Honey, I Killed the Cats

Before anyone freaks out, the title of this blog entry is simply the title of the latest book I’ve been reading, and I wanted to talk about it. Needless to say, there might be spoilers ahead. I’ll try to be discreet, but it’s easy to slip up inadvertently.

Honey, I Killed the Cats was written by Dorota Masłowska. It’s the first thing I’ve read by her, but she’s apparently written several books already and is popular not only in her native Poland, but internationally.

Now, about the book itself, I’m still trying to decide whether I liked it or not. I think I did. Yes, I did. However, I got pretty confused at times. I didn’t enjoy that. Having said that, I think that confusion is part of the point of the book. It’s meant to be chaotic. It’s a picture of shallow, modern life and the exhibitionism that goes with it. It’s fear of missing out, but seen from within, where everything is a vortex that makes you lose sight of the big picture.

The characters are looking, looking, looking but never quite finding. They start the book seemingly in control of what they want, but as the story progresses you realise (they don’t) that their search is their whole life.

There were some amazing descriptions (she was made almost entirely of faults; [speaking about a restaurant] they didn’t import the meat from a farm outside of Portland where the animals were allowed to have a tape decks in their room and the right to speak to a psychologist before they die; I love taking the subway. It makes me feel something on the border between religion and sex. Which allegedly don’t share a border at all) that feel apt for the subject matter and the book: they’re disjointed and punk-infused, and they make you chuckle and cringe at the same time.

The whole world is extreme, and that is part of my problem with it. When it’s right, it’s thoroughly good. When the plot goes all over the place, my interest goes right with it. Chaos is fine, but not when readers are so caught up in it that they don’t know what’s going on. Or, rather, chaos is fine for a bit -it’s a wonderful stylistic tool-, but after a while it gets dizzying. Not the nice kind of dizzy either.

And now the inevitable question: would I recommend it? Sure I would. It’s got enough in it to keep you intrigued. The premise is good, even if the execution isn’t always to my taste.