Another Insane Devotion: On the Love of Cats and Persons
By: Peter Trachtenberg / Narrated By: Joe Geoffrey
Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
Love. Life. Cats. Very good, but Peter is, quite possibly, a jerk…
Which does NOT mean that I didn’t like the book or that I regretted any of the time I was spending as I listened to it. It’s just that, usually with a memoir, I’m quite “into” the person who’s doing the telling, am wanting the best for them, am hanging on their every word.
Well, while I was doing all the hanging onto words, I began noticing, partway through the narrative, that some of those words were quite jerky indeed.
Lemme first say that Another Insane Devotion is about that phone call every absent pet owner dreads: You’re a gazillion miles away from home and your pet has gone missing. Here, it’s Peter and his wife’s cat, Biscuit. This starts Peter contemplating his life with beloved cats, his life with lesser-loved women, particularly “F”, his current wife.
There’s much poetry and philosophizing in his writing. There are looks back into how cats were viewed during different historical periods. There’s some thought given to what our relationships with other human beings might mean. And it’s all very well written, and there’s a lot of humor in it.
But I dunno, there were a few, admittedly JUST a few, things that ‘bout near knocked me over. The guy simply canNOT think of women as anything but possibly bed fellows. He has a terrible headache, is worried and in the Emergency Room, and what does he think when a doctor comes in to see him? She’s hot, and he can’t stop staring at her breasts. He’s sitting in a public place, worried about his cat, looks up to see that on TV a political debate is going on. One of the candidates is a woman, and what does he think? She’s really attractive, and oh gosh: Are her lips moving? Is she saying something?
I know, I know. Maybe, no, I’m DEFINITELY being hypersensitive, and maybe it’s cuz the times, they are a-changin’, and all that, so maybe I’m just a little bit more aware of it. But it really stuck in my craw. A bit. Obviously.
Okay, so that’s my ooonly rant about this book. Joe Geoffrey turns in a jolly decent performance. He has a nice, deeper-than-the-norm voice with very warm tones. Almost avuncular (Which REALLY made the: the wife isn’t around, you’re here, I’m here, hey, ya-wanna-go-to-bed comments sprinkled throughout quite jarring indeed). But at least the warmth in his voice kept me from wanting to throttle him, and it really, really made his affection for Biscuit, with all her stories in tow, worthwhile.
7 hours and 1 minute? Not a waste of time. A bit of an abrupt ending, sweet yet bitterly so, and it rambles a tad. But all in all, a life lived in cats.
And failed relationships… no wonder the guy comes off as desperate…
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