In honor of National Cat Day, we present the foreword to “The Big New Yorker Book of Cats,” recently published by Random House:
An extended essay by Anthony Lane, about cats, the New Yorker, the book, writers and such interconnected matters.
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| Patience, One of the Two New York Public Library's Humanities Research Library's Lions |
.... Most contributors report, as faithfully as can be, from the front line where the genus Felis collides—and, if we are dumb enough to kid ourselves, colludes—with Homo sapiens. Why settle for the petting zoo of our homes, though, when there are genuine zoos to explore? And how can I complain about my angry puss, no larger than a leg of lamb, when Panthera tigris tigris, the Bengal tiger, is on the prowl? This fellow is best seen, preferably from a distance, as a director’s cut of my cats. Extended features include sunset-colored fur, an average male weight of around five hundred pounds, and, one presumes, the ability to resolve the issue of a tiresome poodle by treating it as a pretzel. Habitats include India, Bangladesh, Nepal, the heavenly kingdom of Bhutan, and Jackson, New Jersey. This cat is hep, and he’s here. And he’s not alone. Susan Orlean, in a probing chronicle of 2002, explained a familiar problem:
"You know how it is—you start with one tiger, then you get another and another, then a few are born and a few die, and you start to lose track of details like exactly how many tigers you actually have."
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| Bengal Tiger Cools Off |
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