(no subject)

[skygiants]

The only reason I remember reading The Alchemist's Cat as a child is because at some point my picture was in a local paper for something or other with the caption 'Rebecca [Lastname], reading her favorite book.' The book was The Alchemist's Cat and I was INCREDIBLY indignant because it wasn't my favorite book, it was just the book I happened to be reading at that time, I didn't even like it that much, it was weird and depressing, WHAT WAS THIS JOURNALISTIC INACCURACY. >:( And that is when I lost my faith in the press.

Anyway! Yesterday, I started rereading The Alchemist's Cat, a middle-grade historical fiction novel about intelligent kittens.

In the first chapter, a lady cat bangs the (cat) devil (I think? He never appears again but it's STRONGLY IMPLIED.)

In the second chapter, the human protagonist's whole family dies of the plague; then his guardian is murdered; then he's framed for the murder and pressed into slavery by an evil alchemist.

In the fourth chapter, the lady cat, starving and alone, finally gives birth, and then the cat midwife (there are cat midwives apparently) tries to eat the runtiest kitten.


Middle-grade was dark in the nineties!

The Alchemist's Cat basically has two parallel plots. The A-plot is about our human protagonist Will and his adventures trying to escape from his evil alchemist boss. This actually ends reasonably well (for Will) after Will teams up with an ex-prostitute lady doctor whom, it is heavily implied, hangs out at the alchemist's in order to get herbs for abortificants, and then when the plague hits again starts cross-dressing as a plague doctor. Molly is pretty great.

The B-plot is basically Flowers in the Attic with kittens and it is MESSED UP. OK, there is no incest, but the (Satanic?) kittens are trapped in the alchemist's attic after Will rescues them, and they grow up completely warped and insular and never see the outside. The alchemist hates the runtiest kitten and kicks him all the time but loves the biggest and strongest of the kittens, and decides that he's going to make him his familiar and TEACH HIM ALL HE KNOWS.

(Bear in mind that nobody knows that cats are as intelligent as people in this universe. As far as the alchemist is aware, this is just a cat. I guess some people get that way about their animals.)

Anyway, so the big strong kitten hero-worships the alchemist and learns magic and constantly uses it to torment the angry runty kitten, so of course the runty kitten grows up to be eeeeeevil because that's what inevitably happens to victims of abuse, right? Right? Especially if they're born runty and ugly!

The third kitten is a girl and basically spends all her time being like 'I WILL TURN THIS ATTIC AROUND' at her brothers, until the alchemist decides, unbeknownst to her brothers, to DISSECT HER AND PUT HER IN A BOTTLE.

(Their mother hangs out with them for a while, but then she escapes and is promptly KILLED BY AN ANGRY MOB.)

Then the alchemist brings home a ghost in a jar to try and make him tell him about the Philosopher's Stone. The undead ghost tells the runty kitten that only one member of a family can ever do magic, so if he wants to become super-powerful, he'll have to kill his brother, and the runty kitten is like yesssss tell me moooooooore.

In the THRILLING CONCLUSION, the alchemist almost dies of plague that he got from hugging a rat (which was all part of the ghost in the jar's evil plan), but then Will and the magical kitten save him, BUT THEN the magical kitten finds out that the alchemist dissected his sister and they get in a huge knock-down magical battle!

Let me reiterate: the alchemist gets in a huge knock-down magical battle WITH HIS PET KITTEN.

At this point the ghost in a jar convinces the runty kitten to raise his zombie body from the dead, and he careens into the fray like 'YOOOOOOO,' and then everything catches on fire, and the zombie ghost is like 'shit why DID I think being alive again was a great plan! This is a terrible plan! COME TO ME AGAIN SWEET OBLIVION,' and he drags the alchemist into the fire to burn alive with him!

(Will, meanwhile, is pretty much out of here at the first sign of the zombie, and WHO CAN BLAME HIM. Run, Will! Run like the wind!)

Meanwhile, the magical kitten saves the runty kitten from the fire, and then he's hanging dramatically off the building by one paw, and he's like 'SAVE ME, MY RUNTY BROTHER' and the evil runty brother is like 'LOL NO' and pushes him off, and the magical kitten shouts his brother's name despairingly in allcaps as he falls into the flames!!!

Apparently this is some kind of prequel to another middle-grade series Robin Jarvis wrote in which the evil runty kitten is the ultimate lord of evil and is defeated by plucky mice? I never read those as a child. Just the middle-grade book where ONE KITTEN SHOVES ANOTHER KITTEN INTO THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON AND THEN CACKLES OFF INTO THE NIGHT.

Comments

[loligo]

Holy crap I was so confused! I was reading this summary and thinking, "I always meant to read that book... but people made it sound so cute! They even made a cartoon of it! How did I get it so wrong? And where's the Judaism, I thought there was supposed to be a rabbi?..."

That's when it hit me. THE RABBI'S CAT. Not the alchemist's!

TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

[skygiants]

The Rabbi's Cat is in fact often super cute! I mean, occasionally quite odd and dark in its own way, it is not nonstop sparkles, but NOT LIKE THIS.

[sovay]

Just the middle-grade book where ONE KITTEN SHOVES ANOTHER KITTEN INTO THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON AND THEN CACKLES OFF INTO THE NIGHT.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK OH MY GOD WHAT.

ALSO, DEAR AUTHOR, YOU FRIDGED BOTH YOUR LADY CATS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

[edit] Apparently this is some kind of prequel to another middle-grace series Robin Jarvis wrote in which the evil runty kitten is the ultimate lord of evil and is defeated by plucky mice?

I have to say the Wikipedia summaries sound like terrifying Redwall crack. I didn't read them as a child, either. What?

[jinian]

the stoat jester Wendel Maculatum

This is okay.

[skygiants]

There's a long part in the middle where it looks like he's going to fridge ALL his female characters. I was frankly amazed when at the end Molly popped up out of the plague house she'd disappeared into for a year of saintly fallen woman doctor martyrdom, completely unharmed, and was like 'HEY WILL I'M FINE, LET'S BLOW THIS PLAGUE-RIDDEN JOINT!' The book about humans is a much better book than the book about cats.

...that said, I am really, really fatally tempted to read the other books in the Deptford Histories series just to see.

[rachelmanija]

Into this twilight realm wanders a small and frightened mouse. Far from family and friends he perishes

That is an ENTIRE BOOK.

[tree_and_leaf]

I read one of them and decided that it was too depressing yet cracky to bother with, I think.

[kalloway]

A quick google search just proved that this book comes with something like a half-dozen downright terrifying covers and even if I wanted to read it, which I don't, I couldn't deal with the awful cover art.

[skygiants]

I had the one with the cartoony orange cat and the horrific blue ghost! Ah, yes, I remember it well.

[kore]

holy crap the whole series is like nightmare fuel http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BHDOuKqLL.jpg

[jinian]

What the SHIT.

[skygiants]

The only thing left in my memories from my first childhood read (aside from the related indignation) was a sense of VAGUE BUT PROFOUND HORROR.

[ambyr]

...what.

[kore]

The comments are all going to be horrified variations on what. WHAT? what WHAT. what

[kore]

basically Flowers in the Attic with kittens

I whaaaaaaaaaaaa

Let me reiterate: the alchemist gets in a huge knock-down magical battle WITH HIS PET KITTEN.

....I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming that I'm reading your blog and this is a really trippy nightmare. -- No?

[skygiants]

The kitten, I should explain, has by this point revealed that he can use magic to talk, so they're also screaming insults at each other throughout this whole thing.

[jothra]

I thought this was going to be a post about a cute short story I remember, about an alchemist and his daughter who own a cat named Quincunx.

I WAS WRONG. WTF.

[sovay]

a cute short story I remember, about an alchemist and his daughter who own a cat named Quincunx.

As I desperately attempt to change the topic, that sounds like Anne Braude's "The Quincunx Solution" from Andre Norton's Catfantatic IV (1996).

[pedanther]

Younger me decided to give the Deptford Histories a miss, for reasons I don't now recall.

Good going, younger me. I owe you one.

[skygiants]

OUR YOUNGER SELVES MADE ACE CHOICES

[st_aurafina]

Whaaaaaaat. That is some freaky 90's weirdness.

[skygiants]

The nineties were a ... a magical time, all right.

[lacewood]

I'm sorry, I can think of no better reaction than, maybe, POPCORN.GIF

So are you reading the sequels. ARE YOU?

[skygiants]

I. I MIGHT BE. I'M NOT PROMISING ANYTHING.

[rachelmanija]

You know, I was reading this review and thinking, "Yikes! This sounds nearly as inappropriately horrifying as those gruesome Robin Jarvis books that I thankfully never read, but have heard are the darkest middle grade books ever."

And then I got to… Robin Jarvis!

At least there aren't two of him?

[sovay]

that I thankfully never read, but have heard are the darkest middle grade books ever.

I believe it. My previous nominee for that honor was Michael di Larrabeiti's Borrible trilogy—The Borribles (1976), The Borribles Go for Broke (1981), and The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis (1986). They're an incredibly weird, violent, class-angry variation on the Peter Pan mythos: Borribles are runaway children who have successfully stayed alive for so long on the streets of London that they cease to be human; their ears become pointed; they are functionally immortal unless killed or their ears are clipped, which causes them to revert to ordinary childhood; they live in feral colonies and have to earn names for themselves through some grand adventure of cleverness or bravery or both. The first book contains a really nasty send-up of a popular British children's TV show which I only learned about after the fact because I didn't grow up in the UK in the '70's. The last book is pretty much a dystopia despite being technically set in the interstices of our world. I remember not actually liking the books when I had finished with them, but I was impressed by what they did. I still have my copies; I feel vaguely as though I might have to prove that I didn't fever-dream them sometime.

[vass]

...and then Robin Jarvis grew up to be bloodrizer. Or possibly bloodrizer read these books at a formative age.

[skygiants]

I do not know what is a bloodrizer! :O

[brownbetty]

I kind of knew it wasn't what was happening, but the runty kitten seemed so obviously the protagonist that I kept on reading it that way until he fell into the fire, and it was kind of jarring!

[alias_sqbr]

Me too!

[ashen_key]

I remember this book.







Why, why do I remember this book. I remember being so creeped out and cross at it.

[skygiants]

I AM SO SORRY

[genarti]

......................Wow.

[skygiants]

I don't have anyone else to blame for this one, I did it to myself.

[libitina]

Well, at least you still have documentation that this was your favoritest book ever.

Wow.

[skygiants]

YOU CAN SEE WHY I WAS CONCERNED ABOUT THIS BRANDING.