In 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 ...
Read More
In 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.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $12.56, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $12.56, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $12.58, good condition, Sold by Blue Vase Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Interlochen, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $13.24, good condition, Sold by Friends Tucson rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tucson, AZ, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Paperback. NOT Ex-library. Good condition. Slight edgewear and bumping. Clean pages and tight binding. Until further notice, USPS Priority Mail only reliable option for Hawaii. Proceeds benefit the Pima County Public Library system, which serves Tucson and southern Arizona.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $70.52, new condition, Sold by Just one more Chapter rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Miramar, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $16.50, good condition, Sold by Montclair Book Center rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Montclair, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $17.00, very good condition, Sold by Books End Bookshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from SYRACUSE, NY, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions.
Add this copy of Garden of Departed Cats Pa to cart. $20.06, new condition, Sold by indoo rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Avenel, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Add this copy of The Garden of the Departed Cats to cart. $37.95, new condition, Sold by Russell Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Victoria, BC, CANADA, published 2004 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
