The Cat’s Table, by
Michael Ondaatje
In the early 1950’s, a young boy raised in Sri Lanka boards a massive ocean liner bound for London–a ‘castle that was to cross the sea.’ At mealtimes, Michael is placed at the dining table farthest from the captain’s, nicknamed ‘the Cat’s Table’ by the eccentric group of adults he dines with. Michael soon builds friendships on the Oronsay with two other young boys; weak, philosophical Ramadhin, and tough, betel-chewing Cassius. Although initially wary of each other, the boys soon band into a gang, roaming unsupervised around the liner, slipping in and out of strange and dangerous situations, ‘bursting all over the place like freed mercury.’ As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, and onwards towards Europe, the boys find themselves entangled in the eclectic lives of the grownups they observe from their vantage points of youthful invisibility.
