Doris Lessing’s On Cats – review

First book of 2026 (I have made it a New Year's Resolution to read more); a big thanks for Moni for getting it for me for Christmas, and a big thanks to Jacek K. for recommending it. A second cat book for me, after Mornings With My Cat Mii (my review here); that book I read last spring when I was the guardian of one but cat, Wenusia. Like Mii, Wenusia was a foundling kitten. Like Mii, she was "a calico, with black and tan stripes on her head and patches on her back, and a belly that was pure white". But now that I've become the guardian of six cats, a book written by someone whose life was usually shared with multiple cats becomes more apt. 

Doris Lessing's On Cats is not about a single feline life lived together with the author’s, but about her life with many cats over many decades, from the semi-feral cats of her African childhood to the aged, three-legged El Magnifico, whose life brought both joy and discomfort, loss and deep reflection to the author late in life.

On Cats is neither sentimental nor a mere succession of anecdotes; it is a series of sharp and often emotionally painful meditations on the creatures that have haunted, challenged and comforted the author across her life. And as a book written by a winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature, the quality of the prose doesn't disappoint. 

The book brings together three short works; Particularly Cats (1967), Rufus the Survivor (1989) and The Old Age of El Magnifico (2000). As such, there's no single narrative arc; rather, On Cats is a set of essays and recollections that collectively form an elegy for the felines in our lives. This approach mirrors the way how cats subtly inveigle themselves enter our lives: indifferently, with grace and charm, yet with an inevitability that shapes the routine of a cat guardian's daily existence. 

Lessing's many trips to the veterinary surgeon shows she cared deeply about the suffering of her feline charges. She writes often about sterilisation and the ambiguity of doing what's right for human society, whilst regretting the loss of her cats' "wholeness". It's a question I'm weighing up. As someone brought up in the country, she brought with her a rural approach to cat ownership after settling in London in the 1950s; her first two females – 'grey cat' and 'black cat' – would have litter after litter, which she'd give away. Black cat had three litters in a single year. Grey cat would kill the first-born of ever litter. In the end, Grey cat was sterilised and resented Black cat, who'd continue giving birth.

This unsentimental clarity about the rough edges of cat life – illness, rivalry, birth and death – is what gives this book its power and authenticity. Lessing's prose precisely captures feline gestures and moods. The universality of feline behaviour becomes a lens through which we see ourselves: our attachments, our awkward attempts at communication – both between species and between one another – deeply moved by what cats will accept from us and what they will politely ignore.

On Cats is the antidote to sickly-sweet cat YouTube videos with vocal-fried American accents counting down listicles like 'five ways in which your cat tells you it loves you'. For any cat guardian wishing to peek into the mystery of the human-feline relationship, the book provides genuine and timeless insight.

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