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The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats
ContentsPreface by Joyce Carol Oates |
Preface by Joyce Carol OatesIt has often been observed that, through the centuries, writers have been drawn to cats above all animals: not simply to loving relationships with them, but to the veneration of them in poetry and prose. Why? I was watching our new, six-month kitten stalking, with excruciating patience, an invisible prey in the grass and tangled vines outside my study window, observing how, in what must seem to him "the wild," Reynard quivered as if charged with electricity: his eyes tawny yellow, ears stiffly alert, head poised and body in a crouch that would enable his muscular little hindlegs to propel him forward onto his prey. There was something touching and comical in such behavior in so young a cat—unless there was something chilling. For, no mistake about it, little Reynard is a born hunter, a true carnivore, and his small jaws are made to tear, crunch, and chew. Fortunately, as his human owner, I am too large to be his prey. After some suspenseful moments, during which time Reynard tremulously advanced upon whatever it was that had excited his hunter's instinct, a real or fancied movement triggered a spring, and he leapt—pouncing on some leaves. I tapped against the windowpane, and he immediately trotted over, tail erect, eyes urgently fixed upon me, tiny mouth opening in a mewing appeal. How swift, the transformation from lethal hunter-carnivore to sweet-natured household pet! Is this a dazzling display of virtuoso "adaptive behavior," or is it a brilliant example of animal hypocrisy? Is it both? Which is the "real" Reynard? Where genetically determined behavior and socialized behavior conflict, which would yield to the other? In the cats with whom many of us live so companionably, the transition from hunter-carnivore to household pet takes place in a matter of seconds; in the history of evolution, it is a matter of millennia. Though it is estimated that dogs first became domesticated approximately twelve thousand years ago, it is estimated that Felis sylvestris (the wildcat) evolved into Felis catus (the domestic cat) only five thousand years ago; the claim that man "domesticated" the cat for his own purposes is surely a flattering myth propagated by cats, for how much more likely that Felis sylvestris "domesticated" man for his purposes. (Can we speculate what those purposes might be?) It is a mystery of evolution that, while all members of the family of Felidae save one are known for their untameability (and their dangerousness), this one member, Felis sylvestris, so happily adapted himself to man. How cunning! How farsighted! Unlike dogs, with whom they are obliged to share human households, cats are creatures unwilling (not unable: unwilling) to do anything against the grain of their desire, even for rewards. Clearly, Felis sylvestris domesticated us because he wished to: because he had a plan. As the great variety of poetry and prose pieces in The Sophisticated Cat suggests, writers have long been fascinated by cats. Male, female, "romantic," coolly skeptical—we are mesmerized by the beautiful wild creatures who long ago chose to domesticate us, and who condescend to live with us, so wonderfully to their advantage; and, of course, to ours. My theory is that the writer senses a deep and profound kinship with the cat: Felis sylvestris in the well-groomed furry cloak and mask of Felis catus. The wildcat is the "real" cat, the soul of the domestic cat; unknowable to human beings, he yet exists inside our household pets, who have long ago seduced us with their seemingly civilized ways. (Yes, and with their beauty, grace, independence, willfulness—the model of what a human being should be.) The writer, like any artist, is inhabited by an unknowable and unpredictable core of being which, by custom, we designate "the imagination" or "the unconscious" (as if naming were the equivalent to knowing, let alone controlling), and so in the accessibility of Felis catus we sense the secret, demonic, wholly inaccessible presence of Felis sylvestris. For like calls out to like, across even the abyss of species. Reviews
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