Cats on the Job by Lisa Rogak

Author:Lisa Rogak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

Writer’s Muse Cat

Writers and cats have long been associated with each other, serving as companion and inspiration. Writers both famous and obscure have worked with cats on their shoulders and laps.

Millions of cats have undoubtedly walked across millions of computer and typewriter keyboards and have teethed on tens of thousands of pens. Cats generally do their best to distract an author from her true calling to allow the designated human can opener to focus on what’s really important: their feline selves.

Luminaries from William S. Burroughs to Anaïs Nin claimed they couldn’t write a word without having at least one cat around, and preferably more. And the descendants of Ernest Hemingway’s polydactyl cats still roam around his Key West property, and probably still at his Cuba residence where it’s estimated that he once shared his home with fifty-seven felines.

The late Edward Gorey was famous for having a house full of cats who occasionally ran roughshod over his desk while he was working. “My cats have influenced me a great deal, but I can say I have no idea what they’re thinking about,” he admitted. “They’re obviously attuned to something we’re not, and there’s something about them that’s utterly remote from people, and I find that kind of nice.”

William S. Burroughs was known for his close relationships with cats, and toward the end of his life penned a free-form book entitled The Cat Inside. He credited his feline companions with much more than inspiration: “My relationship with my cats has saved me from a deadly pervasive ignorance.”

Or maybe they just want a byline or at least coauthor credit after years of serving as muse and inspiration to writers and authors throughout the centuries. In her poem “Miao,” the poet Dilys Laing ruminated on this possibility:

I put down my book, the Meaning of Zen, and see the cat smiling into her fur as she delicately combs it with her rough pink tongue. “Cat, I would lend you this book to study but it appears you have already read it.” She looks up and gives me her full gaze. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she purrs, “I wrote it.”

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