Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot is the most charming little book of poetry I've ever read. Roni directed me to it when we were in Adams Avenue Books for which I am VERY grateful. I read the poems aloud to my husband, which added to the pleasure because they are better when read aloud and because the pleasure was shared. Besides the charming poems, the book also is filled with charming drawings. Such a win-win. Here's a stanza from one of my favorites: "Skimbleshanks: the Railway Cat". If you read it aloud you will discover that it has the rhythm of an old steam train leaving the station.
You may say that by and large it is Skimble who's in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver to the guards to the bagmen show more playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and in the Third.
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move. show less

Very cute, and any fan of the musical "Cats" needs to read this. I enjoyed most of the poems a lot. There were some parts of some of them, though, that didn't age as well. Those had -- regardless of what the original intent was -- racist tones that kept me from enjoying them. Still, overall this is a really cute book of poems. Chances are, even if you don't know the musical based off this work, you have heard some references to it without realizing it.

You know, I thought I'd read this before, in my youth, but apparently I'd only read one or two of the poems somewhere, as I'm quite sure most of them were new to me. Well, I'm glad to have finally made their acquaintance! This is a fun little collection of delightful, interestingly rhymed nonsense, with perhaps a slightly extra appeal for us cat lovers, who can look with fond recognition on felines like Rum Tum Tugger, who is always on the wrong side of every door. I was smiling a lot through most of it, and (with, admittedly, the exception of a couple of unfortunate terms used for Chinese people -- er, cats) it holds up really well.

I have no idea, though, how or why anybody managed to make a musical out of this, never mind that waking show more nightmare of a movie I regret having watched the trailer for. But let us not speak of that again. show less

So, confession: I’ve read this one before, but not recently. I have fond memories of it being delightfully silly and bouncy (and somehow … longer?). It certainly is fun and has excellent rhyme and meter and all those proper poetic traits. It’s also very much a love letter to cats—from the ones who sleep all day and are terrible mousers to the neighbourhood tom who beats up dogs to the ones who are happy to steal your steak off the counter and then deny it while licking off their paws. However, reading it as an adult there are … um. Let’s just say it’s pretty clear this was written in the early parts of the 20th century and that Pekinese dogs and Siamese cats aren’t portrayed positively. Despite that, I enjoyed the spirit show more of the poems, if not always the content, and admire Eliot’s grasp on technique. Would recommend to cat lovers still, but with reservations.

7/10 show less

Andrew Lloyd Webber probably should not have gotten all the credit he did for the musical "Cats." Eliot's book of poems about cats has almost all the words. All he added was music.
This is a delightful book on its own, without the music (although if you're familiar with the music, I dare you to read it without singing it). I'm not particularly a "cat person" but I recognized many cats that I've come across in my time. I can't wait to read it to my granddaughter!

This book had been on my shelves for a VERY long time, so I decided to make this the first book I read for National Poetry Month.

I was so impossibly charmed by the first poem, "The Naming of Cats!" Especially the lines:

His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Listen. Ineffable has been one of my top ten favorite words ever since reading Good Omens back in my college days. But effanineffable!

After that poem, the rest were cute enough. I can see how they were designed to charm children, but the passage of time and dislocation of place has soften the corners of some of the particulars. Especially some of the tired Asian stereotypes.

But the illustrations by Edward Gorey won me back over any time my interest show more started to dim. show less

I'm unpacking all my books from the move and have decided A) Eliot will be allowed on my office bookshelf because I think he'd be perfectly at home there and B) I should really reread his stuff, since it has been a while. (Do you hear that?? REREAD!!)

Yes, the Broadway musical Cats is based on the Book of Practical Cats, but I don't feel like they're one and the same --- the musical has taken on a life of its own and much of the charm of Eliot's original poetry has been lost. His metre is absolutely, inhumanly perfect, completely natural for read-aloud speech, and with longer text lines, his poems are not sing-song but dynamic and oratorial, meant to be proclaimed to the nursery and not merely recited. Some, such as "Growltiger's Last show more Stand," are highly evocative of place and scene and backstory, while others seem like a stretch even for Eliot --- "Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles Together With Some Account Of The Participation Of the Pugs and the Poms, And The Intervention Of The Great Rumpuscat," for example, is a bit beyond and far longer than necessary. And honestly, I couldn't follow that one.

But I do believe there is a name which only the cat himself knows, and that when the day's hustle and bustle is done, then Jennyanydots's work is but hardly begun. show less