Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ma' RRow, May 8, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: How to Speak Cat: The Essential Primer of Cat Language (Hardcover)
Finally! A comprehensive compilation of what we knew all along - that a cat's language is as unique and complex as their "personalities". Kudos to Sellers for breaking the code and allowing us to communicate more effectively with our beloved feline friends. Would have given the book 5 stars, if Sellers had dealt with the section on the subordinate connector more thoroughly. But still a great effort overall. ma' RRow (translated "I am blessed")
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a wonderful approach!!!!!, August 27, 2002
A Kid's Review
This review is from: How to Speak Cat: The Essential Primer of Cat Language (Hardcover)
Alexandra Sellers has devoted most of her life to deciphering the mysterious and complicated cat language that - until now - only those mysterious felines have been able to use. I am heartbroken at a certain review in which one user mentions "200 pages of garbage", "stupid pronunciation guide", and conveys a feeling of cats being animals with no language and a book by a fruitcake who wants money. This is the wrong approach to this book. I have tested Sellers' theories by giving phrases to my cats. Their ears perk up, they always respond, and I know they understand. If you are a firm believer, as am I, that cats deserve to have their mysterious language recognized, I recommend this book over any. I got it for X-mas and I hope to become fluent. I guarantee you will find familiar cat phrases in a couple of days. While the idea of a "cat language" seems stupid to some, and the notion that animals can speak may seem outrageous to you, cat lovers know that these creatures have a language not until a few years ago deciphered by the author. But Sellers, through many, many, many, many, many years of research has found patterns that should not be undermined as "stupid" or "nonsense". If you have faith in human-to-feline communication, you cannot give into this cynicism, bigotry and criticism of a woman's lifetime work. She has written other books on Cat, and has studied 7 major human languages. So why would we be so much more critical of her than of the Horse Whisperer? She, like he, has worked very hard and very long, not to create 200 pages of garbage, an elaborate joke, but to give what she has learned about Cat to the world. Bottom line: if you don't give in to the jaded cynicism of people who say cats are stupid and can't talk, please, please, please consider buying How to Speak Cat. You will not be disappointed.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of the U.K. edition published in SOAS Magazine, July 22, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: How to Speak Cat: The Essential Primer of Cat Language (Hardcover)
In England an expanded version of this book was published by Bellew Publishing under the title SPOKEN CAT AND RELEVANT FACTORS IN WORLDVIEW. This is a review we published recently. Anyone who has more than a passing acquaintance with cats will quickly recognise the basic premise of this book -- the ironic counterpoint between, on the one hand, the anthropomorphising tendency to bestow human thoughts and emotions on animals which makes domestic pets such a comfort to those humans whose need for companionship finds fulfilment in a small, manageable and relatively undemanding form, and, on the other, the lurking paranoia which suggests that the balance of power is in fact entirely the other way, that the relationship exists entirely for the convenience of the animal, whose aim is to train the owner in the provision of its wants -- food, shelter, attention, exercise. To say that Alexandra Sellers adopts the paranoia theory would be an absurdly simplistic view of a bo! ok which has resonances going far beyond the suggestion that, as far as feline pets are concerned, we are not the owners but the owned. SPOKEN CAT follows with rigorous correctness the format of a language primer -- the kind which readers of a certain age will recognise as having accompanied their first stumbling attempts to master French or German. Section one contains nine grammar lessons built around everyday situations, headed by a short narrative for study and accompanied by the requisite vocabulary. Section two concerns tonality -- Cat is primarily a tonal language, with tonal patterns one of the main carriers of meaning. Sections three and four -- supporting the notion that no language can be properly mastered without an understanding of the culture of its native speakers -- deal first with Cat myths and legends, and second, in the essay `Einstein's Cat', with the influence, both overt and covert which cats have had on human civilisation throughout its history. The tex! t is comprehensively footnoted and illustrated with items w! hich show an impressive range of erudition -- perhaps less surprising when one knows that the author's studies at SOAS brought her a First Class degree in Persian (the language, that is) and Religious Studies. Supporters of the `pet as human companion' theory will see in the book the answer to their prayers -- a book which will allow them to enter into meaningful converse with their adored feline friends. Those who subscribe to the paranoia view will find in it confirmation of their worst fears -- proof, finally, that we are not masters of our destiny, Cats are. Those who can read it with a little more detachment will find far more valuable insights, into the limitations of the academic method, the nature of language, and the very structure of human thought. To reveal more would be to give the game away; suffice it to say that the book is multi-faceted, multi- levelled, and full of the kind of humour which turns one's thinking upside down. Buy it, enjoy it, and recommend it ! to your friends.
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