The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

At 269 pages, Michael Ondaatje's newest novel, The Cat's Table, is reasonably short. As a result, Ondaatje leaves the reader wanting to know more about different characters and plotlines. Isn't that what a good book should do?

So many authors today write what they apparently perceive to be epics and leave no room for a reader's imagination. In 500, 700, 950 pages and more, they share every detail -- past, present and future -- with the reader, leaving little, if anything, to the imagination.

The imagination is what allows intelligent people to disagree at times about parts of a book's plot, to wonder what happens to the characters after the work's final page, to have differing interpretations of an ending.

The imagination is what allows a child to read C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia solely as fantasy. It is what allows that same person, once an adult, to read the same series for biblical themes as well as fantasy. Imagination is what left me grasping for more information, searching the Internet for clues to the meaning of the ending of Audrey Niffenegger's wonderful novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, and to wonder even more about the symbolism, if any, in her adult graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile.

A long book is not necessarily bad anymore than a short one is necessarily good. I've read excellent long books. But I've also read some that could and should have been shorter. I liked Stephen King's 11/22/63, for instance. But I also thought it was excessively long and repetitious. Just as a good reporter is not necessarily a good writer, an author who excels at plot is not necessarily a good writer.

The Cat's Table is not a book I expected to like but ended up thoroughly enjoying. A man named Michael and nicknamed Mynah narrates the story. He recalls a three-week voyage from Sri Lanka to London that he took as an 11-year-old boy along with two other young boys. Aboard the ship, the youngsters were relegated to eat, not at the captain's table, but at the less-desirable "cat's table." While at sea, the youngsters did as many unsupervised little boys might do -- they snooped around, got into trouble and played in places that were off-limits to them -- the ship's upper-class swimming pool, for example.

Along the way, the boys encountered a bizarre group of passengers: a woman who stashed pigeons in her pockets; a botanist; a prisoner escorted in chains; a pretty cousin who sparked Mynah's sexual desires at a time when he likely was entering puberty; a murder at sea; a savvy thief who uses the little boy to crawl through small spaces to steal expensive items from the rooms of first-class guests.

Ondaatje, who also wrote The English Patient, has said he took a similar voyage when he was a lad. Yet, his book includes a disclaimer saying it is not autobiographical. With his own memories for inspiration and his talent for story-telling and writing, Ondaatje has created a book that is believable yet incredible and also restrained. With the last, he has allowed the reader to wonder about his story's unanswered questions and to wish the novel had not ended.