MAKING THE CAT LAUGH - Softcover

Truss

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007355238 ISBN 13: 9780007355235

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2010

Synopsis

One woman's journal of single life on the margins.

A brilliant collection of Lynne Truss’ journalism – recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom. The alternative ‘Bridget Jones’.

For seven long years, starting in ‘The Listener’ in 1988 and continuing in ‘The Times’ and ‘Woman's Journal’, Lynne Truss has been trying to make her cat laugh. It has been an uphill task, which is why she deserves this book, a recognition of outstanding courage in the face of futility. Along the way, 'Margins', 'Single of Life' and 'One Woman's Journal' have collected a band of devoted fans, yet still the cat remains unimpressed.

Never have so many jokes about Kitbits been found in such concentration as in ‘Making the Cat Laugh’. But under the headings such as 'The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesn't Fancy the Hassle' and 'The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad', we discover a writer not only obsessed with cats, but prone to over-reacting generally - to news stories, shopping, passive smoking, Christmas, coupledom, boyfriends, snails, sheds, Andre Agassi, cooking instructions, requests of 'How's the novel going?' and personal remarks of any kind.

About this title

Review:

Making the Cat Laugh collects the various humorous columns that demonstrated just how witty Lynn Truss always was even before she decided to concentrate her formidable intelligence and sharpness on punctuation. Fans of Eats, Shoots & Leaves will recognise the flights of comic invention and exaggeration: what might otherwise be quite conventional pieces about living alone in your 30s with a cat become vivid and original. The self-mockery never becomes self-indulgently masochistic even when she realises, for example, that a friend who had told her to see Batman Returns and remarked that Truss reminds her of Catwoman, is thinking of the batty spinster, not the reborn super-villainous sex-bomb.

There is a visual precision to the jokes here as well as a verbal one--casual remarks about Quentin Tarantino when he was still comparatively obscure have remained accurate and current. This is a collection that passes the standard, but still useful, test for collections of comic journalism: even read in bulk (for example on public transport) it's still funny enough to make you laugh out loud. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

'A small masterpiece of comedy... with abundant close observation, the familiar is made fresh... A continual hoot.' The Times

'Trenchant writing, invigorating valour, and a shrewdly observant wit.' Scotland on Sunday

‘A truly inventive comic writer ... You should not attempt to read Making the Cat Laugh while travelling on public transport’ Irish Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007355238
• ISBN 13: 9780007355235
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224