*****For a Night of Love by Emile Zola

• French author (1840-1902)
• Three short stories: 
• For a Night of Love (1876)
•  Nantas (1878) 
  
• Fasting (1870)
• This edition published in 2003 and translated from the French by Andrew Brown.
•  Zola is the founder of the naturalist theory in fiction. 
• Therese Raquin (1867) is the first novel he wrote using this writing style.
• Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93) is a series of approximately 20 novels; they are celebrated examples of Zola's highly polished naturalistic aesthetic.

*****The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra

• Chilean author (1975 - ) 
• originally published in Spanish in 2007
• translated from the Spanish in 2010 by Megan McDowell
• an Open Letter book, the University of Rochester's literary translation press

****The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso

• Chilean author (1924-1996)
• Originally published in Donoso's native language, Spanish, in 1970.
• Translated from the Spanish by Hardie St. Martin and Leonard Mades. 
• the first English edition was published in 1973.
• Donoso was part of the Latin American boom in the 1960's and 70's. Latin American novelists began working with non-linear time-lines, multiple perspectives and narratives, while incorporating existential pessimism and magical realism into their novels. These authors gave a new voice to South American literature and gained an international acceptance previously unknown in this part of the literary world. The Obscene Bird of Night is a supreme example of this movements key aesthetic and is considered Donoso's masterpiece.

*****Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery

• Author, Albert Cossery (1913-2008), is an Egyptian born French writer. Born in Cairo, he moved to Paris after WWII and remained there for the rest of his life.
• first published in French in 1955
• translated from the French in 1981 by Thomas W. Cushing.
• NYRB edition: revisions and introduction by Alyson Waters.
• Considering the topic of this book, here are two similar, but interesting articles on Albert Cossery and his indolent life style:
•  http://andrewgallix.com/2008/08/02/albert-cosserys-last-siesta-in-paris/
•  http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/557/1/albert-cosserys-last-siesta-in-paris 

My Thoughts
  

To fully appreciate Cossery’s dark humor, one must let go of traditional concepts of poverty and understand it as an alternative to an hypocritical oppressive society.  One must recognize it as a choice made after careful reflection, not an undesirable situation.  Only then can one fully comprehend the magnitude of corruption Cossery is ridiculing . It is one that causes intelligent people to make a conscious decision to forgo all material comforts and sanitation. To live, instead, as a homeless street person - a proud beggar. The idea being, it is better to live a life of filth, drug addiction, prostitution, "legal" subjugation and social scorn, then it is to live within the laws of an oppressive institution. It is the struggle Cossery depicts thru Nour El Dine as exemplified by Gohar. 

Setting

• Cairo slums, Egypt 

Main Theme

• poverty as an ideal
• material world as repressive and confining
• self-discovery

Main Characters

• Proud Beggars:

• Gohar:  Brothel Bookkeeper and hashish addict who has given up his life's work as a University professor to live the free life of the impoverished. Dreams of living in Syria where hashish is legal. 
• El Kordi:  A lazy desktop revolutionary.  Works for the Ministry, which is a professional job but is poor due to laziness and substandard wages. Dreams of freeing his self-professed girlfriend, Naila, from a life of prostitution. 
• Yeghen: poet and drug dealer 

• Other Characters
•  Nour El Dine:  corrupt police officer/inspector; closet homosexual 
• Set Amina: brothel owner 
• Naila:  prostitute at Set Amina's and supposed girlfriend of El Kordi 
• Murder of Arnaba- while murder is not a human character and Arnaba (a prostitute at Set Amina's) is, the author treats Arnaba's murder as more of a character than he does Arnaba.  She has no value in the lives of even the police officer. Her murder alone is significant; not the fact that she was murdered, or ever was an actual person.

Vocabulary

• bildungsroman:  a type of novel where the protagonist grows emotionally, morally and/or spiritually; a literary device .  In the novel, it refers particularly to Nour El Dine, whose way of life and philosophy of life is greatly changed.
• ephebe: a you man of Greek origin entering manhood 
• pederasty: sexual relations between two males; especially when one is younger 
• saltimbank: street performer

Quotes

p.  11    "El Kordi troubles always had this morbid, merciless character. Now he seemed to be carrying all the world's troubles, but it was only a state that he assumed from time to time so as to believe in his own dignity. For El Kordi deemed that dignity was the prerogative only of suffering and despair. It was his reading of Western literature that had deranged his mind so."

p. 16      Gohar: "The freedom of thought that accompanied his new job was an inexhaustible source of joy, a boundless, generous joy. The infinite human resources of a brothel in the native quarter kept him in perpetual ecstasy How far he was from the sterile, deadly games of men and their hazy idea of life and reason. The great minds he had so long admired now appeared to him as vile corrupters, stripped of all authority. To teach life without living it was a crime of the most detestable ignorance."

               "Once we have a country where the population is composed entirely of beggars, then you'll see what will become of this arrogant domination, it will crumble into dust. Believe me."

In his University life Gohar taught history. It was a history he once believed in, but found to be false, which deeply disturbed him. He became so disillusioned with the broken and corrupt system that employed him, he decided to move as far away, philosophically, from it as possible. He quit his job and redefined his life choices. He decided what was most important to him - what he needed to exist happily and at peace with himself. That is a life free of material needs and from a life of corruptible dominance...as a proud beggar.

p. 33    "Riches excuse everything...The poor did not have the right to misbehave."

p. 34    "She was skilled in the art of distilling sadness; she spun misery like a spider its web." 

p. 37     Yeghen's mother: 
"No force in the world could shake her stubbornness in misfortune. She enjoyed her sadness, not understanding that one can laugh despite the gravest deprivations."   Cossery  may be making two statements here:

• some people do not feel alive unless they are miserable and making everyone around them miserable. Laughter at oneself can have the same effect (feeling alive), while making one happier.
• It is not necessary to look at everything too seriously.  Humor and peace seem to go together.

" She could not understand his insensitivity to what she felt to be the only dignity in the universe: submission in misfortune."  Yeghen's Mother wanted, and tried, to feel dignity in her poverty.


p. 52     Nour El Dine:  "The unremitting repression of his aesthetic tendencies in the exercise of his duty made him bitter and unjust. However, he was in the service of the law; he had the prerogative to see that it was respected, and to punish the guilty. Unfortunately, the feeling of this power had begun to crumble; he no longer believed in the efficacy of the cause he was serving. That was serious."

Nour El Dine Inspector job made him feel like he was powerful. He identifies with this power.

p. 67    Gohar:  What a road he'd traveled in so few years! That rigid morality that he had taught, that he had believed in as in an inalienable richness, had revealed itself to be the most baneful conspiracy hatched against an entire people. It was merely an instrument of domination destined to hold the poor in awe...From now on he belonged to the mass of hunted men, thrown back to the borders of horror but relentlessly animated by a healthy confidence in life." 

p. 96     "For a long time he confined himself to disillusioned contempt. But contempt is only a negative position leading nowhere." 

            
p.           Gohar:  "I simply refuse to participate in this immense charade."

p. 99     "He could, at least, defend himself against Samir's hatred and sarcasm, but how could he respond to this monstrous indifference, more ferocious than the most implacable hatred."  I agree, hatred is worse than indifference. If a person is filled with hatred, they can always forgive and/or relent, but once the point of indifference is attained, there is little chance for a change of heart. Indifference can hurt one more than hate.

p. 101    "He was one-eyed, but his one eye was worth several, it sparkled with such murderous malice."  An example of Cossery's skill at characterization.

p.110    "To be illiterate!  What an opportunity to survive in a world doomed to massacre!"

p. 110    "...the primacy of the male." Couldn't resist illustrating a little of that misogyny...

 p. 111    Gohar: "He wondered what would have become of him, and what his behavior would have been, if he had committed this crime in the distant past when he was stuck in honors and respectability! Most certainly he would have considered himself a monster and would have let himself be consumed with remorse, while at present, nothing had any importance. Even a crime left him indifferent. Wasn't this appreciable progress, a sign that he was on the right track?...This murder had cut the last bonds that still attached him to his past lies. Happy Deliverance! He was not longer a slave to ridiculous pangs of conscience. His newly acquired certainty that all tragedy was laughable prevented him from condemning his act."  This is the depth to which Cossery develops his characters philosophy: it is better to be able to murder without guilt, than to live in society, as is. A powerful statement.

p. 122    El Kordi walking in the European expensive, and popular, part of the city Gohar lived in when he was a university professor:  "All these busy men...sullen faces...hostile...morbid...agonizing monotony... Something was lacking in this noisy throng: the humorous details by which human nature could be recognized. This crowd was inhuman...anguish...He already missed the muddy streets and dirty hovels where a banished people mocked their oppressors. There was more hope in the tin shacks of the slums than in this opulent city. Was this, then, that fantastic city where the relentless enemies of the people lived, lurking in their inviolable hideouts.? The citadel of oppression was not a happy place. The riches displayed in store windows, the dull majesty of the buildings, the rectilinear rigor of the sidewalks-all this seemed to forbid the least-frivolous thought. El Kordi now understood why Gohar had abandoned this city and its sad comfort."

p. 144 
Gohar: There are two realities: "First, there is the reality born of deception, and in which you are struggling like a fish caught in a net...The other is a smiling reality reflecting the simplicity of life. For life is simple, Inspector. What does a man need to live? A little bread is enough."
Yegen: "A little hashish too."

p. 156  " Nour El Dine was beginning to waver. He, who had never questioned the sacred power that he held, was beginning to wonder where truth lay. He was no longer sure of anything....All the time he had been compiling the facts accusing Gohar (of Arnaba's murder), he had felt he was dealing with explosive material that, once ignited, would leave only rubble behind. But he also felt that out of this rubble would come peace, the peace that he had felt in Gohar's presence and that at this moment he lacked terribly."

p. 161  "Perhaps you must become a man with no limbs to know peace.. Do you realize the impotence of the government against a limbless man? What can it do to him?"

The concept that, when you have nothing to lose, you can do anything.

p. 162   The truth is, "Life, real life, is childishly simple. There is no mystery. There are only bastards."

p. 163    Nour El Dine's conversion: "...Gohar was right. To live like a beggar was to follow the path of wisdom. A life in the primitive state, without constraints. Nour El Dine dreamed of how sweet a beggar's life would be, free and proud, with nothing to lose. He could finally indulge in his vice without fear or shame. He would even be proud of this vice that had been his worst torment for years."

This is how Cossery makes the theory of the Proud Beggar plausible. Nour El Dine's vice was simply the fact that he was a homosexual. If he could not live true to himself, what was the point in living at all? As Gohar said, "I simply refuse to participate in this immense charade."  Suddenly, the theory of the proud beggar begins to make more sense. This is the genius of Cossery's writing. As sophomoric and overtly idealistic the philosophy seems, it becomes very real when one understands the significance of the situation.

 

***Beasts by Carol Joyce Oates

• Published 2002

• American born author, Joyce Carol Oates (1938- ) published her first book in 1961. Since then, she has published over 56 books and 30 collections of short stories. (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/oat0bio-1)

***The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

• Published in 2013, USA

• Audiobook read  by David Pittu

• Pulitzer Prize Winner

I enjoyed most of this novel, yet felt the ending dragged out for too long. The excessive details did not enhance my enjoyment or understanding of Tartt's story - which was fairly cut and dry. It is unfortunate to begin a book with one feeling and end it with another; one cannot help but project the last impression on the entire novel.  The premise for The Goldfinch was intriguing, but the outcome was simply average.

****The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt

• First published in 1993
• English novelist (1936- )
• A.S. Byatt is known for her academic literary style which includes naturalism, realism and magical realism.

This was my last read for 2014. What a lovely way to end the year!

Beautifully written and deeply introspective, Byatt quietly ponders life as it relates to aging, self-perception and creativity. Her thoughts are shared simply and thoughtfully. A lovely edition of  three short stories.

***The Descartes Highlands by Eric Gamalinda

A LibraryThing.com Early Reviewer's Book

I forced myself to finish this book. Eric Gamalinda pushed his story to extremes employing a jagged narrative and an attempt at dreamlike imagery that did not work. Instead of feeling like a deeply complex novel, it felt contrived and belabored.  The existential philosophical thoughts espoused in its preliminary PR were lost within Gamalinda’s overworked meanderings. The title’s reference was far-fetched and overly emphasized. Like the rest of the novel it was a parade of excess.

                       

So why did I give a three star rating for what sounds like a 1 or 2 star review? There is something in the author’s writing that speaks of knowledge, art and skill.  He is overreaching with an apt hand. Therefore, I think there is reason to look at Gamalinda’s earlier novels, which were published in his native language, before making a final assessment about his work.

 


 

*****I Am a Cat, by Soseki Natsume

Translated by: Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was entertaining, dark and philosophical. My pages were filled with colorful post-its, most of which I translated into the notes recorded below. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at your own quirky habits, I tabbed so many quotes I have not had the opportunity to record them all. So, instead of waiting until I do, I decided to go ahead and share what I have......well...uhm...... while I victimize yet another book with a rainbow of post-its!
 
Author:   Kin'nosuke Natsume (1867-1916). Soseki Natsume pen name. Prominent 19th century literary writer and poet from Japan. Was almost forty years old when published his first novel, I Am a Cat.

Family background: minor Japanese town-gentry that fell on hard times during the 1868 Meiji Restoration.

Hototogisu (Cuckoo) - an influential Tokyo magazine that Natsume originally wrote I Am a Cat for as a short story (which is now the first chapter of this book). Natsume references this magazine in the novel re: p. 8, the teacher is always submitting his poetry to this publication.

Natsume is also known for his haiku, another element incorporated into his novel.

Natsume never intended to write beyond his initial publication in Hototogisu. But, the editor liked his short story so much, he encouraged Natsume to develop it further. The result, a large novel that was originally published over a period of three years - 1905, 1906 and 1907, one volume per year. In 1911 it was first published as a complete book, but was not published in English until 1972.

Notes on The Cat

• psychological fiction. 
• Soseki uses the perspective of an animal to portray and comment on human absurdities and foibles during the time when Japan was experiencing:
•  a decline in traditional Japanese culture
• western influence and development
• modernization as a result of Western influence
• stress caused by the coexistence of the old and new Japanese ideals and traditions
• Soseki as author:
• used a Cat to portray human foibles, a new approach to writing during his time.
• Professor Sneaze and Cat reflect Soseki's attitudes: he was a misogynist, misogamist and a misopedist.  (Despite his unfortunate perspective, Natsume was a brilliant writer.)
• concepts and various experiences from the author's life were incorporated into this novel
• As a child, Natsume was abandoned by his parents. They gave him up for adoption when he was one year old. When his adoptive parents divorced, his biological parents took him back. Natsume, being so young at the time, was not aware of this "transaction". It was by accident that he found out his "new" parents were really his biological parents. This happened by chance one day when Natsume overheard their servants discussing his origins. Is it a wonder Natsume chose a stray kitten as a sounding board for his thoughts, or that he does not believe in marriage, and dislikes women and children? Is he, in essence, displacing his feelings of being unloved and unwanted by rejecting all that he and his parents represented to him? It is a sad prognosis for such a talented man.
• This is not a story about cats.

Setting

• Japan
• Early Meiji period, post Shogunate era
• Meiji era: 1868-1912
• Shogunate Background: during the Shogunate era, Shogun military officers ruled the country and made the decisions. The Emperor was just a figure head.

Characters 

CATS
Professor or The Cat: The anthropomorphized protagonist and omniscient narrator. An unnamed orphaned cat. He finds and attaches himself to the Professor and becomes the household pet. The Professor willingly, yet with a distanced attitude, allows Cat into his home, and treats him with a kind of absent affection. He never gives Cat a name; never even seems to realize it is an option.  The neighborhood cats call Cat, Professor, because he belongs to the professor.

Cat narrates the story, giving us his description and commentaries on all characters and events that surround him. He gives us a cats point-of-view of the people he observes. His narration is lofty, grand, pompous, and humorous. He has a unique and ironic point-of-view that is quite entertaining, which leaves the reader in stitches.

Per Professor, his purpose in life is focused around  his study of  the human condition, especially in relation to an every changing society (p. 254) He feels superior to and more intelligent and kinder than human beings in all ways except one. 

Professor is, "distressed by the state of the world and deplores the degeneracy of the age..." (p. 303)  Professor watches and listens to the Sneazes and their friends have obfuscated excessive conversations and debates over absurd subject matter that proportionally, does not warrant these long and drawn out discussions.

By Volume 2, Professor is one (1) year old, which makes him eleven (11) years in man years.

Rickshaw Blacky:  Emperor of Cat-dom (the locale of cats in his area), he is a huge black cat, muscular and tough. He has an owner - a rickshaw driver - who does not feed or pamper him. Thus, he must fend for his own. He feeds himself by killing mice and rats. His owner is a mean, angry man, who is uneducated, tough, and streetwise.  His behavior is unethical, if not criminal.

When narrator Cat first comes across him and sees his regal stance and glossy black fur, he refers to him as an Emperor whose, "eye gleamed far more beautifully than that dull amber stuff which humans so inordinately value."(p. 13) Referring to gold. Even when making a statement about another cats beauty, he works in what he sees as human foibles. A litter satiric fun that keeps you smiling and laughing throughout the book.

Tortoiseshell:  Her Buddhist posthumous name is: Myoyoshinyo. - a luxuriously beautiful cat who is named for her fur pattern. She is pampered by her mistress, 2-String Harp, and treated like a human being.

Tom Cat: a three colored cat who belongs to an attorney.

Miss Blanche: White cat across the way. Lives in military man's home.

PEOPLE
The Sneazes:
     Professor Sneaze:  Owner of narrator cat, is a school teacher who always complains about how hard his job is and how much work it is, yet sleeps most of the day. He constantly demeans his wife and seems to become quite ill whenever she is around.

Has contempt for all commerce and businessmen, although he could benefit from a better source of income. He is paid poorly as a teacher, and lives in little better then a shack.  p. 181:" Ever since my school days I've always taken a scunner to businessmen. They'll do anything for money. They are, after all what they used to be called in the good old days: the very dregs of society."

Attempts, halfheartedly, to watercolor, write poems, and play the violin. He is so lazy, his sloppy efforts are done in vain.

     Mrs Sneaze:  Professor's Wife

     Sneaze Children: 3 daughters
       Menko - 1 year old
       Sunko - 3 years old
       Tonko - 5 years old
 
     They are spoiled brats. Their mother brags about them as if they are well behaved intelligent angels, despite every indication otherwise.

Osan:  household maid at professor's home. Hates their cat. Cat feels she is, "one of a species yet more savage than the shosei." (p. 5)

Mr. Beauchamp Blowlamp:  A friend of Coldman's he introduces to the professor ; an odd fellow;
belongs to the Reading Society

Avalon Coldman:  Professor Sneaze's favorite former student who holds a higher position than the professor in the academic field.. He has a missing tooth, yet is very handsome.  In order to marry the wealthy Opula Goldfield, her parents want him to pursue his doctorate. The subject matter of his thesis continuously changes. First, it was to be a study of the stability of acorns (p. 200). Later, he decides his post graduate work will be on the study of terrestrial magnetism, and finally on:  The Effects of Ultraviolet Rays upon Galvanic Action in the Eyeball of the Frog. (p.267).  At one point he was consumed with the process and study of hanging (mainly oneself). Where it is a serious subject, in Natsume's writing, it is pure humor.

2-String Harp:  Teaches the idle rich how to play the 2-stringed harp (hysterical). She has a distant
connection to a Shogun. She was not part of that household, but continuously makes references
to her high-class life style. She is snarky and ridiculous. The owner of the cat, Tortoiseshell, she treats her as if she were human; even taking her to a regular doctor of medicine when she is ill.

Maid: Maid to 2-String Heart and Tortoiseshell; has a cat-like face (per narrator Cat).

Waverhouse:  Professor's "aesthete" friend. He plays jokes on his friends and colleagues by telling them a bit of information as if it were fact. They treat it as fact and wind up making fools out of themselves. Nonetheless, they fall for his lies over and over. In truth, mean, it is conveyed with much humor. I laughed hysterically at some of his ploys.

Professor Whatnot:  Professor's scholar friend

Mr. Tatera Sampei:  A former house boy of the Sneazes', who has graduated from Law School and work in the mining division of Mutsui . Unlike the professor, is involved in business. Tatera often visits the Sneaze's. They consider him as part of their family and vice versa.

Eats cats  and offers to take the Sneaze's useless cat off their hands by cooking him into a stew. This lazy view of cats inspires Professor The Cat to prove his value by killing a rat for the Sneazes.

The Goldfield's:
     Mr. Gold Field: A wealthy businessman who believes his daughter to be the most marriageable girl around. "Everyone want to marry Opula." He and his wife spy on a suitor they seem interested in, Avalon Coldmoon.

     Mrs. Goldfield: A snarky woman, a social spy, and a gossip. Unsurprisingly, her nose is exceptionally huge and ugly. It is cause for many much speculation and jokes. Professor Cat calls her Madam Conk, others by Archnose.  Waverhouse shares a small dissertation on her nose.

     Opula Goldfield: The daughter of the Goldfields, she is spoiled and rude, with a heightened sense of entitlement; she treats those beneath her station horrifically. Her parents state she is the most sought out daughter by potential suitors, and that everyone wants to marry her.

Vocabulary
shosei:  Japanese - A student who does housework in exchange for meals. (p. 3)

pusillanimous: lacking courage or resolution, fainthearted, timid, cowardly (p. 83)

thanatophile: a person who is fascinated with death and death related subjects (p. 112)

infundibular:  a funnel shaped organ. Waverhouse uses to describe Mrs. Goldfield's nose. (p. 150)

osify: 1) to calcify, petrify, turn into bone or tissue  2) to cease developing, become stagnant Mr. Waverhouse uses term to describe Mr. Goldfield's big nose. (p. 151)

indurate: to harden or  make harden (p. 151)

peroration: the concluding part of a speech, especially intended to inspire enthusiasm in an audience (p. 154)

empyrean:  belonging to or deriving from heaven (p. 160)

Catherine Wheel:  1) a firework that spirals upwards, sparks and produces flames. 2) Named after Catherine of Alexandria, a Catholic martyr, who was sentenced to death by use of a torture device that is named after the firework - a spiked wheel that flew to pieces when her hand touched it, so she was beheaded. Milk, not blood, was said to pour from her veins. (p. 172)

declension: a condition of decline or moral deterioration. (p. 172)

scunner: a strong dislike; to feel disgust or dislike (p. 181)

pansophic:  self awareness; all wise; claiming universal knowledge (p. 198)

gongoristic:  an affected elegance of style that was introduced into Spanish literature by the Spanish poet Gongora. (p.198)

epigrammatically: a witty saying, an epigram (p. 199)

adumbrated: to describe briefly with main points; summarize (p. 200)

furacity:  addictiveness to theft; thievishness (p. 220)

unpetrine:  not in any relation to St. Peter's teachings or writing; not relating to Peter of Russia

poltroonery:  abject cowardliness (p. 248)

jactitated: to move or stir about violently

clobber: informally, personal possessions (p. 252)

heterogeneity: the quality of being diverse and not comparable in kind (p. 252)

aluroid:  unable to locate a definition (p. 254)

gormless:  lacking intelligence and vitality: stupid (p. 255)

moithered:  to bother or harass; to toil or labor; to perplex or confuse (p. 265)

aglay:  askew, distorted, amiss, awry (p. 268)

presbyope:  farsighted (p. 277)

franion:  a cheerful frivolous person, a sill man, a loose woman;a paramour (p. 294)

neurasthenia: nervous breakdown (general term) (p. 302)

pismires: a social insect living in organized colonies (p. 312)

pettifogging:  arguing over petty things (p. 312)

My Favorite Words
These are words I found in my recent reading of Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, and I Am a Cat.  I fell in love with these words and must share them:

virago: a loud ill-mannered woman

scurrilous:  1)  to make or spread scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation  2) humorously insulting

syncope: to faint; a spontaneous loss of blood in the brain causing unconsciousness

obstreperous: noisy, boisterous without control or restraint

guileless:  sincere, honest

perspicacity:  keen vision or discernment, understanding

immurement:  a form of imprisonment;  to confine within walls


Notes and Quotes
p. 5   Cat: "I now realize now how true the adage is that what is to be will be." Meaning, life is circumstantial." Meaning, he was lucky to find food. He could have just as easily starved to death. Life is circumstantial and a matter of good or bad luck.

p. 6    Cat:  "Teachers have it easy. If you are born a human, it's best to become a teacher. For if it's possible to sleep this much and still to be a teacher, why, even a cat could teach."  Despite the teacher's constant complaints about his difficult and demanding job, Cat observes differently.

p. 7    "Living as I do with human beings, the more that I observe them, the moire I am forced to conclude that they are selfish."  Cat makes these, and other assessments about humans throughout the book. They are noted with increasing wit and humor.

p 8.    "...there is no living creature quite so heartless as a human." Miss Blanche's assessment after the shosei of her house heartlessly killed the beautiful four kittens she just gave birth to.  So sad.

p. 8  Narrator Cat:  "I feel that life is not unreasonable so long as one can scrape along from day to day. For surely even human beings will not flourish forever. I think if best to wait in patience for the Day of the Cats."

p. 11    Narrator Cat: "The prime fact is that all humans are puffed up by their extreme self-satisfaction with their own brute power. Unless some creatures more powerful than humans arrive on earth to bully them, there's just no knowing to what dire lengths their fool presumptuousness will eventually carry them."

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, there are many more wonderful quotes that I hope to add here at a later time.





 

2014 Books Read (June 1 - December 31 re: started blog June 2014)

Books Read from June 1, 2014 (beginning of Blog) - December 31, 2014

This list includes books I have, and have not, reviewed in this blog.

*****Spring Snow: The Sea of Fertility, by Yukio Mishima, translated by Michael Gallagher,
          Japan, Summer Read with Ferris

*****Arzee the Dwarf, by Chandrahas Choudhury, India, Summer Read with Ferris

*****Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salith, translated by
          Denys Johnson-Davies, Sudan, Summer Read with Ferris

**Singapore Noir, by various Singapore authors, edited by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, LibraryThing.com
    Early Reviewer's program.

****Buried Candelabrum, by Stefan Zweig, translated by Eden Paul and Cedar Paul, Austria,
        Summer Read with Ferris

*****The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephan Snyder, Japan,
          Summer Read with Ferris

***Montana, by Larry Watson, 1948, USA, audiobook

*****The Canvas, by Benjamin Stein, translated by Brian Zumhagen, German, 2013 Summer Read
          with Ferris 

***China Dolls, by Lisa See, 2014, USA, audiobook

***1/2 The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton of New Zealand, first published in USA in October 2013,
        and originally published in Great Britain in August 2013, Summer Read with Ferris

****Without You There Is No Us, My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite, A Memoir,
        by Suki Kim, LibraryThing.com Early Reviewer's program

*****Pig Tales, A Novel of Lust and Transformation, by Marie Darrieussecq, Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale, France, 1997, Summer Read with Ferris

***1/2Serena, by Ron Rash,2008, USA, audiobook

*****This is the Garden, by Giulio Mozzi, translated by Elizabeth Harris, Italian Literature, 2005,
           Summer Read with Ferris 

***The Cove: A Novel, by Ronald Rash, 2012, audio book, USA

****  The Care and Management of Lies, a Novel of the Great War, by Jacqueline Winspear,
        2014, audio book, England

****  The Transcriptionist, A Novel, by Amy Rowland, 2014, audio book, USA
 

***1/2  Dissonance, a novel, by Lisa Lenard-Cook, first published in 2003, republished in
          2014, USA

****The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje, 2011, Sri Lankan-born Canandian novelist and poet.

***Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible - The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, by Peter
      Pomerantsev, to be published in November, 2014, author emigrated to London, as a young child,
      from Russia

****The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd, 2014, audio book, USA

*****  I Am a Cat, by Soseki Natsume, 1972, Japan

***Claude & Camille, A Novel of Monet, by Stephanie Cowell, 2010, audio book, USA

****Untamed - The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island,
        by Will Harlan, 2014, USA

***Rodin's Lover, by Heather Webb, Advanced Reader's Edition via LibraryThing.com Early
      Reviewer's program, to be published January 27, 2015, USA

***The Decartes Highlands, by Eric Gamalinda, Advanced Reader's Edition via LibraryThing.com Early Reviewer's program, 11/2014, author's international debut novel (previously published work in his native country, the Philippines and was the winner of the National Book Award of the Philippines. This was the first book he wrote in English).

****The Matisse Stories, by A.S. Byatt, 1993, USA