Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Takashi Hiraide, The Guest Cat *** 1/2

I picked up this short, meditative story based on a short review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. The Guest Cat comprises anecdotes about a cat that visits a Japanese couple in their quiet rental cottage, and about the couple's efforts to find a place they can live more permanently. Not too different, really, from the kinds of stories any cat lover would tell, but written in lovely poetical prose (from an actual poet) that conveys a very Japanese sense of the beautiful tentative transience of life, and of the permanent effects of that transient beauty. The vivid descriptions of houses and gardens and cats induce a contemplative state and suggest deep meaning behind the mundane events.

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