Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper
Rating: ★★★★
Homer's Odyssey is a charming memoir about life with a remarkable cat named Homer, and, oh yeah, he's blind. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical when I started reading this. On Christmas morning I unwrapped this book- a gift from my little sister, a passionate lover of pets, and thought 'Oh boy. A book about a cat. Awesome.' I'm not really the kind of person who goes for those cheesy animal books (You know the type- a series about retired race horses or rescued dogs) I tend to like books that are a little more down to earth. I was, therefore, a little bit shocked when I started to get sucked into this book. Homer is such an amazing cat. He taught Gwen so much about life, I felt comforted, and honored to learn a little something from him vicariously through Gwen's writing. This book made me chuckle a little, smile a lot, and cry three times. It was pretty good you guys. It was actually pretty damn good.
Favorite Quotes:
"Every leap from a chair back or tabletop was taken on faith, a potential leap into the abyss. Every ball chased down a hallway is an act of implicit bravery" (9).
"A friend once asked me why it was stories about animals and their heroism... are so compelling... it occurred to me that we love them because they're the closest thing we have to material evidence of an objective moral order- or, to put it another way, they're the closest thing we have to proof of the existence of God. They seem to prove that the things that matter to and move us the most- things like love, courage, loyalty, altruism- aren't just ideas we made up from nothing. To see them demonstrated in other animals proves they're real thing, that they exist in the world independently of what humans invent and tell each other in the form of myth or fable" (52).
"Homer had known there were things to fear in the dark; he wouldn't have reacted so aggressively if he hadn't known there was cause to be afraid. But what could you do with that fear? You had to life your life, didn't you? Where another cat might have spent his life hiding and hissing, forever anticipating dangers that might or might not be there, Homer simply went about his business, confident on some instinctive level that he could deal with treats if and when they arose" (144).
"sometimes, to get the things that were good in life, you had to make a blind leap" (239).
"This is a cat who knows how to live... he's got this huge world in that little head, and you can tell just by looking at him that every second of every day of his life is an adventure. I only wish... that I could see what that cat hears" (283).
