Cat's Eye: Parts 6–10

by Margaret Atwood
When artist Elaine Risley returns to Toronto, the city in which she grew up, she reflects on an intense childhood friendship that ended in betrayal.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Parts 1–5, Parts 6–10, Parts 11–15

Here are links to our lists for The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
35 words 33 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. inertia
    a disposition to remain inactive
    I sit at the espresso counter and have a cappuccino, to deal with the inertia that’s come over me at the sight of so much sugar-coated self-indulgence.
  2. benevolent
    showing or motivated by sympathy and understanding
    She smiles down upon them, always the same benevolent smile, and is described as radiant.
  3. brusque
    rudely abrupt or blunt in speech or manner
    We’ve all been to the doctor, we know about the brusque humiliations involved.
  4. solicitous
    showing hovering attentiveness
    She and Grace are solicitous on the way home, linking their arms through mine, asking me how I feel.
  5. compunction
    a feeling of deep regret, usually for some misdeed
    I admired her lack of compunction, the courage of her bad manners, the energy of simple rage.
  6. incinerate
    cause to burn
    If my eyes could shoot out fatal rays like the ones in comic books I would incinerate her on the spot.
  7. insolent
    marked by casual disrespect
    They aren’t letting me walk with them today because I have been insolent, but they don’t want me too far behind either.
  8. blasphemous
    grossly irreverent toward what is held to be sacred
    I decide to do something dangerous, rebellious, perhaps even blasphemous.
  9. unwieldy
    difficult to use or handle because of size or weight
    I stop still, watching her running figure with the coat flying out on either side and the unwieldy overshoes, as if she’s just some other person I’m watching, someone in a race.
  10. foible
    a minor weakness or peculiarity in someone's character
    I would read the inscriptions on walls, and carved into floors, a special foible of rich Anglicans who thought they’d get more points with God by being engraved.
  11. guffaw
    a burst of loud and hearty laughter
    Sometimes there are parties, with awkward dancing and clumsy guffaws and horseplay by the boys, and wet, inexpert, toothy kisses.
  12. inept
    not elegant or graceful in expression
    I think these drawings are inept: I can do much better now.
  13. mottled
    having spots or patches of color
    Inside, it has long corridors with mottled floors of something that looks like granite but is not.
  14. disparage
    express a negative opinion of
    We walk up and down the aisles, spraying ourselves from the cologne testers, rubbing the sample lipsticks on the backs of our hands, fingering the merchandise and disparaging it in loud voices, while the middle-aged salesladies glare at us.
  15. avuncular
    being or relating to an uncle
    I wash, he dries, and he asks me benign, avuncular, maddening questions, such as how do I like Grade Nine.
  16. discrete
    constituting a separate entity or part
    He says there are no such things as discrete objects which remain unchanged, set apart from the flow of time.
  17. eminent
    having an illustrious reputation; respected
    I scan the first paragraph: “Eminent artist Elaine Risley returns to hometown Toronto this week for a long-overdue retrospective.”
  18. formidable
    extremely impressive in strength or excellence
    “Elaine Risley, looking anything but formidable in a powder-blue jogging suit that’s seen better days, nevertheless can come out with a few pungent and deliberately provocative comments on women today.”
  19. rendition
    the act of expressing something in an artistic performance
    The Smeaths in our rendition of them are charmless, miserly, heavy as dough, boring as white margarine, which we claim they eat for dessert.
  20. repartee
    adroitness and cleverness in reply
    “Don’t be a pain” and “Takes one to know one” are standard repartee among girls, but I go much farther than that.
  21. vertigo
    a reeling sensation; a feeling that you are about to fall
    I’ve come to enjoy the risk, the sensation of vertigo when I realize that I’ve shot right over the border of the socially acceptable, that I’m walking on thin ice, on empty air.
  22. cretin
    a person of subnormal intelligence
    They won’t buy a television, like everyone else, because my father says it turns you into a cretin and emits harmful radiation and subliminal messages as well.
  23. nuance
    a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude
    She thinks that what matters with boys is what you say; she’s never learned the intricacies, the nuances of male silence.
  24. esoteric
    understandable only by an enlightened inner circle
    He brings me slides he thinks I would like to see and offers them to me shyly and eagerly, with a conspiratorial giggle, as if we are sharing a delicious, esoteric secret, or something religious.
  25. abhor
    feel hatred or disgust toward
    He says that when a species becomes extinct, some other species moves in to fill up the ecological niche, because Nature abhors a vacuum.
  26. surreptitious
    marked by quiet and caution and secrecy
    She has spent half the exam time drawing surreptitious cartoons of various teachers in the school, which she shows to me on the way home, laughing her exaggerated laugh.
  27. squalid
    foul and run-down and repulsive
    She lives in this squalid apartment. She has salmon-colored lingerie, I see it hanging over the shower curtain rod in her squalid bathroom.
  28. cantankerous
    having a difficult and contrary disposition
    “I’m well on my way to becoming a cantankerous old witch.”
  29. nostalgic
    unhappy about being away and longing for familiar things
    I look at him with the nostalgic affection men are said to feel for their wars, their fellow veterans.
  30. inarticulate
    without or deprived of the use of speech or words
    Although they talk, they distrust words; one of them, Reg from Saskatchewan, is so inarticulate he’s practically mute, and this wordlessness of his gives him a special status, as if the visual has eaten up part of his brain and left him an idiot saint.
  31. uncouth
    lacking refinement or cultivation or taste
    It was what you called refugees from Europe, and those who were stupid and uncouth and did not fit in.
  32. pallor
    an unnatural lack of color in the skin
    I emerge, blinking, for meals and sit in stupor and demi-silence, picking at my chicken fricassee and mashed potatoes, while my mother comments on my lack of appetite and pallor and my father tells me useful and interesting things as if I am still young.
  33. anomaly
    deviation from the normal or common order, form, or rule
    Among these sunglassed, fashionable people my brother is an anomaly.
  34. ramshackle
    in poor or broken-down condition
    “You should wear your hair loose,” he says, unpinning it from its ramshackle bun, running his hands through it to make it fluff out.
  35. rudiments
    a statement of fundamental facts or principles
    He says he hates the Life Drawing class, he will not go on with it forever, cooped up in this provincial deadwater teaching the rudiments to morons.
Created on Thu Jun 05 21:06:34 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Sep 24 16:56:06 EDT 2018)

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