I initially thought that The Rabbi's Cat was a bit of a jumbled story. The cat's role changed a little bit throughout, characters were introduced without a whole lot of resolve (Malka of the Lions), and by Exodus I was thoroughly confused about where this story was headed. That was before it was brought up in class that it was supposed to be three stories in one book, not chapters leading to one nice-and-neat ending. I reread it Wednesday night with that in mind got a lot more out of it oddly enough.
That being said I liked the visual style from the beginning. The use of cursive to express the cat's thoughts, and print to express speech, was creative because it underlined the importance of speech (a greater theme to the whole book, not to mention the 62-66 "cat loses his voice while invoking the name of God" part of the story). A lot can be said with the font/color of text and I get the impression that as an audience we probably recognize it less than more obvious aspects of each panel. The font was cursive [I'm old enough to still have had cursive drilled into me so it wasn't difficult to read] and to me, combined with the cat's attitude, it lent an air of snarky confidence. Cursive looked "smoother" than print and it's perfectly fitting for a cat.
Overall I enjoyed the book and I'll probably have to give it a third read in the next few months to absorb more of it since it was so busy with themes touched on for a moment, so subtly, and then left to move onto a new point. I liked that it was narrated by a cat - fantastic enough to remind me of stories I liked when I was little, but dealing with themes and points of interest an adult could enjoy.
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