I feel like I am always talking about geeky art history things on this blog but as I was driving home today, I was doing a lot of thinking about The Cat’s Table and about half-way back to my house a light-bulb went off: sfumato.

Yes that’s a real word. Sfumato is an art term that applies to painting (I promise I’m headed somewhere with this). Leonardo da Vinci is credited with being the first person to apply it to painting. It literally means “to evaporate like smoke” but in simpler terms it’s this kind of hazy, smokey, foggy quality in a painting. Below is a picture of Mona Lisa, this painting is pretty much all about the sfumato. If we look at her face, everything is prominent. We can clearly make out her eyes, her nose, her lips, ect but if you look closely, none of her features are outlined. They kind of emerge out of the smokiness; their clarity comes from the surrounding shadows.

We talked a lot today about the use of darkness and the use of memory in Ondaatje’s novel. When I think of The Cat’s Table, I think of sfumato. Memory at times can be hazy; we talked in class about how memories are not always reliable. In the novel, these people and these moments that he reflects on emerge out of this haziness with great clarity. He recognizes these relationships and these moments as being defining and he remembers them vividly. Of course, it could easily be argued that relying on memory could make him an unreliable narrator. Michael, the narrator acknowledges the potential shortcomings of his memory on page 79, “For us, this was an era without the benefit of photography so the journey escaped any permanent memory”. I would argue though that the truth of his memories is kind of irrelevant to the story. His memories of these events and interactions shape him in important ways, his perception of what happens is more important. The memories that are the most vivid and detailed are the ones that leave the greatest impact.

I think it’s interesting that the book is always talking about darkness. Sometimes I think it’s appropriate because it’s literally dark but I also think that it also becomes a stand-in term for the kind of hazy/smokey/shadowy/murky vibe of the story. A lot of the narrative kind of lives in obscurity and is defined by these pinpricks- these little snippets of his life.

There are several really wonderful lines in this novel but one of my favorites is from page 143, “Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence”. For me this line really speaks to sfumato-y nature of the text. Only in retrospect can we look back upon moments and realize with great clarity, how important they are. On page 53, Michael explains that it isn’t until much later that he even comes to recognize his time at sea as an adventure and rite of passage.