Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
On Cat Ladies: A Plea
Friends, Ricochet, Countrymen! I realize that there are a number of important things happening in America and across the world right now, and that what I’m about to share with you isn’t topical. I further realize that I promised to sort out the nature of the Good and the Beautiful and then to write the definitive guide to our foreign policy and keep you posted. But before I do that — and I will, cross my heart! — one Really Important Thing occurred to me.
Some time ago, a well-reputed literary agent contacted me (yes, every writer’s dream), and asked me if I’d like to write a book. Great, right? Except the book he had in mind was one I just couldn’t figure out how to write. His vision was a book about the history of cat ladies. Why he thought of me in this context is obvious. Why he thought this could be a commercial winner is also obvious. Was I willing? You bet. A job is a job and work is work, and if someone wants to pay me to write, I really don’t need the narcissistic satisfaction of writing about something elevated anywhere near as much as I need the money.
But the problem was this: as far as I could tell — and, believe me, I looked — there’s no history of cat ladies to write about. I mean, I could stretch, a lot, and maybe find some obscure paper in an even more obscure journal indicating that archeologists have discovered the remains of a Cro-Magnon female in close proximity to some remnant that looks digitigrade; and maybe I could dig up a touching anecdote involving a medieval nun, a cat named Aethelburh, and some drama (although when I think “nun, medieval, drama, interesting,” my mind reaches for Abelard, not Aethelburh, and not Abelard the Celtic Shorthair, either, if you get my drift).
Maybe I could say something about the Cat Ladies of the Korean War — and how this is actually way more interesting than, say, the part about blowing up the bridges over the Yalu — except I do not in fact know that cat ladies played any role whatsoever in the Korean War, and just don’t see how they could possibly be more interesting, no matter how much artistry and skill I apply to evoking them, than “blowing things up.”
Cats are great. I love cats. Cats are cute. Cats sell. Cats are one of my favorite things, if not my very favorite; I’ve got one right now sitting on my shoulder as I type this, threatening to hop from there to the floor via my keyboard, making me lose this post in some unrecoverable way; I still won’t even have it in me to be cross with her if she does, she’s that cute.
But one of the best things about cats — they do not have the power of speech — also makes them the worst things possible if you’re trying to write some kind of history involving them. They leave no written records. They don’t even pay taxes, no less write memoirs. No one has any idea what an eighteenth-century cat might have had to say for itself, though I reckon it’s pretty much what a contemporary cat would, which is to say, nothing.
As for the women, I figure that this has probably been pretty constant through history. Women like cats, as a rule, and you could get a little, maybe, out of some obvious observations about cats being about the size of a baby and having certain obvious aspects of facial morphology that maybe make women confuse them with babies, but this is about a sentence’s worth of insight. And you just read it. I just don’t think I can get from that to a book.
This troubles me greatly, though, because when a well-reputed agent calls you out of the blue and says, “I see ‘bestseller’ in your future if you can just do this one thing,” and especially if it happens to be true that no one could be better qualified than you to write a history of cat ladies, should such a thing be possible — I mean, historian, check; writer, check; cat lady, check. What else? Who else? No one, right? — you do rather feel that you’re a damned fool if you don’t find some way to do it. Especially if you need the money, which is probably the most relevant point.
So I keep thinking, “Just solve this and it’s money in the bank and cat food in the bowl.” And yet I keep coming back to the same problem: There’s a reason no one’s written a history of cat ladies before.
Then again, this guy made a bestseller out of salt. Salt doesn’t have much to say for itself, either, though I might have had the sense to think, even before I knew the formula, “salt equals bestseller,” that yes, there’s a lot to say about salt; but maybe I wouldn’t have. And while cat ladies may not lend themselves to the same kinds of discussion (trade, currencies, chemistry, wars, tastes good on lots of stuff) or be appealing to the same set of reviewers (the kind who amuse themselves much more than they should by describing a book about salt as “sprinkled” with anecdotes), that doesn’t mean there’s not something there, does it?
What is it, though? Can you think of it?
Published in General
By the by, I am frequently bemused by writers talking about writing. The fact is that people want to read Claire’s writing not because of the writing itself (though it is, of course, excellent). The very best writers are not just communicators. They are, first and foremost, thinkers.
What you have to say is much more important than how you say it. The packaging (take Steyn or Lileks as exemplars) can be amusing and wonderful, but it is the pill inside that really matters.
Good heavens! If you got a single iota of an idea that I ever believed otherwise, I need to fly to Paris to apologize! Hmmm. Somehow that’s not conveying the sense of sorrow I intended.
Yeah, because “lazy, loser, quitter” is exactly what any reasonable person thinks about someone who stays for years in Istanbul, reporting on the politics and culture thereof, all while those politics and culture (seem, at least from outside) to become increasingly hostile to said reporter.
So having reinforced that we’re your extended family, complete with at least one crazy uncle no one wants to talk about, I hope you can now follow whatever path is best for you, whether it means I can look forward to another Claire Berlinski title on a new subject or not.
If you don’t write this book, I will!
I’ve already started researching it. And it doesn’t interest me one iota, and I don’t have any talent, but by thunder it’s golden!
Gold, sheer gold.
Incidentally, I can’t find a reference to the phrase “cat lady” earlier than 1911. It appears twice that year in juvenile fiction. Most interesting.
…among the matrons is the wife of the sheriffs officer, swaying to and fro in her seat
Well, that one is 1907, and the expression of “Cat-Lady” has some currency before hand, but is more of vicious married lady from the few 1890-1907 references I can find. Common name for breed livestock though.
Claire, please write this book…
Because it followed from that so obviously that I just couldn’t resist. I’m sorry. Also, another Ricochet editor did it first. On Twitter. And once someone starts, there goes the neighborhood.
We will punish ourselves appropriately.
OK! You are now my co-author. Keep it up!
The facts of my life may not suggest “lazy, loser, and quitter,” but believe me, that’s not because those temptations don’t present themselves to me daily, and sometimes, they even win.
I understand that many people feel that way. One of the odd things about Margaret Thatcher–parenthetically–and something that really struck me, because it’s so odd, is that I could find no evidence, not one document, not one interview, not one hint, that she ever, even once, was either tempted by those sins or worried that she might be.
This made her quite a bit different from other people, in a way that has often led me to wonder why, but never really to figure it out–although sometimes to wonder whether, in another context–one in which just a few variables had been different– she might have been one of those people found in mental hospitals and suffering from the delusion that they are, say, Margaret Thatcher.
This is fascinating! I agree that self-doubt is self-fulfilling. Irrational confidence about one’s own capabilities definitely helps achieve greater things.
Just a little tip from your Uncle Lar,
When you write “Margaret Thatcher” do it like this Margaret Thatcher. It might help with the money.
You’re so right, of course.
Another thing I have just got to get over is “having very mixed feelings about self-promotion.”
And in other contexts leads to total disaster.
Context is all. Or ripeness. Depending on your preferred literary allusion.
The line between genius and idiocy is defined only by success.
I guess that puts me firmly in the idiot camp.
While there is life, there is hope!
At the risk of descending into cheap armchair psychology: she reminds me a great deal of my mother. Both of them were Preacher’s Kids who grew up, not underprivileged, but unprivileged, during the Great Depression. Whether in the grocery store or on my grandfather’s farm, both learned the value of hard work and hanging on to what you earned, and taking pride in your labor and what you earned through it, both through its natural effect and through witnessing the morally corrosive effect of accepting the dole for too long (I distinctly remember seeing The Full Monty in theaters and being shocked at the idea of being on the dole for six months). And once you’re on the other side—once the Great Depression is over, and you have your life, your health, even your home if it didn’t go into foreclosure—how, exactly, is complaining about anything else anything other than being lazy, a loser, a quitter?
Regardless of any merit or demerit to this argument, there’s no question in my mind that my murderous attitude toward debt, in particular, is very much a function of my being my parents’ son, both in terms of our religious attitudes toward money and debt, and in terms of some spectacularly rough experiential lessons having been passed on by a kind of familial osmosis—not explicitly, but viscerally. You wrote in your wonderful book that Baroness Thatcher expressed her attitude toward economics in starkly moral terms. My question is: how could it be any other way?
Just write a history of women. Stay at home — for one reason or another — women. Women and their (non-human) companions. The changing/unchanging nature of women and their companions. The needs/purpose of non-human companions for such women. Why cats over other non-human companions. Etc. etc.
Just write. :-)
It’s not cheap armchair psychology at all to say, “She reminds me of my mother.” It might be cheap armchair psychology to say, “She seems to have had a strange, or at least from the perspective of any record I can find, almost non-existent relationship with her mother, and this might be relevant to something”–but that didn’t stop me from saying it, and I’m not sure it was a cheap thing to say. Although it is armchair psychology, it the sense that I discerned this from my armchair, and have no idea what it really means or whether anyone could say what it really means. I just thought it was notable.
And oh yes, lest I forget: Further reading, here.
once the Great Depression is over, and you have your life, your health, even your home if it didn’t go into foreclosure—how, exactly, is complaining about anything elseanything other than being lazy, a loser, a quitter?
Oh, I agree (and did when I read your book). Learning something about women’s power over men—including, I surmise, how and when it becomes destructive—made Baroness Thatcher the woman who could be simultaneously coquettish and schoolmarmish, who could evoke a certain reaction from men while making them appalled such thoughts could ever cross their minds. I don’t think there’s a reason to essentially exclude all other women from your orbit other than an awareness of the power of your sexuality and a desire to be able to use it without the targets having distractions. Note that none of this need be conscious.
Of course, I would argue that this game—flirting, but with plausible deniability—is one that all intelligent women learn, as a survival skill if not a source of active pleasure.
I might not have explained well: there’s a stringency to my mother’s outlook that I found quite unpleasant when I was younger, but now see as a likely inevitable breach between anyone’s firsthand experience of a rural life of hardship during the Great Depression and what must have seemed like the sense of entitlement and ingratitude we kids had in our solidly upper-middle-class lives. And it’s not that she was necessarily wrong about that, but only that there was no malice attached to it. She’s right that it can all go away tomorrow; my sister and I were right that, in all likelihood, tomorrow will be just like today, except some days we get to go to King’s Island, so what’s the harm in asking if we can? You go to the war of life with the army you have.
No, and far be it from me to ride anyone about their survivor guilt, other than to say that the old questions still apply: if not you, who? If not now, when? I married my son’s mother when he was six, so he basically was who he has always been as far as I’m concerned. I remember—too well—being angry with him one day. I can’t recall why. The thought occurred to me that he goes through life acting like he has a right to be here. A horrifying second later, of course, “He does have the right to be here!” flashed into my head with the same searing heat as the crimson on my face.
Godel wrote: I would argue that this game—flirting, but with plausible deniability—is one that all intelligent women learn, as a survival skill if not a source of active pleasure.
I have seen this in most elegant women, and it is one of the reasons I never assume there is attraction just because someone is being very nice. I enjoy the interaction and mystery.
Would you, now? And why would you think this applies, in particular, to women? Or more to women than to men? Apart from, say, complete and total absence of self-awareness. Which I suspect is not the case.
I would assume it because I am a sexist pig. And because in matters of social intercourse I always assume that women hold the upper hand. But I repeat myself.
Because the stakes are lower for men, therefore plausible deniability is less important. I’m not saying it should be that way, but let’s face it: there are indeed two standards for using your sexuality (to whatever degree) to get ahead: one for men and one for women, cf. Bill Clinton vs. Sarah Palin.
I would also suggest that most men are disastrously bad at it when they do attempt plausible deniability. Constructing the social context in which flirting could occur but be ascribed to other motives seems beyond the skills of most men of my experience. Of course, I’m a computer scientist: most men of my experience, myself included, are somewhere other than “neurotypical” on the autism spectrum, so I don’t think my sample is representative. It’s like single women say about dating in Alaska: the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
Huh, I thought that was a Carnegie Mellon thing.
Too bad I’ve fallen out of touch with the first woman I asked out after moving to LA: a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science grad sufficiently beautiful to have found it advantageous to dye her natural blonde hair brown in order to be taken seriously, and who referred to my side of the 10th floor of the World Bank building on Wilshire Blvd., where Activision was located at the time, as “The Wall of Testosterone.” I’ll bet she has some stories to tell.
So long as your wife agrees this denial is plausible, that’s good enough for me.
Wait, did you think I was claiming plausible deniability? I’m a flirt. There’s no denial involved, plausible or otherwise!
What a shame you’re not also a talking cat. Then we’d have just the kind of interesting personality I could actually write about.