{"id":10032,"date":"2023-11-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10032"},"modified":"2023-10-31T21:58:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:58:36","slug":"the-guest-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/01\/the-guest-cat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guest Cat."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I picked up Takashi Hiraide\u2019s slim novel The Guest Cat<\/a><\/em> on a whim at Midtown Scholar, the wonderful independent bookstore in Harrisburg, about a month and a half ago en route to a Senators game, drawn by the quirky cover, the small format, and the description that referred to the author as a poet, which if nothing else should mean the prose is interesting. It\u2019s a strange, lyrical little book, lovely in its way, but also very much about grief and change, reminding me very much of the two novels I\u2019ve read by Max Porter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a cat, although the cat needs a host, and the hosts are a nameless couple who have no children and have what seems like a staid life in a Japanese city, working, living together, but without much spark or interest to their lives. The husband is our narrator, and describes the arrival of a neighbor\u2019s cat who begins visiting the couple every day as part of its routine, once its owners have left for the day. Neither husband nor wife is especially fond of cats, or so they say, yet this cat, whom they eventually nickname Chibi, captures them both \u2013 especially the wife, who is just a wisp on the pages, surprisingly incorporeal in the husband\u2019s telling. We know so little about her, which implies that perhaps he does, too, and he\u2019s fascinated by just how much she cares for and about Chibi, even frying little fish just for the cat (I know people do this, but cooking explicitly for your pet is a bit much for me), and the cat\u2019s visits eventually become a part of their quotidian lives. They even venture out, exploring the grounds where their cottage is, to follow the cat, meeting some neighbors and even gaining use of the main house as its owner leaves for a retirement facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n <\/script> \n \n\n\n\n

Until, of course, one day Chibi doesn\u2019t arrive, and the two of them find their highly predictable lives upended by his disappearance. To this point, they appear to have avoided any tragedies or other major events that might have derailed their lives \u2013 birth, school, work, death as the song goes \u2013 yet Chibi\u2019s brief time in their lives jolts them out of their doldrums, and when he\u2019s gone, they\u2019re completely thrown. The journey, if you can even call it that, from that point to the end of the novel, pushes both husband and wife to reevaluate some of the givens in their lives and to consider life\u2019s transience, and they end by making what are, for them, some pretty significant changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel also has a metafictional aspect, as the husband reveals that he wrote the novel we\u2019re reading after Chibi disappeared, while the prose is spare but not austere, setting the scene with lithe descriptions of trees, rooms, and, yes, cats. The whole thing feels like a meditation, a small idea that Hiraide expanded into a broader commentary on how easily we slip into routines and lose sight of the brief nature of our lives. Perhaps he\u2019s a cat person now, too, and is arguing that pets can give surprising meaning to our lives, making us appreciate the brevity of our lives because theirs are even shorter, or to see their carefree ways as a model for letting go and being free. I took it as a broader comment on the need for change in our lives, to avoid becoming stuck in routines and the drudgery of living day to day if we have the luxury and privilege to do so. The beauty in The Guest Cat<\/em>, though, is in how such a simple fable can lead to a myriad of interpretations, and linger with you long after its title character has left the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up: I\u2019m more than halfway done with this year\u2019s winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, T. Kingfisher\u2019s Nettle & Bone<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I picked up Takashi Hiraide\u2019s slim novel The Guest Cat on a whim at Midtown Scholar, the wonderful independent bookstore in Harrisburg, about a month and a half ago en route to a Senators game, drawn by the quirky cover, the small format, and the description that referred to the author as a poet, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[161,177,392,1058],"class_list":["post-10032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-highly-recommended","tag-japanese-literature","tag-novellas","tag-novels","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10033,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032\/revisions\/10033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}