Ondaatje takes readers on a fantastic voyage

The Cat’s Table By Michael Ondaatje, Jonathan Cape, €14

When Michael, the narrator of The Cat’s Table, boards the ocean liner that will be his home during a three-week voyage to England, he feels ‘‘as if a city’’ has ‘‘been added to the coast’’.

In fact, for the 11-year-old ‘‘naked with innocence’’, the huge ship is not a city but an entire country, one with its own peculiar inhabitants and customs, its own ...