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Captain Cat
Unknown Binding
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October 29, 2017
Hard to believe that this vivid 1960 novel, about life at a British training camp for junior soldiers (high school age), could be forgotten (I just created its Goodreads record). Narrated in the first person by a new recruit, Harry Bell, it does a wonderful job of situating the reader in the atmospheric thick of the camp. Holles's command of Harry's "voice" is absolutely comparable to J.D. Salinger's handling of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye; anyone who enjoys that book should not hesitate for a moment to track down a copy of this one. It is not surprising to learn that Holles was a boy soldier himself, because Captain Cat has that unfakable quality of being very close to the bone.
I'm deliberately not giving away much of the plot. But it is interesting that although the American dust jacket suggests that Harry Bell does something shameful (which he does), and intimates a tragedy (which occurs), the tragedy is NOT directly caused by the shameful behavior, as it might be in a more conventional novel. Robert Holles well understands that life does not always work like that - actions and results do not need to be so directly connected.
I'm deliberately not giving away much of the plot. But it is interesting that although the American dust jacket suggests that Harry Bell does something shameful (which he does), and intimates a tragedy (which occurs), the tragedy is NOT directly caused by the shameful behavior, as it might be in a more conventional novel. Robert Holles well understands that life does not always work like that - actions and results do not need to be so directly connected.
Displaying 1 of 1 review