The Cat’s
Table by Michael Ondaatje – To be Discussed on Wed June 6, 2018 at
Geneseo Public Library
In the early 1950s, an
eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he
is seated at the “cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with a
ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin.
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.
Discussion Questions:
1. The epigraph is taken
from the short story “Youth” by Joseph Conrad: “And this is how I see the
East…. I see it always from a small boat --- not a light, not a stir, not a
sound. We conversed in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land…. It is
all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a
tussle with the sea.” How does this set up the major themes of The Cat’s Table?
2. How is the voyage itself
a metaphor for childhood?
3. Why do you think the
opening passages of the book are told in third person?
4. We are 133 pages into the
novel before Ondaatje gives us an idea of what year it is. How does he use time
--- or the sense of timelessness --- to propel the story?
5. The anonymity of ocean
travel and the sense that board ship we know only what others want us to know
about them come into play at several points in the novel. What is Ondaatje
saying about identity?
6. For several characters
--- the three boys and Emily among them --- the journey represents a loss of
innocence. For whom does it have the greatest impact?
7. Discuss the importance of
some of the seemingly minor characters at the table: Mr. Mazappa, Mr. Fonseka,
Mr. Nevil. What do they contribute to the story?
8. “What is interesting and
important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power,” the
narrator realizes (page 75). “Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the
head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power
continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.” How
does this prove true over the course of the novel?
9. How do the narrator’s
experiences breaking and entering with the Baron change his way of looking at
the world?
10. Discuss the three boys’
experience during the typhoon. How does it affect their friendship and their
attitude toward authority figures?
11. How does the death of Sir
Hector factor into the larger story?
12. On page 155, the narrator
refers to Ramadhin as “the saint of our clandestine family.” What does he mean?
13. When describing the
collapse of his marriage, the narrator says, “Massi said that sometimes, when
things overwhelmed me, there was a trick or a habit I had: I turned myself into
something that did not belong anywhere. I trusted nothing I was told, not even
what I witnessed” (page 203). What made him behave this way? How did it affect
his marriage?
14. On page 208, the narrator
tells us about a master class given by the filmmaker Luc Dardenne in which “he
spoke of how viewers of his films should not assume they understood everything
about the characters. As members of an audience we should never feel ourselves
wiser than they; we do not have more knowledge than the characters have about
themselves.” Why did Ondaatje give us this warning, so far into the novel? What
is he telling us?
15. What was your reaction to
the revelations about Miss Lasqueti?
16. How do
you think her letter to Emily might have changed the events on board the Oronsay? Why didn’t she send
it?
17. Miss Laqueti signs off
her letter, “‘Despair young and never look back,’ an Irishman said. And
this is what I did” (page 231). What does she mean?
18. Discuss Emily’s
relationship with Asuntha. Did she, as the narrator suggests on page 251, see
herself in the deaf girl?
19. When Emily says to the
narrator, “I don’t think you can love me into safety,” (page 250), to what is
she referring? What is the danger, decades after the voyage?
20. The narrator wishes to
protect Emily, Cassius has Asuntha, and Ramadhin has Heather Cave. “What
happened that the three of us had a desire to protect others seemingly less
secure than ourselves?” he asks on page 262. How would you answer that
question?
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