NONFICTION - Nov. 1, 1992

THE CAT INSIDE by William S. Burroughs (Viking: $12.50; 93 pp.) Burroughs’ book is about the cats the way “The Grapes of Wrath” is about fruit. Cats may be his jumping-off point, but any cozily unsuspecting ailurophile who picks this up expecting the usual cat cliches is in for a rude awakening, to say nothing of the forced expansion of his consciousness. Few of the 93 pages are actually full of prose; many of them contain barely a paragraph. Still, these are haunting images, from dreams, memory and present day, ranging from unabashed affection to outrage and indignation. In a single page, Burroughs describes, and so decimates, a school counselor who responds to the appearance of a badger by pulling out his Colt .45.; it takes much less space than that to demolish “an English cat hater of the upper classes.” What the book is really about is mankind and its animals--mostly cats, but sometimes dogs, who Burroughs feels have been poorly served by their domesticaters. And just for romantic interest, there is the saga of Burroughs’ relationship with Ruski the Russian Blue.