I thought she had said something.
‘What did Emily say?’ I asked my mother.
‘Time to go to school, I think.’
From the distance, before she disappeared into the world, Emily waved.
Author’s Note
Although the novel sometimes uses the colouring and locations of memoir and autobiography, The Cat’s Table is fictional – from the captain and crew and all its passengers on the boat down to the narrator. And while there was a ship named the Oronsay (there were in fact several Oronsays), the ship in the novel is an imagined rendering.
Acknowledgements and Credits
Robert Creeley for a stanza from his poem ‘Echo’; a line by Kipling from ‘The Sea and the Hills’; a verse by A. P. Herbert. A paragraph from Joseph Conrad’s ‘Youth’, a passage by R. K. Narayan, and a line by Beckett about despair. The remark by Proust appears in a letter to René Blum, 1913. The lines from Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘Winin’ Boy’ appear in Alan Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll (1950). Other songs quoted, or referred to, are by Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Sidney Bechet and Jimmie Noone. Some information on Sidney Bechet is drawn from Whitney Balliet’s wondrous American Musicians II (included is a quote by Richard Hadlock that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner). Thanks to The Daily News, Sri Lanka, for the germ of the ‘Sir Hector’ story that had its basis in a long-ago incident. The characters, names and dialogue in this novel however are pure invention, as is placing Sir Hector on a sea voyage. Material on triremes is drawn from The Lords of the Sea by John R. Hale. Eudora Welty wrote the two lines (quoted below) on embarcation in The Optimist’s Daughter. Mr Mazappa’s ‘good book’ is The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The scrawled lines in the Visitor’s Book at Cassius’ Art show were written by his friend, Warren Zevon, who was visiting from New Jersey.
Thanks
To Larry Schokman, Susie Schlesinger, Ellyn Toscano, Bob Racie, Laura Ferri, Simon Beaufoy, Anna Leube, Duncan Kenworthy, Beatrice Monti, Rick Simon, Coach House Press, Jet Fuel in Toronto, the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California.
Also John Berger, Linda Spalding, Esta Spalding, Griffin Ondaatje, David Young, Gillian and Alwin Ratnayake, Ernest Macintyre – for the loan of a character, Anjalendran, Aparna Halpé, and Sanjaya Wijayakoon. To Stewart Blackler and Jeremy Bottle, as well as David Thomson some years later. And Joyce Marshall, who once smoked a cane chair.
Thank you to Ellen Levine, Steven Barclay, Tulin Valeri, Anna Jardine, Meagan Strimus, Jacqueline Reid, and Kelly Hill. Thanks to all at Knopf USA – Katherine Hourigan, Diana Coglianese, Lydia Buechler, Carol Carson and Pei Loi Koay. Many thanks to Louise Dennys and Sonny Mehta and Robin Robertson. A very special thank you to my Canadian editor and publisher Ellen Seligman.
For Stella, the sweet hunter – no more thunderstorms. For Dennis Fonseka, in memorium.
‘The boat came breasting out of the mist and in they stepped.
All new things in life were meant to come like that …’
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Published by Jonathan Cape 2011
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Copyright © Michael Ondaatje 2011
Michael Ondaatje has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Originally published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Limited, Toronto, and in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc., New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Jonathan Cape
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
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ISBN 9780224093613 (HARDBACK)
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Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Michael Ondaatje
Title Page
Epigraph
Departure
Mazappa
C Deck
An Australian
Cassius
The Hold
The Turbine Room
A Spell
Afternoons
Miss Lasqueti
The Girl
Thievery
Landfall
Kennels
Ramadhin’s Heart
Port Said
Two Violets
Two Hearts
Asuntha
The Mediterranean
Mr Giggs
The Blind Perera
How Old Are You? What Is Your Name?
The Tailor
Miss Lasqueti: A Second Portrait
The Overheard
The Breaker’s Yard
The Key in His Mouth
Letter to Cassius
Arrival
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements and Credits
Thanks
Copyright