
The Cat's Table
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Michael Ondaatje
-
By:
-
Michael Ondaatje
About this listen
In the early 1950s, an 11-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 makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as well: One man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. The narrator’s elusive, beautiful cousin Emily becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself “with a distant eye” for the first time, and to feel the first stirring of desire. Another Cat’s Table denizen, the shadowy Miss Lasqueti, is perhaps more than what she seems. And very late every night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner, his crime and his fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.
As the narrative moves between the decks and holds of the ship and the boy’s adult years, it tells a spellbinding story - by turns poignant and electrifying - about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage.
©2011 Michael Ondaatje (P)2011 Random House AudioPeople who viewed this also viewed...
-
In the Skin of a Lion
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Tom McCamus
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient.
-
-
superb
- By Joshua on 02-25-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Anil's Ghost
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past.
-
-
unlikely poetry
- By jayne on 04-30-08
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Divisadero
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence that sets fire to the rest of their lives.
-
-
Baffling
- By Pamela Harvey on 05-30-07
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
A Year of Last Things
- Poems
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Michael Ondaatje
- Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following several of his internationally acclaimed, beloved novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry. In pieces that are sometimes wittily funny, moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and abandoned landscapes we hold onto to rediscover the influence of every border crossed.
-
-
Mesmerizing !
- By Anonymous User on 04-08-24
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Running in the Family
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Michael Ondaatje
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India", Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
-
-
A deep stream...
- By Anonymous User on 08-07-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Warlight
- A Novel
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
-
-
It both entertains and teaches.
- By Kelly on 07-28-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
In the Skin of a Lion
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Tom McCamus
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient.
-
-
superb
- By Joshua on 02-25-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Anil's Ghost
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past.
-
-
unlikely poetry
- By jayne on 04-30-08
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Divisadero
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence that sets fire to the rest of their lives.
-
-
Baffling
- By Pamela Harvey on 05-30-07
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
A Year of Last Things
- Poems
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Michael Ondaatje
- Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following several of his internationally acclaimed, beloved novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry. In pieces that are sometimes wittily funny, moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and abandoned landscapes we hold onto to rediscover the influence of every border crossed.
-
-
Mesmerizing !
- By Anonymous User on 04-08-24
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Running in the Family
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Michael Ondaatje
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India", Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
-
-
A deep stream...
- By Anonymous User on 08-07-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
-
Warlight
- A Novel
- By: Michael Ondaatje
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we follow the story of 14-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war.
-
-
It both entertains and teaches.
- By Kelly on 07-28-18
By: Michael Ondaatje
Have you listened to any of Michael Ondaatje’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I absoutely loved listening to the author read his own book. This added a particularly wonderful and unique quality to this audiobook. Loved the story.Read by the author; how special is that!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story is that of the author's trip from Sri Lanka to England, by boat, when he was 11. He travelled alone, but was watched over by the adults who shared his table at dinner (nicknamed "The Cat's Table" because it was so far from the Captain's table), and befriended by other children also travelling alone. He is the observer and the student - interpreting what he saw, now, as an adult. The story is poignant and touching. I would not say that it is as good as The English Patient, but it is well written.
Quiet and Unassuming, but Insightful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What made the experience of listening to The Cat's Table the most enjoyable?
It is hard to know whether it's the author reading his own work, his language or the wonder of the story that makes this book so captivating. On every level it is a wonderful tale of adventure and growth.What did you like best about this story?
I was totally immersed in the story which is a tale of a boy traveling to England on his own. He befriends two other boys on the ship and proceed to have adventures that are both exciting and believable. The adults who influence them on this journey are colorful and beautiful described.Enchanting
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dreamlike, witty, brilliant
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
review
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Yes, especially if the person is a fan of the author.What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
I've read that Mr. Ondaatje is not big on character development. He also leaves a number of unanswered questions in the story. All of these techniques put more responsibility on the reader. In this book he points out that with art, the artists expression is not complete without the viewer. So, in this books, his writing is not complete until we, the reader, finish the story.What aspect of Michael Ondaatje’s performance would you have changed?
It was an adequate performance, however I generally appreciate a narrator that uses more inflection.Was The Cat's Table worth the listening time?
Yes, for me it was.Any additional comments?
Mr. Ondaatje has a keen use of description and metaphor and I enjoyed numerous passages.Interesting story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I've been disappointed in the last two Ondaatje novels, but this has the poetry and observation of his best work, and the power of a whirlpool to draw you in to the violence under the calm.
I've bought a half-dozen copies as presents; well worth it.
Captivating.
Captivating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The delightful voice of memory
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What did you like best about The Cat's Table? What did you like least?
I was interested in the story but had a hard time understanding the reader.The authors are seldom good narrators.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Michael Ondaatje?
A person with clear voice and narrating talents which Ondaatje does not have.Was The Cat's Table worth the listening time?
No, I'll have to get a it in book form.Authors reading their books
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ondaatie's voice is so old for his fictional self, Michael. It wasn't until the very end of the novel that his fascination with Emily becomes clearer, and the kind of impact I remember in English Patient is present. Expected more.
Authors should never record their own books
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.