What lay behind this claim? The Brazilian literary press wrote that Martel had stolen the premise for his book from a 99-page novelette, Max e Os Felinos, by the Brazilian writer, Moacyr Scliar. On a superficial look, when one doesn’t bother to read either, it would seem that the Brazilians were right. But, as it turns out, the only similarity is that the main character in both books become shipwrecked and shares his lifeboat with a feline. Even the New York Times got caught up in the tempest in a dinghy. It carried a claim about plagiarism in a front page story, but whoever wrote the piece obviously had never read either book. It contained numerous errors that, no doubt, had to be retracted later on.

Now Lester & Orpen Dennys have published Scliar’s novella in a translation by Eloah F. Giacomelli under the title of Max and the Cats. This little book has three chapters, and each takes place in a different locale. The first finds the "hero" Max as a youth in Germany prior and shortly after Hitler comes to power. The cat in his life there is a stuffed Bengal tiger. The second finds him stranded at sea, with a jaguar as his lifeboat companion. The final chapter is set in Brazil, and feline that haunts him there is an onça, a sinister wildcat living in the jungle above his farm.

The story, simply told, with little exterior description, is in a way about coming-of-age, and is about how Max eventually learns to conquer fear. That is where one finds the depth of the book. Each of the felines represents a sinister, or hostile force in his life, a violent father, Nazism, and menacing neighbour, who is more than he pretends to be.

It is never easy to tell how good a book really is when reading it in translation, for translations have a way of taking on a life of their own. I am venturing to say that judging by the simplicity of the language, it is a fairly accurate translation. Consequently, I am willing to say that Max and The Cats is fun to read, while at the same time confronting us with an unpleasant subject. It tells us that Germans cannot escape from the Nazi past unless they are prepared to confront those that still remain in their midst.

Scliar does so with bizarre fantasy, a certain amount of hilarity and whimsicality. His style and approach remind just that little bit of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian, who liked the bizarre. Max and the Cats, it seems to me, is a good way to get to know another Latin American writer, who has eight other novels to his name and numerous other fiction and non-fiction writings. Let us have more.

[Max and the Cats by Moacyr Scliar, Lester & Orpen Dennys, 99 pages, paperback, $14.95]

While at the peripheral subject of Man Booker Prize winners and nominees, there is a noteworthy book by the youngest author ever selected for the long list of the Booker Prize. He failed to make the short list with his book, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, but to have achieved the initial nomination shows his writing has more than just potential. He is 26-year-old Jon McGregor, a Briton born in Bermuda, where his father had been posted as a curate. Most of his childhood, however, was spent in Norwich, and he now makes his home in Nottingham.

McGregor graduated from the University of Bradford in media technology and production, but never entered this profession. Yet, when reading his book that training is very evident. He frames his scenes and cuts in and out of them smoothly and with considerable ease. The first six pages of the opening chapter inform the reader of the sounds of the unnamed city into which he has placed his story. By doing so, he begins to focus in more and more into that city until the view is finally pointed at a specific street on the last Sunday of summer. There is poetry in this approach, in the rhythm of the main narrative voice, in the brief snapshots of the various inhabitants of that street, who eventually will become more fleshed out in later chapters.

While McGregor claims as one of his inspirations for writing is the Canadian, Douglas Coupland, and his Generation X, his style is totally unrelated, and his vision is far deeper and lacks Coupland’s cynicism. In addition, McGregor has a very unconventional way of punctuation. All of his dialogue lack quotation marks, and is merely separated from the rest of the narrative through commas. It is fascinating how effectively he carries this through the entire novel without ever confusing the reader.

The one complaint some might have is that there are so many characters to keep track of as he describes the actions of the residents of the unnamed street in the unnamed city that one needs to re-read or write them down. Some eventually will have names, but others are known only through some physical characteristic, or through the number of the house they inhabit.

The centre of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is death, which is merely hinted at and not totally revealed until the end. There is tragedy, but what we learn is that it all depends on whom one is whether or not one’s daily tragedies are noted. What McGregor manages to do is reveal with simple language and clarity the lives, loves, dreams and disappointments of the various characters. There is nothing clumsy about this book. It just flows beautifully and makes you want to read on and on until the end is reached.

This is a book that should definitely be read and included on the must-read list of anyone interested in good writing and storytelling.

[If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor, Bloomsbury Publishing (released in Canada through Raincoast Books), 275 pages, paperback, $16.95]

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