The Guest Cat
Takashi Hiraide
2014, 140 pages
Fiction
The Guest Cat is a quiet, meditative book. It’s a novel in which the narrator is writing the novel, a literary technique that reminds me of one of those wooden box puzzles you open only to find more to unlock in the next layer. The narrator and his wife and most of the other human characters remain nameless, which made the story feel like a fable. Chibi (the guest of the title) and several other cats who make briefer appearances all have names.
The narrator and his wife have recently come to live in a guesthouse in the garden of an old fashioned Tokyo house owned by an elderly couple. Chibi belongs to a family next door on “Lightening Alley,” but begins to visit the couple every day, even sleeping there at night. The translators notes discuss the theme of outsiderness in The Guest Cat — the couple are not part of the family nor longtime residents of their neighborhood, but Chibi gives them a sense of belonging. Through the little cat they find connection in an otherwise changing, isolating world.
It’s a deceptively simple but philosophical story, which is my favorite kind of read. Like other translated work I’ve enjoyed, The Guest Cat made me aware all over again of how universal human consciousness and emotion are, even in a culture as foreign (to me) as Japan’s.
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