The Blanket Cats

I saw The Blanket Cats and thought it sounded like a cute read. The premise is that there's a pet store that rents out cats for three days to people; as long as the cat has its blanket, the cat is fine in the new environment. The endorsement on the cover even said "Utterly charming...I would read a hundred of these stories," so I was ready for some cute stories about cats in temporary homes. So I was utterly unprepared for the reality that is The Blanket Cats: terrible people, terrible situations, and a cat being there for no real reason.

There are seven stories in The Blanket Cats. The first one is about a childless couple who decided to try renting a cat to see if a cat would work in their lifestyle. But the couple is a couple in name only; after they were unable to have children, they basically started leading separate lives at the wife's insistence (they have separate bedrooms, where they go to hang out alone all the time). The wife is enamored with the cat, until the cat catches a mouse when they take her to a park. At that point she wants nothing to do with the cat, though the story sort of implies that maybe the couple will be a bit closer now? I'm not sure though because the story just kind of abruptly ends (honestly, that's how most of the stories in this collection end).

The second one is about a lady who always rented the same cat every few months. The two of them would go off on adventures together. The cat she normally rented had retired, but the pet store owner let the lady take the cat on one more adventure. This one had some supernatural elements to the story, where the cat seemed to be able to show her either memories of people or the future of people. As the story unfolded, it turned out the lady had cancer, she stole from the company she worked for (who were all good people) and was intending to commit suicide. The story ended at the beach where she didn't drown herself, and the cops finally caught up with her.

The third story is about a loud and obnoxious man and his son, who together rented a cat (well, the pet store owner let the boy rent the cat - he didn't trust the father). It turned out the boy had been bullying another kid at school quite badly. The boy named the cat his own name, and seemed to use the cat to work through his own emotions? It was a bit confusing because both the cat and the boy had the same names. Either way, it wasn't a good story.

This was the point where I was pretty sure that endorsement on the front cover was lying.

The fourth story was about a family whose cat had passed. But they were having their grandmother with dementia over for the last time before the grandmother went into a home. And the grandmother had loved their cat, so rather than tell her the cat had died, they rented one in the hopes that she wouldn't notice. This story also featured the family's older daughter lying about breaking up with her boyfriend, so she asked him to come to dinner for her grandmother's sake. 

So basically more terrible people.

The fifth story was arguably the best of the lot. A man lived in an apartment building where no pets were allowed. The landlord would periodically rent a cat from the Blanket Cat place who was a fairly rough, kind of mean cat; he would go through the building and use the cat to find out if any of the tenants had animals (and promptly evict them). The main character's girlfriend wanted to move in with him, but she had a cat, so they decided to rent that same cat in the hopes that the two would be okay with each other come inspection day. Unfortunately, their kitten loved the older cat too much and got super excited when she could smell him.

This story had some of the most interesting and sympathetic characters. The landlord had a very sad story, and while he was a gruff man, he was by no means horrible (when he discovers the kitten, yes he wants the couple out, but he also wants them to get better jobs/be financially better off before they leave). The cat he rented out also had an interesting and tragic story (he was the kitten of his family before they passed), so while the man didn't want the cat living with him full time, he still gets him to visit often. This was the one story that I genuinely thought was good - I didn't feel like anyone was horrible.

The sixth story was also really good. This one was the only one from one of the cat's perspectives. One of the cats gets rented out to someone who seems like a pretty horrible cat guardian. So the cat takes off on the first chance he gets. He jumps into the back of a truck to get away, and discovers two kids who are running away from home. The cat helps them, then at the end of the story moves on with the intention of helping others.

Again, this story had some good people going through some tough things. Some of the things going on from the cat's perspective were a bit weird, but overall I really enjoyed this one, too.

But we can't end on a good note, can we? No, of course not. So that brings us to the final story of the collection. A man was laid off from work, and his family will need to sell their house and go back to a smaller apartment. The man feels like he has betrayed everyone, and wants to make even just one dream of his kids' come true: they had told him they wanted a cat before, so he rents one for a few days. His wife is against it. His daughter basically doesn't want to give him the time of day. But his son is quite excited. The two of them attempt to build some memories (with the women wanting no part in this). But when their real estate agent surprises them with some clients who are interested in viewing the house, the couple send the kids and cat to the park. And their daughter takes the blanket from the cat's carrier and purposefully leaves it at the park.

Now, this one didn't feel as horrible as the earlier stories in the collection. I felt like these were good people dealing with a traumatic situation. But the story itself wasn't a good read. It dragged in weird parts (like when the dad tried to get his son to guess what was in the cat carrier....why would a moment like that need to go on?) but also wrapped up too quickly. This story felt like it could have been more fleshed out. This was especially true of the end; the end just sort of happens, and I didn't feel like there was good closure (the father and daughter went back to the park to retrieve the blanket).

So that was The Blanket Cats. It's not a charming read, and I would not read hundreds of these stories. These seven were enough, thank you. 

Carry On, Jeeves

After finishing A Child of Elvish, I really needed a different sort of read.  So I decided to tackle another P.G. Wodehouse book that my brother lent me (quite some time ago...).  This time it was Carry On, Jeeves, a short story collection that details the adventures of Bertram Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, as they try to help Bertie's friends get out of all sorts of problems.  The solutions are often provided by Jeeves, and usually end up working in a hilarious and round-about way.

I had a bit of a hard time getting into Carry On, Jeeves, in part because it was a short story collection; it felt like, at least for the first few stories, I was just starting to get into the story, then it was over.  It also didn't help that I wasn't really familiar with the characters; I think this would be a better read once you've read some of the Jeeves novels.  But once I got a few stories in, I loved the characters of Bertie and Jeeves (they make an excellent pair) and am quite looking forward to one day reading one of the novels.  :)


I made the mistake of reading my brother's review of Carry On, Jeeves, before writing this; he pretty much says it all, so I recommend reading that if you want to know a little more!

Knife Fight and Other Struggles

I bought Knife Fight and Other Struggles last year at Ad Astra after I heard David Nickle read the first half of "The Exorcist: A Love Story."  He didn't finish reading the story and I HAD to know how it ended.  So I bought it and proceeded to leave it on my shelf for a year, untouched.  I don't know why I did that, because I was really excited by that story.  But stay on the shelf it did.  Until a few days ago when I finally decided to pick up the book and finish "The Exorcist: A Love Story."  

Knife Fight has 12 short stories in it.  13 if you count "Orlok," a prelude to Nickle's novel Volk.  Oh yeah, and a really  awesome introduction by Peter Watts.  Most of the stories were written in first person, but you always had an excellent sense of what the narrator was like; Nickle could write as a lovestruck young woman as easily as a jaded old man.  And Nickle's prose was almost hypnotic.  Whatever he was writing about, the stories sucked you in with their details.  This was true even of the stories that I honestly didn't get (and unfortunately there were a few of them).

I'm not going to give detailed thoughts on all the stories like I have been doing lately; instead I'll give a little more detail on my favourites and just mention the rest.

Oh course, starting the list is "The Exorcist: A Love Story."  The beginning of that story is just as good as I remember it being when I heard Nickle reading it a year ago.  It's told from the demon's perspective, who has inhabited a baby boy.  It turns out the demon has a very specific motive in its choice of inhabitants: the baby is the child of the girl the exorcist has had a crush on since high school.  

After (finally!) finishing "The Exorcist: A Love Story," I went back and started from the beginning of the book.  "Looker" was odd.  I honestly didn't get what was going on in "The Radejastians" (although that was the point where I felt like I really should have read the Lovecraft book I have before reading this).  "The Summer Worms" was super creepy (although that may also be because I have seen army worms and the thought of them congregating on a house and cocooning it is really creepy!)  "Basements" was another one that was weird and I didn't really understand it at all.  I liked a lot of the middle of it, but the beginning and end were weird and vague.  Who was the company?  Who or what was Mr. Nu?  These are questions I cannot answer.  "Oops" was a short one that was a bit weird, but okay.  Same with "Black Hen a la Ford."  Oh, and "Orlok."  I didn't really care for it unfortunately.  :(

Now on to the (other) awesome stories!

"Knife Fight" was pure awesome.  A mayor of a city (which may be based off of a rather infamous Toronto mayor) has a Fight Club with knives.  Battles go to the first blood.  Winner takes all.  His advisors and staff are made or broken in the fights (which ends with them losing their jobs - no one dies or anything).  The press gets wind of these fights, and one journalist challenges the mayor.  They end up fighting an epic, multi-week battle with no clear winner or loser.  It's quite the fantastic story.

"Love Means Forever" was a really powerful story.  A woman awakens from cryogenic sleep to find the man she loves no longer loves her.  The medical support staff who remained awake on the ship had gone crazy and ended up removing their feelings (it reminded me of Equilibrium quite a bit).  So she has to decide what she will do: move on, or remain with the man she loves, even knowing he isn't capable of loving her back.  (By the way, there's a scalpel fight in this story.  No details, but it made me laugh that another knife fight definitely happened).

"Wylde's Kingdom" was another really good read.  There's a super storm over the world called Atlantica (think of it like Jupiter's big red spot).  A man named Jerry Wylde has a boat in the middle of it (well, hanging out away from the storm).  He started a TV show with Max (who he insisted on calling Jim), who goes into crazy scenarios and survives (which really means killing a whole bunch of animals).  But Max ran away several years ago and wanted to be left in peace as the world ended.  But such was not to be; Jerry Wylde has tracked him down for a big comeback special - Max versus a whole nest of Kraken!  Max resigns himself to the show.  All seems set for the greatest comeback of all time...until they realize the Kraken are much more organized than they have any right to be.

"The Nothing Book of the Dead" was really interesting.  It was written as notes back and forth between a woman and her grandson.  But then the woman dies...but keeps correcting his grammar and writing him notes...this one was definitely worth the read!

"Drakeela Must Die" was a rather fun story.  There's a vampire in a kindergarten class, and some of his classmates have taken it upon themselves to vanquish him like they've seen it done in the old movies.  

So that, in brief, is Knife Fight.  It's an interesting collection of stories.  Like Peter Watts says, most of them are horror, in the broadest definition possible.  But Nickle is not limited to that genre, capable of writing other things as well ("Love Means Forever" is definitely sci fi, not a typical supernatural horror). There's no hack and slash stuff, which I really liked (I much prefer when things are left up to your imagination anyway, even though that's not really applicable here because there was no gore, implied or otherwise).  I do wish I hadn't put this off for so long.  But I wish even more that I had read some Lovecraft first.  So I'll probably be getting to that Lovecraft book I have sooner rather than later.

The Jungle Book

So I inadvertently read my first book of short stories this year.  I had no idea that The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling was a collection of short stories; I totally thought it was one novel about Mowgli's adventures, much like how the Disney movie presents it.  But no, there are several stories and poems about Mowgli, then it moves to tales of other animals (I was really confused when that happened too because the book went from talking about the jungle to talking about seals!)

Mowgli is a little boy from India who is raised by wolves.  He is accepted by the Free People (the wolves) when Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther vouch for him (Bagheera provides the wolves with a fresh kill of meat in exchange for Mowgli's acceptance as vouched for by him).  Shere Khan, the tiger, is not at all pleased with this; Mowgli's adopted wolf parents stopped him from killing the man cub, and now his acceptance with the rest of the Free People further stops him.  So Mowgli grows up with the wolves and under the guidance of Baloo and Bagheera.

The stories about Mowgli do have a bit of an arc - they end when Mowgli has killed Shere Khan.  Although there is one story involving monkeys where Shere Khan doesn't appear.  This is where Kaa is introduced though (and unlike in the Disney movie, Kaa helps everyone save Mowgli; he does not try to eat the man cub).

From there, there is a story about Kotick, the white seal.  Kotick sees some of his fellow seals being slaughtered by seal-hunters.  So he spends many years first looking for a safe place for his people to live without fear of man, and later trying to convince his people to come with him. (they didn't want to change their ways.  For the most part they ignored the fact that people would come and kill them off by the hundreds while they were nesting).  It was an interesting story once I got over the fact that Mowgli wasn't going to appear.

Next was the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the mongoose.  I actually knew this story from when I was younger (we had a VHS version of the story which was almost exactly the same story as was written by Kipling).  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is saved from drowning by an English family.  He then saves all of them from some snakes, most notably ridding the garden of the cobras Nag and Nagaina.

This was followed by Toomai of the Elephants, which was the story of a little boy who saw the elephants dance.  His family helped to catch wild elephants.  During this time he caught the attention of the English leader of the expedition, who told him he could join them when he saw the elephants dance (which was basically like saying "never").  But then that night his family's elephant breaks out of the picket and takes the boy with him (Little Toomai tells the elephant to bring him) to a clearing where many wild elephants (and a few other picketed elephants) join them.  They return to camp the next day where the boy regales everyone with his story (and trackers later verify is true because they find the clearing with many elephant tracks).

The last story was "Her Majesty's Servants."  This was a really weird one, where some animals of a camp are talking and some human overhears them (unknown to the animals, he can totally understand them all).  They talk about cowardice and how to fight, which is different for every animal.  Then at the end of it all they parade for a visiting Afghanistan Chief.  This was honestly my least favourite.

All of these were broken up by various poems and songs.  Some of them pertained to the different stories (like one gave the whole song that a mother sang to her child; only one part of it appeared in the actual story).

I remember hearing that Kipling had fallen out of favour because of the way he portrayed things (basically he's got a colonial narrative going through these stories showing how great Englishmen are).  I have to say, I was expecting it to be a lot worse than it was.  If you want to see a ridiculous colonial narrative, try reading Tarzan of the Apes.

So that, in a nutshell, was The Jungle Book.  There wasn't a lot of characterization happening because the actual book seemed rather didactic in tone (and for some reason older didactic literature seems to be all about the lessons and morals, rather than placing a moral into a well-crafted story).  I found it an interesting read to see what was done (and how the actual book differs from the story I was expecting thanks to Disney) but it wasn't an overly enjoyable read because of its purpose and tone. 

Close Encounters

A work friend lent me local author Sharon Irvine's newest book, Close Encounters.  Sharon Irvine has published poetry before, but I believe this is her first book of short stories.  There are 15 stories in total, following a variety of people as they deal with relationships made out of chance circumstances.

The collection opens with "Road Kill," a story about two people travelling the Trans-Canada Highway between Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay.  The keep running into one another as they stop along the drive.  But their encounters escalate to tragic consequences.  I really noticed the rather poetic descriptions in this story (which isn't surprising - Irvine is a poet).

Next was "Einstein: A Sighting."  This was a cute story about inquisitive children.  The narrator was given the only bed left in the hospital, which was in the children's ward.  There she makes some new, younger friends who are curious about the gastric tube she had inserted to clear a blockage.

"Anna" was an interesting (but unfortunately predictable) story about an elderly lady who became friends with the narrator.  The elderly lady, Anna, is a fiercely independent woman who takes care of her pet friends (who are all named after literary figures).  When Anna breaks her hip, her children want her to move into a home closer to them, which means the fiercely independent woman will have to give up her entire life in Thunder Bay.

"Turkeys 0, Beavers 6" is about a farming family who go out to deal with a beaver dam.  The beavers keep rebuilding their dam, flooding the family's best farming field.  This was the first story where the narrator was noticeably different; rather than a middle-aged woman, this story was told by a younger boy.

I didn't really like "In the Waiting Room."  This was a story about the different people who come into the waiting room of the cancer centre.  The end was really unemotional and unattached, which seemed kind of odd with a story like this.

"Dead Dreams" made me particularly mad.  It involves a veterinarian (a man, making this another story that stood out due to the difference in narrator) and his alcoholic wife.  His wife has diabetes, presumably Type 1 (although she may have been a Type 2 who was insulin-dependent).  The husband finds out that she has been having an affair on him; she ends up dying in a hotel room from insulin-overdose while he is off with friends.  My issue with this story is that contrary to the author's repeated pronouncement that alcohol raises blood sugar levels, it actually lowers them.  So if you were drinking something like vodka or gin straight, you need to eat something to avoid going low.  The wife in this story is drinking gin and orange juice.  In this case, she would need some insulin to deal with the orange juice, not the gin.  So she should not have been pumping herself full of insulin (she actually uses like whole vials!!!  It's crazy!!!!)  Because of this knowledge (I myself have Type 1 diabetes), I had a really hard time with this story.

"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Swimmer" was a weird tale.  I think it was about the crazy things your brain does while bored (in this case while swimming).  But the end made it seem like all the craziness actually happened, so I'm not really sure what to make of this story.

"No Exit" was about an elderly couple who end up taking care of their grandson while his mother gets her life back on track.  It was a pretty heart-wrenching tale.  Other than the expository dump at the beginning, I really liked it.

"Second Chance" was a story about a woman who got stuck taking care of her younger, mentally handicapped brother.  She dreams about having a life free from him, but couldn't bear to leave him alone in a home.

"The Tunnel" was a story about two girls who travel to Norway to bike.  One of them is claustrophobic and gets scared of a tunnel through a mountain.  They make it through just to be confronted with another one.

"Detour" is the story about a young man who grapples with the realization he has to take over the family now that his father has passed away. This story wasn't really anything special because it seemed kind of too similar (at least in themes) to "Second Chance."

"Close Encounters" is about a teacher who teaches a "special" group of boys (most of them are in trouble with the law).  One of her students tries to kill her after she sends him to the office for not doing his school work (he will lose his car and pass to go to school).

"Sisters" was a story about two elderly sisters who are complete opposites.  But that doesn't stop them from coming together to save a puppy who was cruelly thrown into the river to die.

"The Grief Tourist" is about a mysterious lady who keeps showing up at funerals.  Another woman recognizes the lady, and so sets out to discover who she is and why she keeps seeing her at funerals.

The final story, "Lost," was probably the best story of the entire collection.  It's about an elderly woman dealing with dementia.  She uses post-its to remember everything.  She picks up her mentally-handicapped daughter to go to church, but on the way home doesn't recognize their stop.  She stays on the bus while her daughter goes for help.

So those were the fifteen stories of this collection.  I noticed that a lot of the stories revolve around death and the aftermath of death.  I guess that's because death changes things in your life unexpectedly, often in ways you cannot control. Overall, I thought these stories were okay.  Unfortunately in a lot of cases it felt like the stories ended rather prematurely, which was a real shame; had they gone further, I think they would have all been much stronger.

Fragile Things

I'm really not sure why it took me so long to read this book. I've had it for quite some time, probably about a year now. I didn't read it because I wanted to save it. For what, I'm really not sure. So just before Christmas, I decided I was saving it for now.

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. I find his work fantastic, be it novels, short stories, poems or comics. Fragile Things was no exception. Most of the stories and poems were fantastc reads (that may have partially accounted for why it took me so long to read this book; I would finish reading a story, and then want to savour it).

I was talking to a friend about Fragile Things, and he said he didn't like it as much as Gaiman's last short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors. I don't exactly agree with that sentiment. They are different books with different feels to them, but they were both great. Both had some wonderful tales in them that are worth savouring. And both had poetry that I absolutely loved (The Day the Saucers Came was a particularly fun read. I'll have to try reading it out loud one day to see Gaiman is right and the poem becomes much funnier).

I also really liked reading both the introduction and the bonus interview with Gaiman that was included at the end of the book. The introduction is neat, as it explains why he wrote what he did, what inspired him, and random other facts that he thought were important (apparently the word yeti means that thing over there. I'l have to look this up later to see if it is true). Gaiman also spontaneously breaks into another story in the middle of his introductions (this was true in Smoke and Mirrors and it is true here as well). The conversation with Gaiman at the end of the book was just an enjoyable read in which Gaiman shared some facts about himself.

Fragile Things is a great read when you want something light, or something that you want a story in its entirety in just a few pages, rather than reading a novel. I thought it was a fantastic read, and I'm glad it didn't take me forever the way my last anthology escapade did.