猫的桌子 – The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

一个11岁男孩，第一次独自踏上一段21天的海上之旅，他将见证成长、友谊与蜕变。

三个星期的海上航行，在我最初的记忆中，波澜不惊。唯有现在，多年以后，当我的孩子怂恿我讲述这段旅程时，它才变成一番历险，透过他们的眼睛，甚至成了人生中某件意义非凡的事。一次成年礼。

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.

In the early 1950s, an eleven-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.

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