Cats and Literature

[A Karma Old Zen]

I was reading a somewhat old post (Mono's Music and Literature), about his/her (?) reading habits -curling up with the cats. Oh, how I envy you, Mono! I have been separated from my two cats recently.

Anyway, I am curious to know how many of you out there own cats or just share a love and a fascination for these lovely and furry creatures? I would also like to know of any books, poems or quotes where cats are involved and any famous author that you know of that was also a cat lover.

I am trying to think of any books or stories that I've read where there is a cat involved somewhere. For now I can only recall Allan Poe's Black Cat. Oh, and Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, of course, but that's about it.

[Nemi]

This poem scared me ****less when I was little:

A Case Of Murder


They should not have left him there alone,
Alone that is except for the cat.
He was only nine, not old enough
To be left alone in a basement flat,
Alone, that is, except for the cat.
A dog would have been a different thing,
A big gruff dog with slashing jaws,
But a cat with round eyes mad as gold,
Plump as a cushion with tucked-in paws---
Better have left him with a fair-sized rat!
But what they did was leave him with a cat.
He hated that cat; he watched it sit,
A buzzing machine of soft black stuff,
He sat and watched and he hated it,
Snug in its fur, hot blood in a muff,
And its mad gold stare and the way it sat
Crooning dark warmth: he loathed all that.
So he took Daddy's stick and he hit the cat.
Then quick as a sudden crack in glass
It hissed, black flash, to a hiding place
In the dust and dark beneath the couch,
And he followed the grin on his new-made face,
A wide-eyed, frightened snarl of a grin,
And he took the stick and he thrust it in,
Hard and quick in the furry dark.
The black fur squealed and he felt his skin
Prickle with sparks of dry delight.
Then the cat again came into sight,
Shot for the door that wasn't quite shut,
But the boy, quick too, slammed fast the door:
The cat, half-through, was cracked like a nut
And the soft black thud was dumped on the floor.
Then the boy was suddenly terrified
And he bit his knuckles and cried and cried;
But he had to do something with the dead thing there.
His eyes squeezed beads of salty prayer
But the wound of fear gaped wide and raw;
He dared not touch the thing with his hands
So he fetched a spade and shovelled it
And dumped the load of heavy fur
In the spidery cupboard under the stair
Where it's been for years, and though it died
It's grown in that cupboard and its hot low purr
Grows slowly louder year by year:
There'll not be a corner for the boy to hide
When the cupboard swells and all sides split
And the huge black cat pads out of it.


Vernon Scannell

[mono]

Yes, I adore my cats, having 3 (2, being very large). I think they love literature as much as I do, in that it gives them a chance to curl up with me, while I sit down and relax.
I have read mostly short stories that had cats involved: as you mentioned, Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but also a specific short story by Ursula le Guin (I will look it up in my ever-evolving mini-library), a few poems by D.H. Lawrence, one specific tale that gets a wife out of trouble with her husband in Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, and Andrew Lloyd Weber's Cats (of course).
That seems all that comes to mind for now, but I will have to gaze through my books.
Welcome to the forum, by the way, A_Karma.

[A Karma Old Zen]

Hmmmmm...well, serves him right, damn foolish boy! LOL Sorry it scared you but at least you now know better than to hurt a cat (errr, I certainly hope so!)

Anyway, on a lighter note. I have Desmond Morris' book on cats and I found it interesting that he says: "Artists like cats, soldiers like dogs."

[mono]

Oh, I just remembered! One of my favorite lesser-known books called Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism in Ordinary Experiences by James Carse contains an intriguing chapter called "Every Philosopher Needs a Cat." I highly recommend this neglected, and relatively short, book to anyone interested in mysticism, metaphysics, spiritualism, and inspirational philosophy.

[Zeus]

Well, I cannot really say anything that is unusual about the lives of our feline creatures. Firstly we had a female cat called Sheila. We were honoured to have her for 13 years. She was a family member and bitter tears were spilt when she died. We then 'received' Oiche, a black female cat who was born in a cold and wet ditch to a wild mother cat, close to and who had been befriended by my mother. Oiche, who is today 12 shows all the wildness of her mother, the latter always remaining wild, could never be stroked, as it appeared her back had been broken at some stage. She disappeared in the same way as she appeared; she died with dignity. Oiche (Gaelic for night), remains with us and has now mellowed. She no longer spits when we pick her up but purrs and now asks to be allowed in when it gets cold.....but come Spring/Summer/Autumn, she reasserts her independence and becomes her independent self, again!................and only asks to come in when she wishes, which is seldom at that time of year! We love her very much.

[Sitaram]

Many Asian-style restaurants have a statue of a cat waving its paw. This good-luck symbol comes from a Buddhist tale which goes something like this:

Once, there was a very poor man who had a cat. He owned an antique store, but his business was failing. He had no customers. He was down to his last bowl of food. He prepared the food and was about to eat it, but he saw that his cat was hungry. He felt that surely he would die soon anyway, and so he gave the food to his cat.

Soon, a customer came into his shop, followed by another and another still. By the end of the day, he had made many sales and had much money for his needs. He asked the final customer what had brought him into the shop today, since there had been no customers for a long time.

"Why, your cat in the window is waving to everyone. That's quite a clever cat you have there."

[Scheherazade]

Nice story. I am sorry but... just wondering if the guy gave the last bowl of food to the cat, what did he offer to the customers? Just curious. :blush:

[Sitaram]

Curiosity killed the cat,
but satisfaction brought him back.

I think he had a store filled with old statues.

Which reminds me of another story.

One day a man walks into a store in Chinatown, and sees a beautiful bronze statue of a rat.

"How much is that?" he asks the proprietor.

"Ten dollars."

"Only ten dollars, why so cheap?"

The shopkeep explains, "Well, the statue will only cost you $10, but the STORY behind the statue will cost you $10,000"

"Here's the $10. I'll take the statue. You keep the story."

So he left the store with the statue under his arm.

He had only walked a block, when he heard a strange noise behind him. He realized that, as he walk past each sewer drain, rats were crawling out and following him. He began to run. The rats began to run too. He ran faster. The rats ran faster. More and more and more rats joined the marathon until the streets were gray with rats for as far as the eye could see. He ran until he reached the river. He climbed up a pole. The nation of rats were leaping and jumping to climb the pole. He took the bronze statue of the rat and threw it as far as he could, into the river. The infinity of rats jumped into the river in pursuit of the statue and were drowned.

Breathless and shaken, the man climbed down from the pole and found his way back to the store. When the merchant saw him he said, "Aha! I knew you would be back. I suppose you want to pay me my $10,000 to learn the story of the bronze statue of the rat."

The shaken customer explained, "Well, no actually. I was just wondering if you have a statue of a lawyer."

[Scheherazade]

so he served old statues to his customers?? :p

LOL! Very good joke by the way! :lol:

[durbin]

Did you read Akif Pirincci's Felidae? It's a crime novel but the main characters are cats. I think there is also an animation film. Pirincci is a turkish author who lives in Germany and writes in German. In amazon.com is more information about the book.

[Sitaram]

I think there is some kind of misunderstanding about the "waving cat" statue which nowadays is OFTEN DISPLAYED in ASIAN-STYLE restaurants.

The poor man in the old Buddhist tale, DID NOT have a restaurant. He had a store filled with some kind of non-edible goods (e.g. statues).

[Sitaram]

Job's Cat

(written 11:45am Tuesday, February 13, 2001)

Job sits upon a pile of dung,
Cursing his conception.

Job's cat sits on a windowsill
In mindless reflection.

Compassion's mongrels lick Job's sores.

The cat just licks his paws.

A bird, disturbed, takes wing and soars.
Job's cat commits it's path of flight to heart.

"Naked I came and naked I depart",
Job says, with some distress.

The cat sits naked in the windowsill,
And does not hear Job's prayer.

The cat resumes its stare
At emptiness.

Job has lost all but his cat.

The cat is nowhere.

- Sitaram

http://toosmallforsupernova.org/jobscat.htm

[Taliesin]

We remember Tad Williams's "Tailchaser's song" It's a fantasy novel, and the main characters are cats. They had a civilisation and mythology and everything

[Shea]

I miss having a cat, but my husband is allergic. From what I know of greyhounds, their temperment is kind of like a cat's, but Leo thinks they're boring. I think his allergies are psychosomatic.