Cats Are Weird And More Observations, a cat book by Jeffrey Brown

Cats are weird, but their weirdness is something that tends to draw a lot of interest from readers and writers.  The author of this book, who has written quite a few graphic novels on a variety of subjects (including more than half a dozen books on Star Wars, reviews forthcoming on six of them), has managed to write a series of comic reflections that show cats in all of their fierce cuteness in ways that many readers will be able to appreciate whether or not they happen to have cats themselves.   Although the author claims not to have any cats at present, it is obvious that he has been a keen observer of cats and likely had enough cats in the past to record their actions in compelling fashion.  As there are many people who have cats and many more people who find books about cats to be entertaining (I belong in the latter category, of course), this book can be expected to find a wide and appreciative readership, especially since there is no shortage of books for cat lovers to enjoy and no shortage of enjoyment that one can find from books like this one.

Coming in at a bit more than 100 pages, this book is organized where each page can have up to nine frames that allow for some sort of short comic vignette of an example of strange cat behavior.  In this book we see how cats multiply, how they are named, how they enjoy hunting birds and squirrels and and bugs and mice, not always to human appreciation, how they do not always land on their feet, how they find the most unusual places on furniture to sleep on, and how they do not always clean up themselves in the most obvious of ways.  At times the author jokes about absorbent kitties or shows cats fiercely messing around with piles of dead leaves on the yard, or shows the strange locations of a cat’s center of gravity or how cats can mess up a new set of blinds in no time at all.  One dryly humorous cartoon shows a cat voluntarily using a pet carrier as a place for a nap, while others show cats defending the food bowl or fighting over couch space, all of which are very plausible ways for cats to spend time without any exaggeration necessary.

Why is it that we find cats so weird but so enjoyable to be around?  As someone who has only rarely had cats for pets (during my childhood), but who has watched their behavior wherever I have seen them, I can testify that cats are in many ways very entertaining animals.  The way that they play with mice or other rodents and try to show their worth through their hunting abilities reminds us of the predatory aspects of our own nature, which is not always pleasant to think about but is certainly worth being reminded of from time to time.  The way that cats sleep all the time makes human beings, whose lives are often filled far more often with work than play, a bit jealous, and it is easy for those who really like cats to imagine themselves resting just as often and just as peacefully.  There are other ways, though, that the weirdness of cats is a reflection of our own weirdness as human beings.  If cats were able to better explain the rationale behind their actions, we might not find them so different from ourselves after all, especially given that cats and human beings often show the same sort of schizoid approach to love and other matters, not sure whether to embrace or to fight what others are interested in.