The Cats by Berton Roueche (1974 - also released under the name Feral)
When I finished reading The Prometheus Crisis, I perused the blurb at the back about other Pan classics on offer at the time this particular book was released (1976). Amongst the titles on offer was The Cats. Here is the blurb
Too many city folk have been turning their cuddly kittens loose when they leave their holiday homes on Long Island. Out in the woods, the cat colony has been growing and changing....They used to prey on rats and birds. Suddenly packs of blood-crazed mutant wildcats, with razor-claws and inch long teeth are attacking homes and humans....
"Very nasty indeed...invites comparisoon with The Birds and it is more terrifying because more believable" TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Wow, how could you bypass such a book. It was a case of straight onto the computer and ordering a second hand copy via ebay - delivery time 1-2 weeks.
The reviews are pretty bad - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1973225.Feral#other_reviews - but what the heck,
Yes, it arrived 2 weeks later and I devoured it in one setting - it is a nice short 137 pages and I could not put it down once I started. There are lots of hints throughout the early part of the book about what is building up in the woods. And it doesn't take too long before the huge cat army comes out to play.
Definitely a wonderful trashy read and one that I would recommend.
Some time later, I was watching Hitchcock's 1963 classic The Birds. I now know where Berton Roueche got his idea to subtly hint at the coming final confrontation throughout the early stages of the book. The Birds has a very similar buildup of suspense with equally subtle hints of bird attacks and telling comments about the birds flocking in the sky. It even has a drunk Irishman ranting about the end of the world and quoting from the Bible. If only Hitchock had stayed alive long enough to read the book and make the movie!!!!
On another note, for some reason I can't get my friends to read my copy of this book. But I did get Quentin re read it - and his comments on Goodreads were not very flattering. In fact, he said it was the worst book he had ever read. Now that's a recommendation if I ever heard one. See https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/61590884-quentin.
When I finished reading The Prometheus Crisis, I perused the blurb at the back about other Pan classics on offer at the time this particular book was released (1976). Amongst the titles on offer was The Cats. Here is the blurb
Too many city folk have been turning their cuddly kittens loose when they leave their holiday homes on Long Island. Out in the woods, the cat colony has been growing and changing....They used to prey on rats and birds. Suddenly packs of blood-crazed mutant wildcats, with razor-claws and inch long teeth are attacking homes and humans....
"Very nasty indeed...invites comparisoon with The Birds and it is more terrifying because more believable" TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Wow, how could you bypass such a book. It was a case of straight onto the computer and ordering a second hand copy via ebay - delivery time 1-2 weeks.
The reviews are pretty bad - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1973225.Feral#other_reviews - but what the heck,
Yes, it arrived 2 weeks later and I devoured it in one setting - it is a nice short 137 pages and I could not put it down once I started. There are lots of hints throughout the early part of the book about what is building up in the woods. And it doesn't take too long before the huge cat army comes out to play.
Definitely a wonderful trashy read and one that I would recommend.
Some time later, I was watching Hitchcock's 1963 classic The Birds. I now know where Berton Roueche got his idea to subtly hint at the coming final confrontation throughout the early stages of the book. The Birds has a very similar buildup of suspense with equally subtle hints of bird attacks and telling comments about the birds flocking in the sky. It even has a drunk Irishman ranting about the end of the world and quoting from the Bible. If only Hitchock had stayed alive long enough to read the book and make the movie!!!!
On another note, for some reason I can't get my friends to read my copy of this book. But I did get Quentin re read it - and his comments on Goodreads were not very flattering. In fact, he said it was the worst book he had ever read. Now that's a recommendation if I ever heard one. See https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/61590884-quentin.
My review on Goodreads:
ReplyDeleteThis is undoubtedly the worst book I have ever read, and could well be the single worst book in existence. It's actually quite repulsive that Goodreads' rating system forces me to bestow it a star. 'Feral' deserves deserves nothing of the sort: zero stars, or perhaps a number of negative stars. Every single aspect of this book is egregious, saved only by the fact that it comes in at a mere 124 pages of oversized font.
I honestly believe that a dim-witted six year old with limited English could have written this abomination. The characters are superficial and without any development. The plot is painfully obvious, not helped by the repeated foreshadowing throughout: "I think it was ... a cat!" "What? A cat!?" "Yes, a cat!" - typical of the profound and multi-dimensional dialogue to be found on basically every page. The ending is predictable, but comes as some relief, much like the ending of a war or a nightmare.
The worst thing is that Berton Roueche is apparently a well-credentialled author, and doesn't seem to have written this book in jest or irony. I think he genuinely believes this rag is a thrilling novella. It really does cast a poor light on his previous employers, as well as the entire state of Missouri, and, frankly, the English language. It is truly peerless in the literary world. The only comparison I can think of is to Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" - but at least Wiseau had the sense to go with the tide and re-brand his anathemic movie as a black comedy. If Roueche could do so post-humously and 44 years post-publication it would bring a lone bright spot to this terrible black mark he has left on the literary world.