Just Finished Reading: Cat by Katherine M Rogers (FP: 2006)

It’s nice to have a change of pace from time to time. After reading a collection of sometimes rather heavy political discourse a book about the cultural history and significance of cats is just what the vet ordered.

Cat have been around for a very long time but it wasn’t (apparently) until they wandered into the houses and fields of Ancient Egyptians and proved their worth as mouse catchers that they started on their road to semi-domestication. It wasn’t long before the Egyptians saw in their cats what we see today – their independence of or, if you want to look at it that way, indifference to the human world. Their seeming aloofness, as if they understood far more than normal creatures, intrigued their owners and they started attributing abilities – often of a supernatural nature – that have been associated with felines ever since. It comes as no surprise to any cat owner (and I use the word owner in its most general sense) that the Egyptians eventually came to worship these often otherworldly creatures and treated their deaths with the same reverence as they did with human death. As they spread from Egypt to Greece and then to Rome they became increasingly popular but paradoxically less revered. By the time of the Fall of Rome and throughout the Middle Ages cats became the pets of the poor, the underprivileged and the outsider. Again it comes as no surprise that they became linked with the supernatural dark forces that seemed to trouble the world so much. Cats often became fair game in any hunt for the causes of disease, death or unexpected events – ironically the killing of cats in the time of plague probably helped the Black Death to spread much faster than it might otherwise have done.

It is only in relatively modern times that cats have regained their revered status – although not in all sections of society as some hold them responsible for the wholesale slaughter of wild rodents and birds. Cats as purely pets – rather than mouse/rat catchers – only really came back into fashion with the great migration to urban centres. Cats eventually equalled and then arguably exceeded dogs in their inherent appeal though dogs remained the favourite companion of men whilst, generally at least, women preferred cats. There are now millions of house cats happily living their still semi-domesticated lives in residences across the globe. Unlike the normally loyal and faithful dog they seem to have retained more of their natural wild nature as largely nocturnal hunters. Their solitary predatory nature still defines them after thousands of years within human settlements. Maybe one day they’ll become fully domesticated though, I would argue, they would no longer be truly cat like at that point.

The author lavishes her attention on probably my favourite creature on the planet. With a host of drawings and paintings from across the world this is a delightful little book and should give any cat lover hours of pleasure. This is turning out to be a fascinating series of books (having read ‘Wolf’ a while back) looking at the cultural side of animals that we probably take for granted or completely ignore. Definitely more of this series to come. Recommended.