Cat table (novel)

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Katzentisch (original title: The Cat's Table ) is a novel by Michael Ondaatje from 2011.

overview

The first edition was published in 2011 by Jonathan Cape , an imprint of Random House UK. The German translation is by Melanie Walz and was published in 2012 by Carl Hanser Verlag , Munich. The focus of the novel is eleven-year-old Michael, who is sent on his own on an ocean liner from Colombo to London. Even if all the dates are chosen so that the reader might think of an autobiography, the author denies such a thought in his follow-up remarks; on the other hand, the narrative is enriched with real events, such as an episode from the life of Sidney Bechet and the end of the ship Normandy . Michael Ondaatje tells his novel with flashbacks and flashbacks, which also hint at the later fate of the protagonists, which remains influenced by the aftermath of this trip.

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Michael notices on the ship Oronsay - which, according to the commentary, should not be identical to any of the real steamers with this name - that Ramadhin and the slightly older Cassius are still on board with him, who, like himself, are supposed to go to school in England. These three boys initiate and experience all kinds of adventures on the journey. The three boys eat their meals in the dining room at the table furthest away from the captain's table - that is, at the cat table from which this story owes its name.

At this table there are also some adults, whose stories are gradually woven into the course of events: the bar pianist Sunny Meadows, actually Mr. Mazzapa, who among other things tells about Bechet and later disappears from the ship, the pigeon companion Miss Lasqueti, the mute Tailor Gunesekera and the landscape gardener Mr. Daniels, who looks after a collection of plants in the ship's belly, some of which are poisonous in nature. On board are, among others, Michael's attractive cousin Emily, an alleged baron who abused Mynah for breaking into the cabins of rich passengers and disembarked en route, a terminally ill millionaire who hopes to be cured of rabies in Europe, but on the way through one Another dog bite is killed, and a mysterious prisoner.

This prisoner, a man named Niemeyer, is accompanied by two high-ranking people. While the English officer Mr. Giggs often demonstratively sits down in a chair from which he can overlook most of the decks, the second monitor of the prisoner transport remains incognito for a long time. The only rumor is that his name is Perera. One night there is a meeting between Emily and this undercover agent, brought about by the artist Sunil, who regularly performs with his troupe on the ship and who has probably approached Emily specifically. The agent is killed and the key to Niemeyer's handcuffs is robbed. The boys, who observed the murder from hiding, are looking for traces of the bloody crime on deck the next morning, but the deck has been cleaned.

Emily, who can't remember anything the next morning because she was probably drugged from Mr. Daniel's garden in the ship's belly, assumes for years that she killed the agent. It was only during a meeting with Mynah, who had been keeping a letter from Miss Lasquetis to Emily for a long time, that she realized that Sunil was probably the culprit and that the killed Mr. Perera was none other than the allegedly dumb tailor Gunesekera.

Niemeyer takes the seventeen-year-old artist Asuntha hostage on a tour of the deck that he is regularly allowed to do, handcuffed and anklecuffed. He can be freed from his ankle cuffs and jumps onto the railing of the ship with the girl in his arms. Giggs fires a shot in the air and orders the people on board not to give Niemeyer the keys to the handcuffs. Then he threatens Niemeyer with his gun. At that moment he is shot himself from the other end of the ship and drops his pistol. Both Emily and Mynah observe that Miss Lasqueti makes a movement immediately after the shot, as if she were throwing something into the sea - a gesture that is known from her, as she usually throws crime novels over the railing that she does not like, but this time it was probably a firearm. Niemeyer, no longer threatened by Giggs, jumps into the sea with Asuntha. Mynah later learns from Emily, Asuntha's confidante on board, that the girl had the second key to the handcuffs in her mouth and that it was Niemeyer's daughter. It is not clear whether the two were able to save themselves after jumping into the Mediterranean.

The three boys part ways as soon as they leave the ship in London. Mynah later marries Massi, the sister of Ramadhin, who has heart disease and dies early. However, the marriage breaks up after a few years. There is no longer any personal contact with Cassius; However, one day Mynah visits an exhibition of this friend who has become a painter and recognizes in the paintings his own perception of a night in which the ship slowly glided past a harbor.

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Hammett Prize. crimewritersna.org, accessed August 4, 2012.
  2. ↑ Goodreads.com