Paul Gallico begins The Silent Miaow claiming that his neighbor found the manuscript on his doorstep. It seemed to be written in some sort of indecipherable code, so, knowing that Gallico had a mind for such things, the neighbor turned it over to him. After some time, Gallico discovered that what had appeared to be a code could be explained if someone tried to type a manuscript with a paw. From there, he says, it was relatively easy to translate the entire manuscript, which has the subtitle “A Manual for Kitten, Strays and Homeless Cats.”
Any cat lover (and perhaps some cat haters, too) will delight in Gallico’s “how to” manual written from the point of view of a cat. First published in 1964, the book is a product of its time (the author advises cats to avoid irritating the man of the house after Christmas when the bills come in), but the overall concept of a book instructing cats on how to take over a house is just as humorous today as it was 50 years ago. In fact, you can easily find a used paperback version of the book that was published in 1985, so clearly it was popular enough 20 years after it was published to be worth reprinting.
The manual is written from the point of view of a stay kitten who decided to adopt a couple after her mother was hit by a car. After telling the story of how she successfully insinuated herself into her family’s life, she proceeds to instruct her readers on how to get along in the human world so that they are able to successfully manage families of their own. There are chapters on topics like property rights, food, doors, and speech, which includes these instructions:
I have referred in the above section to the pitiful miaow as among the most effective sounds you can produce to get some action out of your people, and to this must be added the sound that all of you will know how to produce, which has a most remarkable softening-up effect; it is that little lilt of ours, a chirrup, which goes, “Prrrr-maow,” with a rising inflection upon the last syllable. This sound of ours has no specific use vis-à-vis people; except that for some reason or other it just seems to make them feel fine, and puts them into a good humor. … I simply call it to your attention as yet another item in the armory for keeping our people in a state of subjugation and prepared to wait on us.
The author tells female cats to consider avoiding kittens, because as a family works “to place the kittens in adequate homes, they might just suddenly wonder what life would be like without any cat at all about the house. Once you get them thinking that, you could be halfway out the door.” She advises her readers on good manners, such as not getting on the dining table: “Stealing is for dogs. We are above it.” She shares her thoughts on Two-Timing (maintaining a presence in two households), which she describes as “not very nice.”
Anyone who has owned a cat will recognize their pet in the chapter on “games and recreations.”
Every well-educated house cat ought to know when and how to break them up. For instance, there is no point in interfering with a scrabble game at the very beginning. … The proper method is to wait until the board is practically full with a most complicated arrangement of words. Then, jump up onto the board with the most sweetly saccharine “Purrrrrrmaow” that you can muster, scatter the pieces in all directions, sit down, and commence to wash.
The book is illustrated with cat photos by Suzanne Szasz. In Gallico’s story, he says the cat in the photos is Cica, who had taken over a family “under circumstances not dissimilar to those outlined in the narrative part of the manuscript, and they owned a typewriter — as it happened, an electric one.” Although Gallico channels a cat quite well, the book would not be the same without Szasz’s wonderful photos.
I don’t know how easy it is to check out a copy of The Silent Miaow from a library. I reread my mom’s copy for this post; my county library system didn’t have it. But even if you can’t borrow it through your local library or via interlibrary loan, you can probably find an affordable used copy online. It’s worth your trouble.