The Eye of the Tiger

In the magnificent story, Life of Pi, author Yann Martel tells of a boy shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He’s not alone, however - a 450-pound Bengal tiger is shipwrecked with him.

Immediately you can tell that this story is no ordinary story - what circumstances would allow a boy and a tiger to survive on a lifeboat in the ocean for 225 days, together? A question that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the deep blue sea of thought this story encompasses. I’m ready to pick the book up and start reading it all over again - and I just finished it hours ago.

Yet on that surface, it’s full of remarkably detailed and distinctly specific information about cat behavior - what I like to call “cat-ness.”  I petted my two tiger cats repeatedly while reading … as they slept beside me, purring (tigers, by the way only purr while breathing out, not breathing in, like domestic kitties do), meowing, snarling, crying for food…

…making eye contact with me, laying with their bellies on the cool floor, panting, puking, hunting bugs in the windows, marking their territory, constantly reminding themwho’s Number One (that’s me, of course - but you’d never know it with my two tigers).

All in all, Life of Pi is a very good read - for all the cool tidbits of tiger cat-ness as well as for the meaning the presence of a tiger in the story represents.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

July 16th, 2009 by Janet Muniz | Posted in Cat Behavior, Cat Stories | (0)