The Cat Who Came in from the Cold: A Fable [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

The New York Times bestselling author of The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats and Dogs Never Lie About Love, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson has given cat lovers a wonderful gift: a magical holiday story about a feline named Billi, who long ago, in ancient India, becomes the first cat to choose domestication.

Cats relish independence and Billi is no exception. He wanders through the Indian countryside among other animals, enjoying a sense of freedom, belonging to nobody. The holidays approach, Diwali, the Festival of Lights; the monsoon season, when the skies go pitch dark and the rains come, has arrived. At a time when everyone is eager to be home with family and friends, Billi is alone . . . and lonely.
Walking into a village, Billi gazes through windows and sees a cozy fire, a content dog, a happy family with children. Inspired, an untamed soul begins the transformative journey to a new life of warmth and togetherness in a world of interconnectedness.
With his inimitable storytelling gifts and his unparalleled ability to penetrate the feline psyche, Jeffrey Masson captures Billi’s inner world–his aloofness, mischievousness, and ultimately his new perspective on the deep connection shared by humans and their feline friends.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A Sanskrit scholar and former projects director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, Masson is best known for his sensitive exploration of animal psychology in books such as the bestselling When Elephants Weep. In this sentimental, didactic fable, Masson imagines how the lone nonsocial domesticated animal came to share hearth and home. Billi, an Asian leopard cat, lives in a mango forest in ancient India. He enjoys his independence, but he feels pangs of loneliness and curiosity about the "two-foots." He learns their languages—Hindi, Malayam and Sanskrit—and he can "see the appeal of south India's three major religions." Billi embarks on a quest to learn more about humans by discovering what their animals think of them. A water buffalo mourns being underappreciated; a parrot bemoans his cage; a mongoose tells a chilling story about human ingratitude. Humans worship you, Billi says to a cow. "Oh, great," the cow says. "That and five rupees will get you a chapati." Nine months of travel and no truly good word for humans leaves Billi undeterred, and, back home, he seeks out a young girl he'd often watched. It's not easy proving his good intentions or trying to be "the only animal to have a mutually satisfying relationship with humans." But Billi makes it happen in a story that's heartwarming but only for the passionate aelurophile.
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Review

Praise for The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats

“An affectionate, completely engaging book full of new insights into the emotional lives of cats. Of course, all cats are interesting, but Masson’s five felines seem particularly so–and you don’t need to be a cat lover to enjoy them via these pages.”
–ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs

“This enjoyable book is useful for its insights. . . . [It] is full of guidance, but its virtue is, simply, pleasure.”
–DORIS LESSING

“Fascinating . . . A book full of uncommon insight.”
–O, The Oprah Magazine

“Witty, allusive, and often enchanting.”
–Newsday

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345478665
• ISBN-13: 978-0345478665
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,501,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Masson has had at least four lives: first as a boy raised to become a "spiritual leader" (see his denunciation of such a life in My Father's Guru). While in the middle of his disillusion, he became a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto. At the same time he trained to become a Freudian analyst. Upon graduation he became Projects Director of the Freud Archives, and was scheduled to move into Freud's house in London when fate intervened: Masson found documents which seemed to show that Freud was right in believing that many women had been sexually abused as children, and that he was wrong to give up this belief, perhaps impelled by societal displeasure at his discoveries. Saying this publicly turned Masson into a psychoanalytic pariah, and he gave up both his professorship and his analytic career to delve into the far more fascinating world of animal emotions. Two of his books, WHEN ELEPHANTS WEEP and DOGS NEVER LIE ABOUT LOVE, were New York Times best-sellers. He became vegetarian as a result of his research, and later, when he looked into the feelings of farm animals, he became even stricter, and no longer eats or uses any animal product (vegan). Harpercollins published his most recent book: THE DOG WHO COULDN'T STOP LOVING: HOW DOGS HAVE CAPTURED OUR HEARTS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. He lives on a beach in New Zealand with his two sons, Ilan and Manu, and his German wife, Leila, a pediatrician who works with children on the autistic spectrum (using the bio-medical approach), Benjy, a golden lab, and three cats. They often travel to the States, Europe, and Australia. He is now fascinated in the "us/them" phenomenon, between humans but also between humans and animals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Cat Shares Its Feelings, December 7, 2004

By 

Artist Barbara Garro (Barbara Garro at http://www.ElectricEnvisions.com in Saratoga Springs, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cat Who Came in from the Cold: A Fable (Hardcover)

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's Billi engaged me right away and kept me engaged in a wonderful journey into the psyche of one amazingly enticing cat. I have people buying this book for relatives and friends for Christmas and reading it themselves, of course.

Everyone can learn something from listening to this wise cat go on its journey from the wilds into society.

Some, like me, will fall in love with him, understand his struggles and give him a special place in our hearts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching, sensitive, beautiful, February 1, 2006

By 

Ace (East Coast) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cat Who Came in from the Cold: A Fable (Hardcover)

Told from the cat's point of view -- a lovely story of the love and yearning of a wild animal to coexist with Man "kind" -- but is man really kind in this book? Cat, who has to prove his worth, and even then needs to keep his wits about him, seems to be the nobler animal in this book.

And speaking of noble animals, those animals that the cat speaks to, who "surely" have a good life in this world, shock him by letting him know exactly how -- "sacred" and stray alike -- they are really treated by humanity: ignored or brutalized or both....

Shows that human nature has not changed over the eons, eh?

A great read. A sobering read.

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for me! And who *is* it for?, November 18, 2011

By 

Audiobook Bandit (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cat Who Came In From The Cold: A Fable (Hardcover)

I found this book uninteresting: a belabored "Just-So Story," starring a cat, endowed with the stereotypical cat-qualities that everybody knows: independence, curiosity, aloofness. We follow this yawn-inducing creature as he wanders around India, meeting and having trite conversations with other stereotypical animals about the nature of humanity. If these conversations can be said to be philosophical, then they are the sort of philosophy that one out-grows in high school...they're just not very interesting. Not one word of the book seems original or remarkable to me. The characters are flat, the dialogue is forced and unnatural. The ending of the book is particularly dissatisfying, because the cat - in spite of having learned from his wanderings and conversations that humans are "not to be trusted" - nonetheless glibly decides to become a housecat. There is therefore a bizarre, irreconcilable disconnect between the story's treatise and its outcome. Too trite to be of interest to adults, and too philosophical to entertain kids, the best thing about this book is its short length: two quick commutes and the pain was over.