And now for something totally different. I mentioned I wanted something a little off the beaten track the other day. I had picked up a historical fiction novel that was in part about Jane Austen, and while I still find that one pretty tempting, I also picked up Lena Divani's Seven Lives and One Great Love: Memoirs of a Cat, and was instantly charmed by it. So I have a winner so to speak. I need something light and charming. Let me share a few teasers and I think you will understand why.
A novel narrated by a cat? I can't think of a book I've ever read that had such an unusual narrator, but this one I think is going to have an interesting way of looking at the world. The chapters are short and I have only read a few of them, but let me introduce you to Sugar Zach who is now in his seventh life. Sugar Zach is the son of an alley cat (she sounds like she has seen better days) and an unknown father.
"My father, whom unfortunately I never met but fortunately had sex appeal in spades, must have been of noble extraction, a pure-blood Turk from Ankara, with a pedigree. I am nevertheless prepared to bet he was all white, with a gleam in his eye, and a handsome devil."
Whatever his true pedigree Sugar Zach (who tells his own story) knows that a cat chooses one's own parents. More importantly he doesn't choose a home so much as chooses a life. "I knew that one's environment is not merely important, it is all-decisive." William Burroughs' cat for example says his owner may have been "mildly deranged" but he treated her like a queen. And Sugar Zach's sixth life . . .
" . . . landed me at London's National Library, if you don't mind. This was the equivalent of a jackpot in the karmic lotto. This was the sweet life, my dears, tailor-made for a culture vulture life myself. You can't possibly imagine the things I picked up for seventeen whole years pretending to be fast asleep on the reading tables, under the comfy warmth of the green lamps. Yes, I turned into a bookworm, my claws grew blunt and my teeth could no longer have sliced through live flesh but, in return, I gained the universe."
Words of wisdom, don't you think? What other secrets are our feline friends keeping from us? I knew the moment that Sugar Zach mentioned his love of books that he had pretty much sold me on his story. So it shall be daily tucked into my bookbag. Europa Editions has never steered me wrong (I can't think of a single Europa title I have read and not enjoyed--mostly they end up on my favorites list). Besides, anyone who publishes the memoirs of a very cool cat gets an approving nod from me. More about Sugar Zach and his (hopefully entertaining) adventures later.