20 hard cover price, it's simply not worth it. Find it used or wait for paperback. |
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