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The Rabbi's Cat
May. 31st, 2006 09:57 pmI've been reading the first two volumes of Le Chat du Rabbin, by Joann Sfar. Somewhere in North Africa, sometime in the past (apparently Algeria, in the early twentieth century, though I can't tell whether this is evident to a better informed reader, or whether it is so simply because that is the background of the family tradition that Sfar weaves into his tale) there live a rabbi, his beautiful daughter, and their cat. Sfar does in his graphic novel what Claudia Roden does in her cook books: he combines instruction about Sephardic life and belief with nostalgia for a lost Eden.
The simplicity of the drawing, the warmth of the colours, the affection of the characterisation, all these cast a golden glow over the narrative: yet it avoids sentimentality. It helps that the point of view, and the narrative voice, is that of the cat, who is an entirely believable cat (I won't spoil the story by revealing just how he gains the power of speech). Here's a taster, the text of the first six panels, the first page:
The Jews aren't too fond of dogs.
Dogs bite, they chase you, they bark.
And the Jews have been bitten, chased, barked at for so long that they have ended up preferring cats.
Well, I don't know about other Jews, but that's what my master says.
I am the Rabbi's cat.
( Cut for image: I don't disturb him when he is reading. )
What is it that makes this irresistible? I suppose, as always, it's the voice.
There is a translation available, which brings together the four volumes of the original: it's from Random House (but the page about it on their web site seems pretty spoilerish to me).
The simplicity of the drawing, the warmth of the colours, the affection of the characterisation, all these cast a golden glow over the narrative: yet it avoids sentimentality. It helps that the point of view, and the narrative voice, is that of the cat, who is an entirely believable cat (I won't spoil the story by revealing just how he gains the power of speech). Here's a taster, the text of the first six panels, the first page:
The Jews aren't too fond of dogs.
Dogs bite, they chase you, they bark.
And the Jews have been bitten, chased, barked at for so long that they have ended up preferring cats.
Well, I don't know about other Jews, but that's what my master says.
I am the Rabbi's cat.
( Cut for image: I don't disturb him when he is reading. )
What is it that makes this irresistible? I suppose, as always, it's the voice.
There is a translation available, which brings together the four volumes of the original: it's from Random House (but the page about it on their web site seems pretty spoilerish to me).
