The Cat without a Hat Comes Back

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Misty asks: “Did I write this blog post, or did I dream I did during my just-ended nap?” (Photo by Dave.)

I, Misty the cat, last blogged on November 26, 2023 — not that long ago. But I had to return today for several reasons. Yes, Tracy Chapman sang “Give Me One Reason,” but I’m going to over-perform in that area.

First of all, February 11 is the 1847 birth date of Thomas Edison, who invented or helped invent the light bulb, the phonograph, movies, cats, whiskers, and enticing alleys with smelly garbage pails.

In the book world, February 11 is the date in 2006 when Peter Benchley unfortunately died. He of course authored the 1974 novel Jaws — which, along with the blockbuster 1975 film, made cats feel inferior because our strong mandibles seem puny compared to the mandibles of massive sharks. A discrepancy not the subject of (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s novel The Mandibles, but it should have been. Also not the subject of Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, which was about dentists roaming the Earth to patch potholes with fillings after giving streets a local anesthetic. All streets are local to someone.

Anyway, my human Dave is currently reading his ninth Kristin Hannah novel since January 2023, which seems excessive even though I appreciate the reminder that cats have nine lives. Ms. Hannah’s compelling-as-always book — about three sisters, something that comes between two of them, their problematic widowed father, and more — is titled True Colors. My true colors: gray and white. My false colors: xtgfqmr and kfvwpjb. Don’t ask me to show you a color chart because this blog only includes one image: an embarrassing photo of me. Thanks for nothing, Dave.

Ms. Hannah’s books tend to start a bit slow and clunkily — sort of like the way I act immediately after waking from a nap — but quickly get into gear to become riveting page-turners. She has written two-dozen or so novels since 1991, which means there are many more to read in the future. I’m told the future is different than the past, but who the heck knows? I’m a cat.

Which leads me to note that time-travel novels are usually compelling, and sometimes include felines! One of them is Adso the cat in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books. Adso is often upstaged by Rollo the dog, but I think that’s more about Rollo having a better publicist than about charisma.

Moving to cats in non-time-travel books, there’s Tao of Sheila Burnford’s The Incredible Journey — a novel I once thought chronicled my five-second journey from the living room to my litter box. Then I learned otherwise. Perhaps if I walked a little slower?

I’ll also mention The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, whose kitty protagonist is so slim he obviously avoids eating green eggs and ham. That rabble-rousing puss probably also swiped a Peloton bike at some point.

Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the full-of-felines fantasy novel Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams, not to be confused with baseball great Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. What color sox do Red Sox players wear? Who the heck knows? I’m a cat.

Getting back to Tracy Chapman, wasn’t that a memorable Grammy Awards duet with Luke Combs on her 1988 “Fast Car” song covered by Combs in 2023? After seeing a clip of that transcendent February 4 performance on CatTube, I immediately thought of novels in which cars and/or car trips are prominent: Stephen King’s Christine and From a Buick 8, Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Parking Garage…

When I take my daily leashed walk, I often see cars motoring down the streets abutting my apartment complex. I shy away from those vehicles, not only because their size and speed scare me, but because my driver’s license has expired. Which explains why I, Misty the cat, don’t drive to the local library. Not sure they’d let me in, anyway, because I batted my library card under the sofa months ago.

Cats also like to knock things off tables and counters. In my apartment, I once swatted to the floor Marcel Proust’s entire 4,215-page In Search of Lost Time opus — quite a feat given that said opus has never been in my apartment.

Comments under this post will not be swatted to non-WordPress blog platforms.

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about my town’s need for more weekend train service and about Black History Month — is here.

109 thoughts on “The Cat without a Hat Comes Back”

  8. Misty… dahling,

    Don’t tell Dave, but you’re a far far better writer than he is. You’re like a cat. He’s like a cat man do. Please don’t confuse that with Kathmandu!

    Kristin Hannah sounds interesting. Seems like Dave’s been using her books for breakfast cereal.

    Smelly garbage pails line the alleys I roam, too! I spend lots of time in the alleys looking for and finding art.

    If you are ever in Toronto, we MUST meet for lunch. I have the perfect alley in mind; no rats, just mice and the people keep their bins tidy.

    I too have swatted many books.

    I suppose I could read one. Actually, I peed on one once, so I think that’s good enough.

    Finally I’d like to say, don’t bother with “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams.

    Not because it’s a play instead of a novel, but there’s no Cat in it, nor a tin roof – let alone a hot one.

    Sincerely,

    Jeep

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    • Thank you, Resa! 🙂 Love the hilarious cat-to-cat communication! 😂 Jeep is obviously an intellectual, an adventurer, and a motor vehicle of sorts. Misty will have to turn his sights to another Tennessee Williams play — perhaps “A Streetcat Named Desire.” And he’d love to visit Toronto to do some bird watching (Blue Jays).

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  9. Dear Misty, I think you’d enjoy a book I loved when I was eleven or twelve, about a cat named “Cat” and his boy, a 14-year-old named Dave (really!), who has trouble getting along with his father and wants more independence. The book is called IT’S LIKE THIS, CAT, by Emily Neville. It was published in 1963 and won a Newbery Award.

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    • Thank you, Michele! I look forward to reading Kristin Hannah’s newest novel. (She is such a prolific writer.)

      And — ha 🙂 — “Cat on a Hit Tin Roof” should be on Misty’s watchlist, though “Cat on a Warm Tin Roof” might be more comfortable…

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  16. One of our cats (sadly departed) used to delight in knocking my glasses off of her window shelf. I was always careful to put them on a corner that she wasn’t using, but she asserted the “my shelf means my entire shelf” rule and my glasses would go flying. Cat in the Hat is a local favorte.

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  19. Ahahaha Misty! Well, you do at least look comfy and cozy in your picture, and you are making good use of a limiting space! I’ll have to look up some of the authors you mention. Cats literature of many kinds is now IMO booming, though I don’t think it was when I was growing up and the books were all dogs and horses. The Internet may be a factor, though I think there things involved too.

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  20. Misty – you have the best posts. A couple of years ago, I was researching Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens when I discovered his love for cats. In one of his famous quotes, Twain suggested that if humans could somehow be crossed with cats, it would have a positive effect on humans but a negative impact on cats. I understand that he owned up to 19 cats at one time.

    When he traveled he couldn’t take his cats so he would rent replacement. The rent money was left money behind to cover their care throughout their lives. In 1906, when visiting Dublin, New Hampshire, he rented three kittens for the summer. One was named Sackcloth, while the other two were identical and called Ashes.

    “When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.” Mark Twain.

    I think you will enjoy this article, Misty!!

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mark-twain-liked-cats-better-people-180965265/n

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  24. Oh tht was funny Misty. Of course Tracy Chapman really wrote Fast Cat. No doubt the record company changed it. Or maybe we should say Short Changed Cat. I am thinking here of Paul Gallico’s novel, Thomasina, the Cat Woo Thought She was God, which became a Disney film called the 3 Lives of Thomasina, when here was me thinking cats had 9.

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    • Thank you, Darlene! Ha — 😂 — re your dogs, my lips are sealed. Yes, posts by pets are a great “genre.” 🙂 And I’m wondering if that Mansfield Parking Garage had automatic gates that opened after people in 1814 inserted their credit cards…

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  26. An interesting and purrfect post! I’m a recent arrival here in WordPressland, so haven’t seen any of Misty’s previous posts. I’ll have to look them up, it seems. I haven’t read any books by Kristin Hannah either, although in a strange coincidence I’m currently reading Lionel Shriver’s excellent ‘The Mandibles–jaw-dropping subject-matter indeed. On the subject of cats in novels, T S Eliot would expect a mention for ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.’ Nor can you forget Dinah, Alice’s bosom companion, frequently-addressed during travels through Wonderland and the Looking Glass. And, if cartoons rather than books are your thing, there’s Disney’s ‘The Aristocats.’ Road-trip books? You can’t leave out Steinbeck’s masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath,’ which is up there in my all-time top ten reads. I could think up more, but it’s been a busy day, so time for a catnap. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Laura! Ha! 😂 Misty is handy to have around when I can’t come up with a blog post myself. 🙂

      Wow — amazing coincidence that you’re currently reading “The Mandibles”! A memorable novel indeed, though my favorite Shriver work is “So Much for That.”

      And I appreciate the great mentions of other fictional cats — as well as “The Grapes of Wrath” and its epic road trip in the first part of that tremendous novel.

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      • I seem to remember reading somewhere that Steinbeck considered ‘East of Eden’ his greatest work, but public opinion goes for ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ including me. I really didn’t like EofE, especially Kate–what can you say about her? Nasty doesn’t cover it. I only recently started reading Lionel Shriver’s books, and I don’t why it took me so long to discover her – so many books, so little time. I’ve got ‘So Much For That’ on my wish list, along with everything else she’s written (apart from those I’ve already read) and it looks like she’s going to keep me busy for the year, interspersed with classics I discovered through your own ‘Fascinating Facts’ book. I’d better go, lots to get reading. Thanks for another stimulating post. 🙂

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        • I’ve also heard, Laura, that Steinbeck considered “East of Eden” to be his best novel. In some ways it’s a more impressive creation than “The Grapes of Wrath.” It’s certainly longer. But while I liked “East of Eden” a lot, I liked “The Grapes of Wrath” much more. And, yes, the Cathy character in “Eden” is REALLY evil.

          There are indeed so many great authors out there that some we get to only belatedly. Certainly also my experience in various instances.

          Glad my “Fascinating Facts” book has been helpful, and thank you for your excellent follow-up comment!

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          • No problem. It’s over 20 years since I read ‘East of Eden,’ so I might not remember too much. I do know though that I found it a massive disappointment after ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ which I found much more literary in construction (the tortoise making a slow way along the highway to mirror the exiled Joads and so many others like them, and other symbolic chapters sandwiched between those about the experiences of the family, for example). By comparision, ‘East of Eden’ felt more like airport literature, despite the biblical references. I don’t know, I might have to give it another go to check, as well as writing that essay about ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ that I never got around to before. Thanks again for giving my little grey cells a good workout!

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