I’m working through George Saunders Story Club “bit at a time” short story readings, this post is on my initial notes on reading part two of the story below, see original post from George here.
CAT IN THE RAIN (Part 2)
The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on.
Reader questions to consider:
1. What do you notice?
2. What new stuff has been introduced into the fabric of the story?
3. What do you think is going to happen next?
4. What do you hope will happen?
5. What are you curious about? (What bowling pins are up in the air, for you?)
(A question for later, once we get further into the story - is that first paragraph coming from the “American wife” point-of-view? Or that of an omniscient narrator? We can’t answer yet, since we don’t know her.)
We now know one of the two Americans is a married woman, we can infer the other is her spouse. She is looking out onto the public square from the first paragraph and sees a cat under a table below their window. There are green tables in the square under which the cat is ‘crouched’ and ‘compact’, trying to stay dry.
It’s curious that only the table’s color is specified, likely corresponding with the bright colors of the hotels in first paragraph, but not the cat’s color. Instead we get the cat’s position (or current state). We don’t know what this cat looks like (color, size, etc), but we can see it crouched in a compact stance, trapped.
This second paragraph continues to set the scene (or tableau) initially set up in the latter part of the first paragraph after “It was raining.” It is beginning to feel like all the items in the scene (the sea, the public gardens, the war monument, the empty square, the waiter, the table, and the cat) are being described from the American wife’s POV from the window looking out.
I think that the woman will is some way empathize with the cat. Maybe she’ll physically react in some way (sigh, shiver, cry out). Maybe she’ll decide to take an action (go get the cat, start a conversation with her spouse). If I was her, I would point out the cat to my spouse, and we would say “how cute” and miss our cats and discuss how we’re ready to go home; or say “oh no” and grab our galoshes and umbrellas and brave the rain to save the poor thing.
I hope that now that the scene is setup, some sort of action happens, an interaction between characters or objects occurs to move the story forward. What is the American wife going do? What is the cat going to do? Will the waiter do anything? I’m curious how the woman will feel and/or react to the cat now that she’s seen it after taking in the rained slogged square. I’m curious if the cat will brave the menacing drips and relentless drops to find a less exposed place to wait out the storm. I’m curious if the waiter will get any tables, he probably needs cash for food or rent or cigarettes.