"The Cat's Table"

The Cat's Table (Michael Ondaatje)

I knew this book wasn't going to be for me if the back was anything to go by. Take a gander at this:

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. [...] As the ship crosses the Indian Ocean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: they are first exposed to the magical worlds of jazz, women, and literature by their eccentric fellow travelers, and together they spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever. By turns poignant and electrifying, The Cat’s Table is a spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage.

Doesn't that sound like the most horrible shit you can imagine? Luckily, it's not as bad as it sounds. In fact, the first 100 pages or so sometimes almost raise to the level of entertaining, although it's quite meandering and full of characters who stop just short of turning to the camera and exclaiming "Did you notice how eccentric I am?!". The book really starts getting terrible at the point where the hero and his two buddies go on shore and come back with a small yappy dog who runs into the room of the richest guy on the ship and murders him by ripping this throat out. (Readers are directed to drop the record-scratching sound effect here)
After this bizarre scene, the book goes downhill quickly, flashing forward to a bunch of scenes that try and fail spectacularly to interest the reader in our hero's relationship with the sister of one of his friends (and, in an amazingly tonally deaf turn, one of his 30 year old friends apparently having romantic feelings for the 14 year old he's tutoring). Here the book goes from mildly boring pap to downright painful GUYS THIS IS MEANINGFUL pretentious crap. The 150 pages of text remaining in the book at this point I believe may qualify as a crime against humanity, or at least literature.

Grade: D-