The Garden of Departed CatsIn an ancient Mediterranean city, a tradition is maintained: every ten years an archaic game of human chess is staged, the players (visitors versus locals) bearing weapons. This archaic game, the central event of The Garden of the Departed Cats, may prove as fatal as the deadly attraction our narrator feels for the local man who is the Vizier, or Captain, of the home team. Their "romance" (which, though inconclusive, magnetizes our protagonist to accept the Vizier's challenge to play) provides the skeletal structure of this experimental novel. Each of their brief interactions works as a single chapter. And interleaved between their chapters are a dozen fable-like stories. The folk tale might concern a 13th-century herbal that identifies a kind of tulip, a "red salamander," which dooms anyone who eats it to never tell a lie ever again. Or the tale might be an ancient story of a terrible stoat-like creature that feeds for years on the body of whomever it sinks its claws into, like guilt. These strange fables work independently of the main narrative but, in curious and unpredictable ways, (and reminiscent of Primo Levi's The Periodic Table), they echo and double its chief themes: love, its recalcitrance, its cat-like finickiness, and its refusal to be rushed. With many strata to mine, The Garden of the Departed Cats is a work of peculiar beauty and strangeness, the whole layered and shiny like a piece of mica. |
From inside the book
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Contents
The Garden of Departed Cats | 1 |
The Man Who Misses His Ride Night After Night | 25 |
A Medieval Monk | 43 |
In Praise of the Fearless Porcupine | 57 |
In Praise of the Crab | 75 |
The Man Walking in the Tunnel | 99 |
Kill Me Master | 115 |
Our Sea | 137 |
RedSalamander | 179 |
Another Peak | 215 |
Where the Tale Also Rips Suddenly | 237 |
Common terms and phrases
acrobat animal Ankara apprentice arrived asked ayran bazaar began blue rose caravanserai climb courtyard crab creatures Cuneyt dark death decided director everything eyes face fairy tale fear inside feel feet felt fish fisherman flower friends front green green rose growing hand head heart hole human inside island knew leaf leaves letter light living looked machines master mayor mind mole monk morning mother mouth move never night noticed palace path perhaps plant poplars porcupine reached red-salamander reed beds returned rock salamanders sandbank Sazandere scientist seemed shore silent silent movie sleep slowly smile soil someone standing staring stood stopped story street suddenly tale talking tell thing thought tightrope told trapeze trees tried truth trying tulip turn voice waiting walked wall wanted watching words young