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A review by mafiabadgers
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
emotional
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
2.0
First read 02/2025 for Farnham book club
I asked my book club to rate this one on a scale of humorous to miserable before I started. They told me it was "emotional but fun" and "a sentimental book more than a sad book". Turns out it's abouta guy with terminal cancer going on a road trip to rehome his cat before he dies. No amount of twee philosophising is going to wash that out. I feel misled.
Necessarily I must compare it to that magnum opus of feline fiction, Varjak Paw, which blends the mythic past with the urban present. This book isn't having any of it, eschewing the more frequent city setting in order to heap descriptive love onto the countryside and natural phenomena, such as rainbows. I love a get-back-to-nature feel as much as the next person, but since much of the book is about coming to terms with the inescapable, it might have been nice to have a bit more appreciation for the cityscapes that many readers will inevitably spend their lives in. It's narrated by the cat, Nana, but due to an unfortunate quirk of the translation, he reads less like a cat and more like a bald bloke sipping a beer in Wetherspoons. "No sweat, mate. Feline beggars can't be choosers. That scallop jerky looks tasty." (p. 4) When trying to capture the essence of the feline mind, I find I much prefer the noir detective cynicism of Felidae.
Nana's role in the story is mostly to inject the narration with a bit of attitude; the main thrust of the book revolves around his owner, Satoru. Satoruhas terminal cancer . Satoru is a really nice guy. Perfectly perceptive, never a misplaced word. He doesn't seem particularly put out at the prospect of his death; instead, he calmly accepts it and uses his remaining time to find his cat the perfect home, drastically improving the lives of all his friends along the way. If I wanted to be snippy about it, I'd say that he isn't a character at all. Characters have layers. He's a moral.
Said moral is neatly summed up by Nana: after reciting a list of happy memories, he asks, "Could anyone be happier than this? [...] So—you shouldn't be crying there, Noriko. Instead of sobbing like that, it would be better to keep a smile on your face till the end. And then I'm sure you'll be happier." (p. 219-229) Frankly, I hate this. If you're ever in a situation where you might want to adjust your view of things to stop you from feeling sad, it's because you're already sad! And I don't believe you can retroactively erase your grief. It might be useful to adjust your perception in more placid times, to prevent future grief from coming into existence, but if you're already grieving then it's too late. As I see it, your options then are to work through it, or repress it. If I read The Travelling Cat Chronicles very carefully, I think it's possible to say that despite the author's intentions, the book is arguing exactly that.
Structurally, the book is divided into cycles. Satoru takes Nana to a prospective owner(s), always someone from his childhood, and after reminiscing with them for a while and getting a feel for their current situation, he says a few words that help them in some way, before moving on. These cycles are bookended by his acquisition of Nana, andhis death (his separation from Nana). In the first cycle, he convinces his friend to reach out to his borderline-estranged wife and adopt a new cat with her, thereby saving their precarious marriage after a miscarriage and a falling out. This isn't about adjusting the friend's perception of things—it's about confronting his fears and working through them. Alright, the second cycle, I concede, Satoru fixes his friend's loneliness by teaching him to appreciate feline companionship. But in the third, he neatly demolishes his friend's insecurities by telling his wife that he used to have a thing for her, and being tidily rejected. Rather than helping his friend accept anything, he's forcing him to confront his worst nightmare and come out the other side. In the fourth cycle, he assuages his aunt's fears that she'd been a bad guardian by telling her otherwise. Satoru is consistently positioned as an external agent involving himself in people's calcified issues that they couldn't otherwise confront, who helps them move forward. There's nothing there about eliding grief, or delaying it for a more appropriate moment. Even on Satoru's deathbed, this perfectly self-effacing master of acceptance is comforted by the appearance of Nana.
Assuming the reader grows attached to Satoru, they will likely be saddened by the prospect of his death. If the book successfully managed to instil its 'don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened' ethos in the reader, it shouldn't matter if it ends before his death, or at the moment thereof. Rather than adopt these much grimmer outcomes, the book continues after his death, taking the space to show his friends and family coming together to mourn, to move on, and to connect with each other. This is an ending that offers catharsis to a grieving reader, rather than one that teaches that the point at which something ends (a life, a book) doesn't matter.
Alternatively, I argue, if you're not working through something, you're repressing it. I reserve the right to theorise wildly in my reviews, and I now intend to exercise it.
If I were going to write a big emotional book about death and grief and acceptance, and I wanted to bring cats into it, maybe even make one the narrator, I think the magical realism genre would be a good place to start. It's worked out well for Haruki Murakami, after all (and the Japanese-born Kazuo Ishiguro). Magical realism excels at blending unquestioned weirdness with literary heft. I wouldn't call this a realist book, but it does have some uncanny coincidences: Satoru's childhood cat, Hachi, is abandoned in much the same way he was as a baby, and an identical cat appears at the other end of his life. It may sound like a stretch to say that Satoru is sublimating his repressed desires into the form of identical cats to help him deal with his traumas, but it would fix one of my biggest criticisms of the book. Satoru is simply too perfect a person. So I can either dismiss him as a flatly written character, or I can ask: what sort of person would behave in this way? I can only conclude that such a person would be deeply messed up, and that makes him very interesting indeed.
Consider: after being abandoned shortly after birth, his friend and he come across a cat abandoned in the same way. It's a bit of stretch to say that Satoru remembers his abandonment, but the delightful thing about the unconscious is that it can't be pinned down. Perhaps something lingers. The two boys agree that Kosuke will take in the cat. His parents forbid it. Rather than suggesting that he take in the cat instead, Satoru goes to extreme lengths to ensure that Hachi won't be separated from Kosuke. It's not about ensuring the cat goes to a good home; it's an insistence that a parent (signified by Kosuke) mustn't abandon their child (signified by Hachi). Ultimately, Satoru adopts Hachi and becomes very devoted to him. Adoptive parents can nurture children just as well as their predecessors. Considered as a psychic defence mechanism, this is on the whole a very successful strategy.
Later on, Satoru's adoptive parents die. The first thing that Satoru's aunt Noriko does is force him to give up his cat, and trap him in a nomadic lifestyle that doesn't allow for lasting interpersonal connections. Consider the effect this would have on a child who already has abandonment issues. We learn that his personality changed drastically at this time:
I asked my book club to rate this one on a scale of humorous to miserable before I started. They told me it was "emotional but fun" and "a sentimental book more than a sad book". Turns out it's about
Necessarily I must compare it to that magnum opus of feline fiction, Varjak Paw, which blends the mythic past with the urban present. This book isn't having any of it, eschewing the more frequent city setting in order to heap descriptive love onto the countryside and natural phenomena, such as rainbows. I love a get-back-to-nature feel as much as the next person, but since much of the book is about coming to terms with the inescapable, it might have been nice to have a bit more appreciation for the cityscapes that many readers will inevitably spend their lives in. It's narrated by the cat, Nana, but due to an unfortunate quirk of the translation, he reads less like a cat and more like a bald bloke sipping a beer in Wetherspoons. "No sweat, mate. Feline beggars can't be choosers. That scallop jerky looks tasty." (p. 4) When trying to capture the essence of the feline mind, I find I much prefer the noir detective cynicism of Felidae.
Nana's role in the story is mostly to inject the narration with a bit of attitude; the main thrust of the book revolves around his owner, Satoru. Satoru
Said moral is neatly summed up by Nana: after reciting a list of happy memories, he asks, "Could anyone be happier than this? [...] So—you shouldn't be crying there, Noriko. Instead of sobbing like that, it would be better to keep a smile on your face till the end. And then I'm sure you'll be happier." (p. 219-229) Frankly, I hate this. If you're ever in a situation where you might want to adjust your view of things to stop you from feeling sad, it's because you're already sad! And I don't believe you can retroactively erase your grief. It might be useful to adjust your perception in more placid times, to prevent future grief from coming into existence, but if you're already grieving then it's too late. As I see it, your options then are to work through it, or repress it. If I read The Travelling Cat Chronicles very carefully, I think it's possible to say that despite the author's intentions, the book is arguing exactly that.
Structurally, the book is divided into cycles. Satoru takes Nana to a prospective owner(s), always someone from his childhood, and after reminiscing with them for a while and getting a feel for their current situation, he says a few words that help them in some way, before moving on. These cycles are bookended by his acquisition of Nana, and
Assuming the reader grows attached to Satoru, they will likely be saddened by the prospect of his death. If the book successfully managed to instil its 'don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened' ethos in the reader, it shouldn't matter if it ends before his death, or at the moment thereof. Rather than adopt these much grimmer outcomes, the book continues after his death, taking the space to show his friends and family coming together to mourn, to move on, and to connect with each other. This is an ending that offers catharsis to a grieving reader, rather than one that teaches that the point at which something ends (a life, a book) doesn't matter.
Alternatively, I argue, if you're not working through something, you're repressing it. I reserve the right to theorise wildly in my reviews, and I now intend to exercise it.
If I were going to write a big emotional book about death and grief and acceptance, and I wanted to bring cats into it, maybe even make one the narrator, I think the magical realism genre would be a good place to start. It's worked out well for Haruki Murakami, after all (and the Japanese-born Kazuo Ishiguro). Magical realism excels at blending unquestioned weirdness with literary heft. I wouldn't call this a realist book, but it does have some uncanny coincidences: Satoru's childhood cat, Hachi, is abandoned in much the same way he was as a baby, and an identical cat appears at the other end of his life. It may sound like a stretch to say that Satoru is sublimating his repressed desires into the form of identical cats to help him deal with his traumas, but it would fix one of my biggest criticisms of the book. Satoru is simply too perfect a person. So I can either dismiss him as a flatly written character, or I can ask: what sort of person would behave in this way? I can only conclude that such a person would be deeply messed up, and that makes him very interesting indeed.
Consider: after being abandoned shortly after birth, his friend and he come across a cat abandoned in the same way. It's a bit of stretch to say that Satoru remembers his abandonment, but the delightful thing about the unconscious is that it can't be pinned down. Perhaps something lingers. The two boys agree that Kosuke will take in the cat. His parents forbid it. Rather than suggesting that he take in the cat instead, Satoru goes to extreme lengths to ensure that Hachi won't be separated from Kosuke. It's not about ensuring the cat goes to a good home; it's an insistence that a parent (signified by Kosuke) mustn't abandon their child (signified by Hachi). Ultimately, Satoru adopts Hachi and becomes very devoted to him. Adoptive parents can nurture children just as well as their predecessors. Considered as a psychic defence mechanism, this is on the whole a very successful strategy.
Later on, Satoru's adoptive parents die. The first thing that Satoru's aunt Noriko does is force him to give up his cat, and trap him in a nomadic lifestyle that doesn't allow for lasting interpersonal connections. Consider the effect this would have on a child who already has abandonment issues. We learn that his personality changed drastically at this time:
Her sister had always insisted he was a mischievous boy who gave her a lot of trouble, though she'd always smiled when she said this.
And it was true that, while his parents were still alive, Satoru had been pretty naughty. When Noriko went on the occasional visit, she had found him big-hearted and self-assured, as children who know how fiercely they are loved often are. 'Auntie, Auntie,' he'd say, clinging to her, and sometimes he'd throw a tantrum or sulk.
A typical child, in other words, yet when he came to live with her he never once acted selfishly. This seemed less because his parents' death had forced him to mature quickly than because Noriko had compelled him to be that way. (p. 198)
We only get glimpses of what his life is like as an adult before Nana appeared, but we do learn how he behaves around his aunt, even after
'I'm sorry, Aunt Noriko.'
There he goes again.
She half told him off for apologising. Satoru said he was sorry again, and was about to apologize for saying sorry, but swallowed back the words. (p. 199)
In Nana we can see the boy that Satoru was before his parents' death. Nana is mischievous and pretty naughty, but big-hearted and self-assured, even if he does sometimes throw a tantrum or sulk. Even as Satoru is unwilling (or, perhaps, unable) to disclose his cancer diagnosis to his closest (but still distant) friends, Nana gives him an excuse to visit them one by one, and use his acumen to give each a parting gift. After a lifetime of doing good deeds for others, one might expect Satoru to feel on some level that he deserves to be taken care of during this difficult time. He refuses to ask for help (the shadow of the terrified child, desperate not to be a burden), so it falls to Nana to provide him with support, even going so far as to break the rules to offer him comfort at the end—the greatest display of affection that anyone could ever show to a pathologically obedient man.
After Satoru's death, Nana begins to see him in his dreams, which have long been linked to the unconscious mind. Rather than urging Nana to have a good life, Satoru tells him that he's "getting on" (p. 237), and asks him if it's "about time, maybe, for you to come over here?" (p. 246). Why would saintlike Satoru be so eager to pull his cat away from the land of the living? Why, if not because a part of him has been left behind?
Well, that's all pretty sad. It's not the sturdiest of readings, and if Arikawa did intend any of it, it certainly doesn't come through very clearly, so I'm not going to increase my rating even if it does make the book better. One last thing. In his quest to be the perfect son, what else might Satoru have channeled into the form of a male cat with a female name?
'Well, as my relatives predicted, no marriage prospects so far,' Yoshimine told Satoru now.
'Well, if I were a woman, I would definitely be interested,' Satoru said.
'If you know any women who share your values, be sure to introduce me to them.' (p. 100)