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Loading... We Are the Cat: Life Through the Eyes of the Royal Felineby Terry Bain
None. A lightweight, mildly amusing tale of life from the viewpoint of the family cat. The use of the royal we is maintained throughout the book, and at times it's necessary to stop and remember that this is one cat, and not a general statement about cats. The cat gives you her opinion on all sorts of aspects of daily life, such as doors, dogs, computers, running water, food dishes, and so on. It reads quickly and is the sort of book that can lighten up a plane ride or serve as a short break between books of heavier import or more serious fiction. (  ) quantum_flapdoodle | Jun 27, 2012 |  I haven’t had a cat since my divorce ten years ago. That cat died earlier this year at the age of twenty. Her name was Bugs. Her younger “sister” Rerun died a few years back. Before Bugs and Rerun, there was Arnie, Heather, and maybe a Kiki. Can’t remember. Lately, the only cats I encounter are the dozen that hang out in front of the corner house at the entrance to our cul de sac. I don’t think they live at the house. It’s more like a commune outside, where they lounge around in the middle of the street, engage in free love, and dart in front of the neighbors’ cars as if they were hired to test our brakes. But those are Other Cats — a term Terry Bain uses in his book We Are the Cat. It’s a follow-up to his first book, You Are a Dog. Yes, they’re quirky titles, but they fit the style of the books. Bain is a young Spokane writer that I first heard about in my college alumni magazine upon the publication of the first book. He went to UPS a decade after I did (I’ve never met him) but that first excerpt won me over. You Are a Dog was written in the second person (!), and told you exactly how dogs think. (And remember: YOU are a dog.) I’ve always liked dogs and it was dead on, telling you about your relationship with other dogs (including the unseen dog barking a few fences away), squirrels, toilet water, toys, etc. I read that book in early 2005. The cat book was published last summer and was written in the more familiar first person. The “we”, of course, is a “royal” we. (We’re talking cats, remember?) I’m more of a dog fan than a cat fan, so it didn’t strike as much of a chord with me as the first book, but it was still engaging. It delved into a cat’s obsession with being outside, no, inside, no, outside, no… well, just leave the door open. Or get rid of the door. It’s silly anyway and doesn’t please us. Bain isn’t a psychologist but he seems pretty good at connecting with the way these pets think. Watch a cat closely and you can just imagine the running monologue going through her head. Even the offbeat humor that pops up throughout the text seems appropriate. Not that cats engage in humor for our benefit. They’re not there for our entertainment, of course. But we humans — “laps” in Bain’s book, for our single-most important skill of making a warm lap whenever we want — are there for them. Or should be. Open the door again. The cat wants in. Or out. Find more of my reviews at Mostly NF 5  benjfrank | Dec 31, 2006 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307339181, Hardcover)Do you wonder what your cat is thinking while stalking the tablecloth fringe or racing through the living room on clearly important but ultimately mysterious business? As a mere human being, or “Lap” as they call our kind, you might never guess the complexities of the feline mind. But fear not, dear reader, you are about to be taken into the confidence of a cat.The Door “When we are inside the house we are often thinking of the outside, of how many cats may be walking through our yard, sitting on our fences, leaving scentmarkings for us to find. So we go to the door and wait at the door and wonder, again, what on earth is the purpose of the door.” A Paper Bag “We have spent many hours attempting to discover the secrets of the paper bag, to no avail. Even when we surprise it, leaping from a high place, the paper bag acts exactly the same way, and we find no creature inside. How does that work? By what physical laws does it operate? It is a mystery. And we do love a good mystery. Just not at our expense.” In the Sink “We do not understand or appreciate your fascination with our occupation of the sink portion of the household. The reasons we are here, in the sink—despite the risk of wetness—are obvious, are they not? The sink is cooler than most places in the house. The coolness from the sink surrounds us as no other coolness can surround us. If there was a sink Out of Doors, that would be one less reason for us to come home at night. But there isn’t a sink Out of Doors. So here we are. In the sink. Trying to sleep. Just a nap, you know.” Hilarious and clever, silly yet profound, We Are the Cat brings you into the inner life of cats, revealing the many joys hidden in a piece of string, the deliciousness of sleeping in a sink or in the sunshine, the endless mystery of what is on the other side of the door, and what our cats really see as they observe us from their perches. A NOTE FROM AUTHOR TERRY BAIN’S CAT Dear Reader, When we first heard that the “author” of this book—or, as we sometimes refer to him, Scratch—was writing about us, we were nonplussed. But then we gave it some thought. Some timely and careful consideration. And we have come to the following conclusion: We are not inclined to allow him to write a book about us. We have been watching him, and reading what he’s written so far—the book about dogs and such, with references to us scattered about—and we do not entirely approve. (We also would ask why on earth he would choose to write about dogs before writing about cats. This we feel speaks directly to his character, and we therefore must assume that he is more seriously flawed than we previously thought. So, no, he should not write this book.) It isn’t that we don’t agree with much of what he has written about dogs (though what we have read makes little sense to us. We understand “reading,” and “language,” but the sense it makes is much like dogs themselves—that is, not much sense at all). We would hope that should he write a book about us that we will not be made the butt of his jokes. We are in favor of people knowing us better so as to leave us alone more often (when we want to be left alone), or to appreciate us as they should (when we want to be appreciated). But we are not in favor of a book that does not take us seriously, or that paints a picture of us that is untoward, or that is otherwise not written by a cat. He is not a cat and therefore should not be allowed to write such a book, no matter how seriously he writes about us, no matter how catlike he seems to be at times (or doglike, as it were, which we think should disqualify him altogether). We do not wish him to speak for us. We will speak for ourselves. Kind regards, Swiper (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:35:11 -0500) No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing AuthorTerry Bain is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
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