On Cats
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Product Description
Review
‘A distillation of everything that makes her work such a joy to read…Lessing's intensely visual imagination and coolly precise style fleshes out this feline life. A work of exquisite tenderness and poignancy, thoroughly devoid of artifice, over-elaboration or mawkish sentimentality…Wonderful.’ Scotsman
‘“Particularly Cats” is not really about cats at all, it’s about real characters.’ Daily Mail
‘An unsentimental and unwhimsical, but not unpartisan, study of cat-and-human relationships. An entertaining read for both cat and Lessing connoisseurs.’ Observer
Product Description
A collection of Doris Lessing’s charming and celebrated writings about cats.
Doris Lessing’s love affair with cats began at a young age, when she became intrigued with the semi-feral creatures on the African farm where she grew up. Her fascination remained undiminished by the handsome domesticated creatures who shared her flats and her life in London and grew into real love with El Magnifico, the awkwardly lovable cat who in his later years suffered the great indignity of becoming a three-legged beast.
Consisting of Doris Lessing’s celebrated collection of stories, ‘Particularly Cats and Rufus’, and the poignant though unsentimental memoir, ‘The Old Age of El Magnifico’, this book is a brilliant evocation of feline existence.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Read this book in a private place because there may be times when you cannot help weeping. This is a great book, the product of a master storyteller's remarkable powers of observation, her understanding of animals and people and her superb writing skills.
Decades after the death of a beloved feline childhood companion, and after acquiescing in the necessary but horrific cull of cats on an African farm, Doris Lessing re-embarked on a voyage of cat discovery. Various incarnations of ship's cat, vain, flirtatious, self-indulgent, neurotic, courageous, grateful, loving, accompanied her and she was present at births and deaths. She watched and recorded matings, friendships and rivalries, mothers teaching kittens, hunting. She tended animals that were injured or became ill and took on board those that were neglected and needed help.
There was a cat that would only eat lightly cooked calves' liver and lightly boiled whiting, another who seemed devoid of maternal feelings and who once drew attention to herself by speaking in a language of sausages stolen from a neighbour's house. One travelled twenty miles across the veld, avoiding predators and crossing two rivers, to return to the farmhouse where she was reared. Another risked her life during a tropical thunderstorm rather than abandon the kittens she had given birth to in a disused mineshaft.
Cats vary in the quantity and quality of their intelligence, Doris Lessing discovered. Rufus, who was constantly challenged by adversity, was calculating and survived by living on his wits. Another male had the inquiring mind of a scientist. Telepathic communication when circumstances permit is not ruled out.
It is to the neutered male, Butchkin, alias El Magnifico, that she is most closely drawn. When they are able to sit quietly together in his old age `then he subtly lets me know he understands I am trying to reach him, reach cat, essence of cat, finding the best of him. Human and cat we try to transcend what separates us.'
This book is in essence a love story.
Decades after the death of a beloved feline childhood companion, and after acquiescing in the necessary but horrific cull of cats on an African farm, Doris Lessing re-embarked on a voyage of cat discovery. Various incarnations of ship's cat, vain, flirtatious, self-indulgent, neurotic, courageous, grateful, loving, accompanied her and she was present at births and deaths. She watched and recorded matings, friendships and rivalries, mothers teaching kittens, hunting. She tended animals that were injured or became ill and took on board those that were neglected and needed help.
There was a cat that would only eat lightly cooked calves' liver and lightly boiled whiting, another who seemed devoid of maternal feelings and who once drew attention to herself by speaking in a language of sausages stolen from a neighbour's house. One travelled twenty miles across the veld, avoiding predators and crossing two rivers, to return to the farmhouse where she was reared. Another risked her life during a tropical thunderstorm rather than abandon the kittens she had given birth to in a disused mineshaft.
Cats vary in the quantity and quality of their intelligence, Doris Lessing discovered. Rufus, who was constantly challenged by adversity, was calculating and survived by living on his wits. Another male had the inquiring mind of a scientist. Telepathic communication when circumstances permit is not ruled out.
It is to the neutered male, Butchkin, alias El Magnifico, that she is most closely drawn. When they are able to sit quietly together in his old age `then he subtly lets me know he understands I am trying to reach him, reach cat, essence of cat, finding the best of him. Human and cat we try to transcend what separates us.'
This book is in essence a love story.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I just re-read this book, that I remember having loved so much, and my appreciation for it has, if anything, grown. It's easy to be soppy when talking about animals you love, but Lessing manages to be thoroughly unsentimental, even ruthless (the book opens with a great slaughter of cats), and yet show such deep empathy and compassion for these specks of life sharing her life that I always have to blink back tears when I finish it. She has no time for mysticism and intimations that cat are supernatural, mysterious creatures: to her, they are vulnerable little animals, whom we love and betray, driven by their instincts and needs, just as we are, and the bond between us is frail, tender and painful.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am not a cat person so received the gift of a copy of this book with some misgivings, and started to read it purely to be able to tell the 'giver' that I had!! I'm very glad I did, the book was a total delight, and I have subsequently bought copies for every friend that owns a cat. Every one of them - and there are quite a few - shares my opinion. If you are a cat lover - or maybe even not - this is the book for you.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great gift for cat lovers
This reminds me of the books by Mariyln Edwards - a memoir of a life with cats. This is more literary though, beautifully written and heart-felt without being overly sentimental. Read more
Published 10 months ago by S J Keeler
doris lessing on cats
Order arrived within a few days of ordering which was impressive. I bought it for a friend as a christmas gift as she is a cat lover so I knew it was a suitable gift, but it... Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2009 by Oxy Moron
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