Lloyd Alexander

[calimac]

sartorias alerts us that Lloyd Alexander has died. Still active as an author up to the very end, he had a very long career, over fifty years.

Some of us old-time Tolkienists will remember when his five-book Chronicles of Prydain was one of the few fantasy books to show the influence of Tolkien. There was that, Carol Kendall's two Minnipin books, Alan Garner's two early Alderley Edge books, and just about nothing else. The Last Unicorn and A Wizard of Earthsea, probably better-known today than any of the above, didn't come along until Alexander's saga was wrapping up with its final book.

I did not find that Prydain really scratched my Tolkien itch, so I rather unfairly tended to discount it. But there is one Alexander book, a little-known and very early one, that I count as a small treasure: My Five Tigers (Crowell, 1956), the account of how he - up until that time not a cat person - and his wife acquired three cumulative cats and, after one of them died, a new third and even a fourth. It's full of closely observed and finely related cat detail, a real demonstration that cats are individuals.

Some of the best scenes occur each time a new cat is introduced to the household. Like this one:

Books on the subject advise introducing a new kitten gradually. I had every intention of doing so. Before going after David, we made sure that Rabbit and Heathcliff were both outside. I had planned to lock David in the workroom, allowing the older cats to get acquainted with him in easy stages. But I forgot about the windows.

As soon as David came out of hiding, he spotted Heathcliff peering in from the outside sill. As luck would have it, Rabbit was there, too. Chattering like a monkey, David sprang to the window and stuck his head through the slats of the venetian blind. The startled Rabbit bristled and began a long, menacing growl. Heathcliff spat, hissed and made terrible faces while his sideburns trembled wrathfully. I immediately carried David into the workroom, but too late. My plans for a leisurely introduction were shattered when the two big cats came thumping up the cellar steps and laid siege at the door.

Heathcliff clawed violently at the woodwork and Rabbit made noises like a lynching party. In despair, I abandoned the advice of my cat manual, deciding this was a case of every man for himself. I opened the door. Confronted with the chattering black kitten face to face, Rabbit and Heathcliff turned tail and raced away.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

Reminds me of when we brought Cleo home. We had also intended to let her get to know Josh, our roommate’s cat, gradually, so we put a paper screen in the doorway between the bedroom (where Cleo was) and the rest of the house (Josh’s territory). As a 12-week-old kitten, she slipped a paw between the wall and the screen and chimney-climbed her way up until she could get out to meet the other cat.

When we brought Yeti home, we followed the procedure detailed in The Cats’ House: bring the new cat into a room to explore, let him get used to it, wait until the new cat settles down a bit, put him back in the cat carrier and let the other cat(s) in. Growling and hissing may occur, but the new cat is safe inside the carrier, and knows it (or will figure it out pronto). Wait until the cats settle down, separate them into different rooms again. Repeat until growling and hissing does not recur. (All this preferably while one human is adoring the new cat and the other is adoring the ones with seniority.)