‘An interesting construction, made a little over-elaborate by the fake-memoir-that’s-not-a-memoir device’ – The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

The Cat’s Table is the sixth work of fiction by the Sri Lankan-born writer and former Booker-winner, Michael Ondaatje – and lest you mistake it for life-writing, Ondaatje’s at pains to assure you that it is, in fact, invented. Not only have we got a subtitle (A Novel) but the author’s note explains that although he ’sometimes uses the colouring and locations of memoir and autobiography’, this isn’t a documentary account of his own childhood journey from Ceylon to England. Nevertheless, the fact that he points this out, combined with his choice of the narrator’s name (Michael), profession (writer), adopted country (Canada) and the structure of the novel (which mimics the anecdotal, nostalgic feel of memoir), makes me wonder. It’s not that I’m questioning the fictionality of the text – rather, I’m not sure why he needs the ’fact or fiction gimmick’, when what he’s got is a story that’s pretty interesting on its own merits. This deliberate blurring of the fiction/non-fiction line seems, to me, to be an unnecessary flourish. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Michael, our (mostly) first-person narrator, is eleven years old and en route from Colombo to London, where he’s to be reunited with his mother before going on to an English boarding school. On board the Oronsay, the ship that’s to take him away from his boyhood home, he’s seated at what one of his fellow passenger dubs ‘the Cat’s Table‘ – the pocket of the dining room allocated to the misfits, the less sophisticated and desirable travellers that have been dumped as far as possible from the prestigious Captain’s Table. His particular friends are two other Sri Lankan boys, Cassius and Ramadhin, and together the three friends set about exploring the ship, uncovering its secrets and getting to know its odd assortment of denizens. Not least amongst these are Michael’s distant cousin Emily; the mysterious Ms Lasqueti; a nameless and manacled prisoner kept below decks; the acrobat, Sunil; and a deaf girl called Asuntha. As the narrative swaps back and forth between Michael’s later life and his reminiscences about his three weeks on board the Oronsay, a compelling narrative slowly emerges. Apparently unimportant characters suddenly gain unexpected significance as Michael uncovers not only the identity of the prisoner, but a dangerous plot to release him.

Ondaatje’s technique is interesting; the book starts out in what seemed to me a fairly trite faux-memoir format, relating isolated anecdotes building up into a portrait of on-board life – peculiar characters, below-decks high-jinks, boys causing mayhem. So far, so mundane. But the further into the book you get, the more you realise that seemingly forgettable incidents (snippets of conversation, barely remembered actions) are building up into a dossier of evidence about the prisoner and those working to free him. Michael-the-boy is mostly unaware of what he’s witnessing; it’s Michael-the-narrator that’s piecing it together, along with the reader. It’s a very subtle build-up and it works beautifully – I was almost tempted to reread, paying even more attention to the details. The parallel narrative of Michael’s own adult life – his marriage and divorce, Ramadhin’s early death, Emily’s long disappearance – is a decent counterpoint to the on-board action; it gives more resonance to the younger, oblivious, versions of the characters. And then there’s a couple of long riffs devoted to two of the other passengers, Ms Lasqueti and Asuntha. Ms Lasqueti’s story is a long letter to Emily that falls into Michael’s possession and Asuntha’s history is one that Michael cobbles together from what Emily’s told him. While the letter seemed pretty contrived, Asuntha’s imagined past is a lovely interlude from the main action, a poetic fable that reminded me of parts of Ondaatje’s earlier novel, In The Skin Of A Lion. 

So it’s an interesting construction, made, I think, a little over-elaborate by the fake-memoir-that’s-not-a-memoir device. The problem, for me, was that up until the prisoner plot really gets going, which is quite far into the book, it reads like any number of other rambling, rather impressionistic accounts of distant childhood. There’s a good chance readers will get bored well before the sneaky intelligence of the novel kicks in. I said earlier I was almost tempted to reread; I’m not sure I’m interested enough in teasing out all the hints to trawl through the first half of the book again. It’s just a little too meandering, and not quite stylish enough to draw me along.

Any Cop?: For fans of Ondaaatje, it doesn’t measure up to the brilliance and beauty of The English Patient and his earlier work. There’s some very tender moments, and some laugh-out-loud asides (here’s a trio of kids that smoke a cane chair!), but I don’t think this will get the author another Booker. Still, the die-hard fans will get something from it, and if you like memoirs, even though this avowedly isn’t one, it mimics enough of the genre’s tropes that you’ll probably appreciate it.

Valerie O’Riordan