Customer Reviews

Particularly Cats

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

A very emotional book. The addition of the new chapter about Butchkin, who now is old but appears earlier in the book in his youth, is worth the whole book. A sensitive and powerful description of the emotions of the cat and his owner's reactions to his aging, illness and recovery.

Owning cats is often a painful experience, when they get old and sick. It's part of owning a cat. This book is a wonderful journey through many cats lives and Doris' profound love of them.

I feel compelled to write a review to warn people that this is a pretty disturbing book. I thought the back cover was completely misleading. The book is about cat death - tons and tons of cats die in horrible ways. The descriptions are graphic. There is not a normal relationship between a woman and her cat wherein the woman loves and grieves the cat - it is written with complete emotional distance. If the author wasn't famous for other work I can't imagine any publisher publishing this book. Awful doesn't do it justice. If you want to read about cats dying, written in a completely dispassionate, matter-of-fact, "oh-well" way go for it. Otherwise, SKIP THIS BOOK!

Yes, the book is disturbing for the descriptions of killing unwanted cats in the African bush. But her obvious love of them comes through in her stories of each special cat she's owned. Her observation of the psychology and personality of her cats is fascinating. Her cats are definitely members of her family and are given special love and attention. It may upset some cat owners but this book is a view into the real world, not a fluff piece about how cute cats are.

This is not a pleasent book to read for people who really love cats. It is very depressing and not uplifting at all. I ordered this book, thinking I was going to get a cute cat book with fun stories about cats. Boy, was I ever wrong. The stories are so dismal and depressing, they are all about cats & kittens getting killed or dying from one reason or another. The author even tells us a story about how she "had" to kill some new born kittens, because she thought the mother cat was to weak to nurse them. Well, she could have gone to the vet and got some formula and a dropper and feed them herself. She shouldn't even be a cat owner, she doesn't even know how to take Good care of cats. Also the author refers to her cats just as black cat and gray cat. My cats are members of my family, they are my children, and I gave them names. I don't refer to them as: orange cat, or black and white cat, or tabby cat, etc. This book is just awful.

as one who can't bear the often/usual cutesy "kitty" tales i expected and was duly rewarded as doris lessing came through with an elegant tale of her life with cats. her clear-eyed unflinching and therefore loving recitation of life both in the bush and in town with cats is a book i re-read at least once a year. lessing's cats are dignified and she does not fail them by falsely sentimentalizing their lives. she looks at and into these animals as they coexist and achieves a truth and charm which would be lost were she to diminish them with saccharine phrases, denying their deaths and lives the nobility they have and exude. edith ann esbensen.

A book of which most cats lover would expect.... or not. It's not a book for faint hearted cats owners such as myself. The 1st chapter was full of kitten killing, stray kittens being *destroyed*, stray cats were shot with a .22, house cats were drowned/shot to death, etc.

I can barely finish the first chapter and begin to doubt about whether Doris is a creep or not, why can't you spare some stray cats lives? he was barely sitting on a tree, far away from your home, and why would Doris shoot it? Can't we lay animal cruelty charges against her as the book is full of these sorta of evidences?

If you can't afford additional kittens, spay your cats! not shooting the kittens or drowning them afterward, it's simply animal CRUELty! As a few days ago watching a blond girl throwing surplus puppies into rivers simply because there are too many in the household is cruel! This author and book is an example how animal abuser gets away with the charges because she is simply famous, noble prize winner doesn't isolate you from animal cruelty.

May she be shot to death as well like the stray cats she did so many times in the book.

The Cruel part quoted here:

"One day the black man who worked in the kitchen

said he had seen a wild cat in a tree halfway down

the hill. My brother was not there; so I took the

.22 rifle and went after it. It was high midday: not

the time for wild cats. On a half-grown tree, the

cat was stretched along a branch, spitting. Its green

eyes glared. Wild cats are not pretty creatures. They

have ugly yellowy-brown fur, which is rough. And

they smell bad. This cat had taken a chicken in the

last twelve hours. The earth under the tree was

scattered with white feathers and bits of meat that

already stank. We hated wild cats, which spat and

clawed and hissed and hated us. This was a wild cat.

I shot it. It slumped off the branch to my feet,

writhed a little among blowing white feathers, and

lay still. Usually I would have picked up that carcass

by its mangy smelly tail and dropped it into a nearby

disused well. But something bothered me about this

cat. I bent to look at it. The shape of its head was

wrong for a wild cat; and the fur, rough as it was,

was too soft for wildcat fur. I had to admit it. This

was no wild cat, it was one of ours. We recognized

it, that ugly corpse, as Minnie, an enchanting pet

from two years before who had disappeared - taken,

we thought, by a hawk or an owl. Minnie had been

half Persian, a soft caressing creature. This was she,

the chicken-eater. And, not far from the tree where

she was shot, we found a litter of wild kittens; but

these were really wild, and human beings were their

enemies: our legs and arms were bitten and

scratched in proof of it. So we destroyed them. Or

rather, my mother saw that they were destroyed;

because some law of the household I did not until

much later reflect about made this sort of nasty work

hers."

So some cats turned wild and was hissing at you you decided to shoot at it?! small kittens being wild then again, you decided to shoot them?

twisted minded author.

ETA: After reading the author's another work---- Under my skin, I somehow discovered the double standards Doris has regarding "animal cruelty". In that particular book "Under my skin", she mentioned how *distasteful* she felt about another boy tormenting cats& dogs... Well, at least that boy was merely *tormenting* cats&dogs yet Doris was actually KILLING cats, tons tons of them. How dare she calling someone else cruel while she was being more cruel than anyone else? hypocrite?

Only Doris Lessing could have written this book. She's so brilliant, so insightful, and cats have played a big part in her life, so of course she eventually chooses to write about this.
This slim little volume is packes with hilarity, pathos, saddness, insight, stories, and philosophy.
And there are cat characters and one liners that will stay with you always.
Top billing.

While reading this book I became so involved having raised so many cats over the years. Her writing takes you away..Out of all of the "Cat Books" I have ever read, her book stands alone for the pure and simple way it is written...One of the best of our times...Kudos go to Doris Lessing.