I love cats, but am not crazy about them and certainly not a cat vs dog person. I like cats a reasonable amount. A while ago, however, I stumbled upon Junichiro Tanizaki’s cat story, read it out of curiosity and absolutely loved it. Months later, I caught myself remembering it as a B&W film, so lucid and expressive is its language and storytelling.
I’ve been going back to it again and again, and so thought of making a little reading project with #Japanese #cat stories. So far, I’ve discovered another four, but suspect there might be more. For the moment, I’ll read three to see how it goes.
The second cat novel in the project is “The Guest Cat” by Takashi Hiraide. This one, also a novella type, is about a cat that visits a couple in #Tokyo as a guest. My children and I can relate to this, as we regularly host guest cats :), mostly in the summer time.
I am undecided as to what to read as the third story. There is the contemplative “The Travelling Cat Chronicles” by Hiro Arikawa, the perhaps funny “If Cats Disappeared from the World” by Genki Kawamura, or Soseki Natsume’s classic “I am a Cat”.
While I’m here: I feel two more reading projects coming up: one with owls and one with wolves. I could start the owl project with “The Owl who Liked Sitting on Caesar”, but how to continue? I will make another post for the wolf project when I start it.