The Cat's Pajamas: Stories

Last updated
The Cat's Pajamas
Cats pajamas.jpg
dust-jacket from the first edition
Author Ray Bradbury
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectThe Beautiful Cait Marie
Genre Short stories
Publisher William Morrow
Publication date
July, 2004
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pagesxix, 234 pp
ISBN 0-06-058565-X
OCLC 54677758
813/.54 22
LC Class PS3503.R167 C37 2004

The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) is a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The name of its title story comes from a phrase in English meaning a sought after and fancy thing. Another collection by the same name was published in the same year by fellow science fiction author James Morrow.

Contents

Contents

"Introduction: Alive and Kicking and Writing"

"Chrysalis"

A black boy is visiting one of his relatives in a beachside town for the summer. He befriends a white boy. They spend much time together in the sun, and the white boy grows darker. At the end of the summer the white boy's skin is darker than the black boy's skin. The black boy is very happy at this, until he peels the tan skin off of the white boy.

"The Island"

A paranoid family lives on the outskirts of a town. One night, they hear a person enter the house. They are all in separate rooms, and are too scared to collect in one room. The narrator hears a gunshot in each room where one of her family members is hiding. She hears the intruder try her door, and she dives out the window. A later investigation shows that the intruder walked calmly in and out of the house. The narrator is the only survivor.

"Sometime Before Dawn"

At a boarding house somewhere in the Midwest, two travelers stop and rent a room. They are not like all the other people there. Their clothes are futuristic. The narrator describes them as sad, and recalls hearing them crying in the night. The reader is led to believe that they are from the future, and that they are fleeing a horrifying future that is destined to arrive.

"Hail to the Chief"

The United States is gambled away by senators to a Native American tribe. The president rushes to the chief to try to bargain for the whole country back, and wins, but with one cost.

"We'll Just Act Natural"

A black woman and her mother are waiting for a grown white man who was raised in part by the old black woman. He has become a famous author and has promised to stop for a visit while en route to his play opening on Broadway. She insists that he will come, while her daughter is pessimistic about it. They watch his train arrive from afar. After a while, the younger black woman leaves as she assumes that he won't show. The older woman waits until the train leaves the station. She is phoned by her daughter later and lies about how she had a great time with him, with everything as perfect as she had imagined.

"Ole, Orozco! Siqueiros, Si!"

An art connoisseur is taken to a funeral for an artist. He is driven past some graffiti on the way there. During the service, he realizes that the artist was a graffiti artist and that the images displayed in the church are pictures of his graffiti. He then goes back with his friend to the original graffiti. He is convinced to help whitewash the originals so that it is never discovered that the art is graffiti.

"The House"

Maggie and William, a married couple, decided to move into an old house. William loved the old house and started to clean up the house. On the other hand, Maggie was not as enthusiastic as William. Maggie was not used to such a dirty house, because for most of her life she lived luxuriously. William had begun to notice that Maggie was not satisfied with the house and grew sad. William made a final decision and told Maggie that they weren't going to stay in the house. Then Bess, William's friend, comes for a visit and falls in love with the house. Maggie knew that William really loved the house and noticed how happy he was when he saw that he was not the only one who loved the old house. Finally, Maggie started to clean the house and convinced herself that if William was happy here, so could she. A stained glass window upstairs in the old house, diffracting sunlight, is representative of how an object can appear differently if viewed from another angle.

"The John Wilkes Booth/Warner Brothers/MGM/NBC Funeral Train"

"A Careful Man Dies"

A hemophiliac, who is an author, presumably gets tricked by his former love in the process of writing a novel about her and her new love.

"The Cat's Pajamas"

"Triangle" (in some editions this story is missing from the Table of Contents)

In a small town, a pair of aging sisters live together. Every day they pass a store where the third protagonist lives. One of them has a crush on him, and the other can't stand him. One day he comes over to talk to the sister with a crush on him. He asks her if he has any chance of having her sister's hand in marriage. She replies that he doesn't, but that she loves him. He tells her that he can't stand her, but loves her sister. So there is a love triangle that remains unsolved. Time passes them by.

"The Mafioso Cement-Mixing Machine"

A man decides to go back in time to save Scott Fitzgerald from himself. He wants Fitzgerald to finish writing The Last Tycoon. He plans to carry medicine through time, bribe some people, threaten others. The overall intent is to let Fitzgerald finish his masterpiece. The man goes back in time. After a while, the friend he let in on the secret goes to a bookstore and buys the completed Last Tycoon.

"The Ghosts"

Three girls think that some teenagers who have sex in their lawn are ghosts. They see their outlines in the grass in the morning. Their father does not like the intrusion and threatens to go out and shoot them. He moves poison ivy so that it is where the teenagers lie at night. The girls are distressed that the ghosts have stopped coming. They remove the ivy, and when "the ghosts" come the next time, one of them goes out. She finds out that there are no ghosts, just "nasty people". The girls believe that the ivy permanently scared away the ghosts and that the people only came after they removed the poison ivy.

"Where's my Hat, What's my Hurry?"

A man is leaving his wife because of all the times they were in Paris, they never had sex. He is sad that they never did it in the city of love. He gets two tickets to Paris and finds someone to go with him. He then leaves with no regrets.

"The Transformation"

A white man rapes a black woman. He is captured by several white men, unhappy with him for his transgressions. They take him to the carnival tattoo parlor. They then turn his skin all black. Then they leave him on his own to find his own way. They laugh about how ironic it would be if he ended up lynched.

"Sixty-six"

A police officer finds five people murdered and strewn along a stretch of Route 66 dressed in clothing that he classifies as 'dust bowl' era. As the investigation continues, he happens to see a picture of the five Okies in a magazine and discovers that they are just actors in period clothing. Riding his motorcycle into a dust storm back on the same stretch of Route 66, he finds a man who looks like he is from the Great Depression. The man admits to running over the people and wants to turn himself in, but the police officer says that he isn't going to take him in. The police man thinks the people who were killed deserved to die, and it was fitting that an Okie killed them for epitomizing the suffering the Okies went through.

"A Matter of Taste"

This is the only science fiction story in this collection. It is narrated by a seven-foot tall spider. A group of astronauts travel to a far away planet that is inhabited by a race of intelligent peaceable spiders. The captain gets a great scare the first day and is unable to represent the humans, so that responsibility falls to his underlings The humans learn that the spiders are very peaceable and smart. Despite this they hint towards killing them simply because of the human fear of anything different.

"I Get the Blues When it Rains (A Remembrance)"

This is simply Ray Bradbury describing a night very special to him. He and a group of other writers got together and sang songs they all know. The magic of the night could never be recreated.

"All my Enemies are Dead"

A man learns that his last enemy has died. He gives up living, and is ready to die. Then one of his friends and employees starts telling him about all the terrible things he did to him. He becomes his employer's enemy, and in doing so, saves his life.

"The Completist"

A very rich man spends his life collecting books and art. He has dinner with a couple. He greatly enjoys talking continuously about his collection, and its great expansiveness. At the end of dinner, he bitterly asks, "Why did my thirty-five year old son kill his wife, destroy his daughter and then hang himself?"

"Epilogue: The R.B., G.K.C., and G.B.S. Forever Orient Express"

Poem by Bradbury about riding a train in the afterlife with G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw.

Related Research Articles

<i>The Martian Chronicles</i> 1950 novel by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles is a science fiction fix-up novel, published in 1950, by American writer Ray Bradbury that chronicles the exploration and settlement of Mars, the home of indigenous Martians, by Americans leaving a troubled Earth that is eventually devastated by nuclear war.

<i>The Illustrated Man</i> 1951 short story collection by Ray Bradbury

The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of 18 science fiction short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. A recurring theme throughout the stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shapeshifting</span> Ability to physically transform in mythology, folklore and speculative fiction

In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shape-shifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture.

<i>Thirteen Ghosts</i> 2001 film by Steve Beck

Thirteen Ghosts is a 2001 supernatural horror film directed by Steve Beck in his directorial debut. A remake of the 1960 film 13 Ghosts by William Castle, the film stars Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Alec Roberts, Rah Digga, and F. Murray Abraham.

<i>The October Country</i> 1955 collection of macabre short stories writer Ray Bradbury

The October Country is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories previously published elsewhere.

<i>Something Wicked This Way Comes</i> (novel) 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24th. In dealing with the creepy figures of this carnival, the boys learn how to combat fear. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those they enslave. Mr. Dark's presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, the janitor of the town library, who harbors his own secret fear of growing older because he feels he is too old to be Will's dad.

<i>The Golden Apples of the Sun</i> 1953 short story anthology by Ray Bradbury

The Golden Apples of the Sun is an anthology of 22 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It was published by Doubleday & Company in 1953.

<i>I Sing the Body Electric!</i> (short story collection) Book by Ray Bradbury

I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. The book takes its name from an included short story of the same title, which in turn took the title from a poem by Walt Whitman published in his collection Leaves of Grass.

<i>Along Came a Spider</i> (novel) Novel by James Patterson

Along Came a Spider is a crime thriller novel, and the first novel in James Patterson's series about forensic psychologist Alex Cross. First published in 1993, its success has led to twenty six sequels as of 2021. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 2001, starring Morgan Freeman as Cross.

The Churel, also spelled as Charail, Churreyl, Chudail, Chudel, Chuṛail, Cuḍail or Cuḍel is a mythical or legendary creature resembling a woman, which may be a demoniacal revenant said to occur in South Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. The churel is typically described as "the ghost of an unpurified living thing", but because she is often said to latch on to trees, she is also called a tree-spirit. According to some legends, a woman who dies during childbirth or pregnancy or from suffering at the hands of her in-laws will come back as a revenant churel for revenge, particularly targeting the males in her family.

<i>The Heart of a Goof</i> 1926 short story collection by P.G. Wodehouse

The Heart of a Goof is a collection of nine short stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on April 15, 1926, by Herbert Jenkins, and in the United States on March 4, 1927, by George H. Doran, New York, under the title Divots. The stories were originally published in magazines between 1921 and 1926.

<i>Kindred</i> (novel) 1979 novel by Octavia E. Butler

Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brazilian mythology</span>

Brazilian mythology is the subset of Brazilian folklore with cultural elements of diverse origin found in Brazil, comprising folk tales, traditions, characters and beliefs regarding places, people, and entities. The category was originally restricted to indigenous elements, but has been extended to include:

In October 2005, Slave Labor Graphics released a new bimonthly comic book series based on the classic Disneyland attraction, The Haunted Mansion. Each issue has roughly four or five separate stories, as well as a piece of the overarching story "Mystery of the Manse", which recounts the life of Master Gracey. Each issue, except for #3, features a cover by Roman Dirge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Bull of Norroway</span> Scottish fairy tale

The Black Bull of Norroway is a fairy tale from Scotland. A similar story titled The Red Bull of Norroway first appeared in print in Popular Rhymes of Scotland by Robert Chambers in 1842. A version titled The Black Bull of Norroway in the 1870 edition of Popular Rhymes of Scotland was reprinted in an Anglicised version by Joseph Jacobs in his 1894 book More English Fairy Tales.

<i>Darna Zaroori Hai</i> 2006 Indian film

Darna Zaroori Hai is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language anthology horror film produced by Ram Gopal Varma. The film is a sequel to Darna Mana Hai. It stars a host of Bollywood actors including Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Sunil Shetty, Riteish Deshmukh, Bipasha Basu, Randeep Hooda, Arjun Rampal, Mallika Sherawat, Sonali Kulkarni, Rajpal Yadav and more. The film was archived at the New York Institute of Technology, as part of the film course.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May Night, or the Drowned Maiden</span>

"May Night, or the Drowned Maiden" is the third tale in the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol. It was made into the opera May Night by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1878–79 and also a Ukrainian setting by Mykola Lysenko.

The works of J. M. Barrie about Peter Pan feature many characters. The numerous adaptations and sequels to those stories feature many of the same characters, and introduce new ones. Most of these strive for continuity with Barrie's work, developing a fairly consistent cast of characters living in Neverland and the real-world settings of Barrie's stories.

<i>Sing, Unburied, Sing</i> 2017 novel by Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing is the third novel by the American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2017. It focuses on a family in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.

Whitebear Whittington or White Bear Whittington is a character that appears in American folktales. He sometimes appears as a bear that marries a human maiden, in folktales of the Animal as Bridegroom type, a set of tales related to Cupid and Psyche.

References