About this title: Vibrant with the colors, textures, and feeling of a lost world (one where Jews and Arabs easily coexisted) this graphic novel about an unforgettable cat with the gift of speech is populated with wholly believable and endearing people.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780375714641ISBN:0375714642
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Sewn binding. 142 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2007-05-22
ISBN-13:9780375714641ISBN:0375714642
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780375714641. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Pantheon
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780375714641ISBN:0375714642
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2005-08-02
ISBN-13:9780375422812ISBN:0375422811
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780375422812. read more
Description: New in New jacket. pp. 142. Tells the unique story of a rabbi, his daughter, & their talking cat--a philosopher brimming with scathing humor & surprising tenderness. In Algeria in the 1930s, a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi & his daughter, Zlabya. The cat eats the family parrot & gains the ability to speak. The rabbi vows to educate him in the ways of the Torah, while the cat insists on studying the kabbalah. Zlabya falls in love with a rabbi from Paris, & soon master & cat are accompanying ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780375422812ISBN:0375422811
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hard Back
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780375422812ISBN:0375422811
Description: New in New jacket. 8 x 10. Taking place in Algeria in the 1930s, the story of a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, who eats the family parrot and gains the ability to speak. Story told in comic book form by the author. read more
Description: Like New. Book appears unread, but may have a publisher's mark or minor shelf wear. We are the Twin Cities' largest independent book store. read more
"Since I'm not really interested in Judaism I had a hard time getting into the book at first but I found the characters very compelling once the story got going and of course the art is great."
"In one sense, The Rabbi's Cat seems to represent a basic interpretation of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. And in others, it light-heartedly recreates the Jewish Algeria of the 1930s. The characters of The Rabbi, The Rabbi's Daughter, and The Rabbi's Cat display multi-faceted prisms of their own personalities - and the entire story is narrated through the eyes of a seven-year-old cat.
In its original French format, The Rabbi's Cat is a series of three (out of five) comic books detailing the growth and experiences of the small rabbinical family. Throughout the story, the lives of these characters change from time to time, although this is by far no biographical story. Beneath the surface ("The public," says the Rabbi's musical nephew during a later sequence in the book, "doesn't like things that are complicated.") lies a much deeper investigation of systematic beliefs, rituals, and the essence of self in a worldly environment.
(Fortunately, this "worldly environment" comes in the form of a peaceable Algeria, where the Rabbi himself has but a curtain in place of a front door!)
Take, for example, The Rabbi's Cat: He, himself, thinks more of himself than any of the other locals presented within the story. He eats the family's pet parrot, thus obtaining the ability to speak. Even after this selfish manoeuvrings, the cat commences to lie about his deed: "I say that with speech, you can say what you want, even things that aren't true, that it's an amazing power..." He only tells the truth, according to the Rabbi, when it's hurtful to others.
Yet it does not go on like this indefinitely. The cat's newly-bestowed power of speech allows him to question those around him - rather harshly, at first - and thus to grow in accordance with (and, indeed, opposition to) his own arguments and expanded viewpoints. There is no one single nor series of epiphenomena within, but a lengthy study of life, humanity, faith, loyalty, and tradition which brings about the maturation within the Cat.
The book ends, a little abruptly perhaps, but bypassing the trite "molded ending" one might expect from the average graphic novel. The story continues in The Rabbi's Cat 2, although the story line contained in this book is self-sufficient - and it creates a familiarity within the reader which entices him or her to care about the characters, to know which things life introduces to them, and how they subsequently envelop themselves therein.
The Rabbi's Cat does not preach - it banters, it questions, and it entertains. The same could have been achieved through any number of other approaches, though arguably with not the same level of enthrallment."
"The wisest character in this tale is the Rabbi's cat - who gains the ability to speak in the first pages, by eating a parrot that talks. Humorous and wise, I had a lot of fun reading this one and enjoying the colorful expressive graphics!"
"A disappointment, not for the content which was funny, smart and endearing, but for the aesthetics. Cursive is, frankly, hard to read and 70% of the text is written that way. The drawings made feel a little, I don't know, queasy after a while. It wasn't for me."
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