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The Cat's Table
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Author
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Michael Ondaatje.
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Publisher
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Vintage
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Format
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paperback
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ISBN
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9780307744418
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Pages/Publication Date
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269/2012
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Daedalus Item Code
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29375
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This item is not available.
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Description
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The Booker Prize–winning author of The English Patient and Divisidero here spins a tale about the magical, often forbidden discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins with a sea voyage in the 1950s. An 11-year-old boy from Ceylon 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 adults and two other boys, and the three youths tumble from one adventure to another. 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 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 late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. "The Cat's Table is an exquisite example of the richness that can flourish in the gaps between fact and fiction.... 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."—Evening Standard (London)
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