Customer Reviews

The Mythology of Cats: Feline Legend and Lore through the Ages

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Not a scholarly compendium, The Mythology of Cats is more an engaging collection of folkloric stories, drawn from history, literature, and religion. Organized into 25 sections by various breeds and filled with pithy quotes, this book covers such ideas as feline aloofness and self-containment, the portrayal of this mysterious animal in works by such notables as Steinbeck, Twain, and Yeats, and the role of the cat in various times and cultures. The evolution of breeds old and new, wild and tame, is briefly but informatively discussed, as are such traits as clairvoyance, intelligence, and loyalty. This is a book for readers who have experienced satisfying relationships with these wonderful creatures, informative and entertaining at the same time. Enjoy!

Select whatever cat you love in this book to read such interesting details of the personality and legends about your cat. Contains very accurate references to other cat literature and famous cat people. You will want to read these books too. There are fascinating and entertaining stories which will provoke you to read further into the "Mythology of Cats" about other cat types of your acquaintance. You will associate cats in your life with so many of the characteristics described.

I'm a big fan of cats, believing them to be superior in nearly every way that counts to dogs. But a love of cats is not enough to get one through this poorly crafted book. "Poorly crafted" is precisely what I mean. The Hausmans appear unable to decide whether they are relating anecdotes, myths, popular culture, vetrinary science or something else altogether. The narrative tone varies from pedantic to pseudo-scholarly to mind-numblingly pedestrian - sometimes in the same sentence. There is an appalling lack of structure, as well. The Hausmans thought it would be cute to section the book into chapters by cat breeds, but are unable to stick to their own plan. Each chapter itself is supposed to be divided into a "lore" section and a "fact" section, but, again, the division is truer in name than reality. Ultimately, the whole thing reads somewhat like Robert Graves' analysis sections in The Greek Myths without the scholarly impact. I can think of more succinct summary of the book than "lame."

an absolutely delightful overview of the wonderful world of feline.

This book is written in a very friendly style that starts off as a light read but moves into deeper territory akin to Joseph Campbell. Explores the rich life of cats with highly interesting forays into unexpected realms.

While I love this book, I was distracted from time to time by statements that I suppose were misprints, "This cat, though small at around eighteen pounds." I wondered why these were not caught and rectified for later editions.

Anyway, the two authors write with much authority, wisdom and respect that renders other books about cats inferior.

A great read in many ways!

I bought this book with very high expectations. I am a huge cat lover. I was hoping that the anecdotes in this book would accurately describe the felines that I know and love, while giving me a mythical history of this fine creature. Nowhere near. I am hugely disappointed. I had to push myself from one chapter to the next just hoping that it would get better.
The ability of anyone without a master's degree to read this book is near impossible. I like to think I have a fine grasp of the english language, but this book was wordy and almost all sentences seemed awkward as if the authors had used a thesaurus to change any understandable word into incomprehensible babble.
The only thing I would recommend this book for is either kindling for a fire or to even out the legs on a crooked table.

The information in this book is mostly in the form of short excerpts from contemporary novels. Aside from these, most of the other information is not referenced, is not footnoted, and there is no way to connect it with the bibliography. Modern comments are mixed up with so-called lore in the same paragraph with no clarity as to which is which. Other than the excerpts, the book is filled with inane conjectural comments by the authors, which would not pass English 101. The section where the authors discuss the Prophet Mohammed's cat, is insulting. Among other nonsense, they call the Prophet a magician and compare him to Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". This book is not credible. I got this book because I was trying to find older versions of Kenji Sora's retelling of "The Swordsman and the Cat". What the authors claim is Sora's version is included in the chapter on Temple Cats (one of two folk tales that I found in the book), but there is no reference as to where the authors obtained it. And, by the way, I am a cat lover, but I did not see anything in this book for a cat lover. As one of the other reviewers said, this book is rubbish.

I enjoyed this book, immensely! I'm an avid book swapper, but this book is definately a "keeper" and will not be leaving my bookshelf!

Or, to be more accurate, "new age" huggy-kissy rubbish.

From the introduction: "All cultures have such mundane, yet mystical cats, and they are role models of a very positive kind, unlike the more popular archetypes of disaster, demonology, darkness and depravity. For though these are also founded in mythology, we believe they are demeaning and do not bear further publication."

So, there you have it. A mythology of cats book that proceeds, because of serious author bias, to ignore all the dark myths about cats and only give the reader the good ones. This is akin to writing "the mythology of wicca", say, and ignoring all witch burnings and dark magic, or doing the mythology of the Aztecs and ignoring the human sacrifices. In other words, it's a waste of your time, to say nothing of being poorly laid out with no rhyme nor reason to the collection of anecdotes that fill it.

I paid $2.50 for this book. What I learned was that I am never buying a mythology book again without reading a few chapters of it first to see if it's this kind of bowdlerized pablum. And I want my $2.50 back.