Word: cats
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Especially engrossing are Cat's adventures on the road--belting out raunchy songs with a pack of drunken soldiers, murmuring flirtation with Diane, a savvy young barmaid with piercing "triangular" eyes, flinging a hand-grenade which nearly explodes in his face...
DESPITE ITS energetic style, however, Cat's Grin has some problems of structure and voice. Perhaps because of his background as a journalist, Maspero feels compelled to tell all. Jarringly, he departs from Cat's limited point of view to give the reader information which the thirteen-year-old could not possibly perceive...
...traces Cat's every moment--the sparsely narrated action scenes of the book are interrupted by long sections during which Maspero has Cat meditate on what he has learned and who he has become. None of these sections quite rings true--they are too pat and preachy, as in Cat's huffy rejection of the pallid values of his aunt and uncle...
...mediocre translation by Nancy Amphoux does not curb the book's tendency to ramble. Nevertheless Cat's Grin is an evocative novel about a time in history which many French would prefer to forget...
Maspero introduces the book with a quotation from Alice in Wonderland, in which the Cheshire Cat vanishes except for his grin. In the same way, Cat grins on, even as his hope for his family dwindles and he remains alone and cynical, keeping up the empty pretense of being a child...