The Owl and the Pussycat

I’ve said before how much I love this Visions in Poetry series, and in particular how the illustrations really offer up new interpretations of classic poems. Stéphane Jorisch’s take on Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” is another great example, presenting the poem in a way that I’d never thought of before.

My own sense has always been that the Owl and Pussycat were an odd but natural fit. After all, opposites attract. Jorisch, however, emphasizes their difference, making them into a sort of Romeo and Juliet coupling. The beautiful pea-green boat takes them away from an apartheid society where dogs and cats and owls never mix. The other species look on at the Owl and the Pussycat and whisper. The couples that cruise by on the Chez Noah stare (no interspecies sex there!). Even the fish in the sea stick their heads out of the water to watch them sailing by. And so our happy couple, who only have eyes for each other, have to go to the land where the Bong-Tree grows to be married by a singular turkey, after buying a ring from a singular pig. Mythical beasts like unicorns and mermaids approve.

As I say, this is never the way I’ve read “The Owl and the Pussycat,” and I don’t think it’s a reading I’d adopt as my own. Jorisch does, however, very much make it his own and I thought the book another splendid entry in a series that never disappointed. I only wish they’d published more!

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