Guest Cat - BookWyrm

Paperback

English language

Published May 28, 2001 by Picador.

ISBN:: 978-1-4472-7940-2

(2 reviews)

A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo. They work at home as freelance writers. They no longer have very much to say to one another. One day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. She is a beautiful creature. She leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. New, small joys accompany the cat; the days have more light and colour. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife; they go walking together, talk and share stories of the cat and its little ways, play in the nearby Garden. But then something happens that will change everything again.

The Guest Cat is an exceptionally moving and beautiful novel about the nature of life and the way it feels to live it. Written by Japanese poet and novelist Takashi Hiraide, the book …

A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo. They work at home as freelance writers. They no longer have very much to say to one another. One day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. She is a beautiful creature. She leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. New, small joys accompany the cat; the days have more light and colour. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife; they go walking together, talk and share stories of the cat and its little ways, play in the nearby Garden. But then something happens that will change everything again.

The Guest Cat is an exceptionally moving and beautiful novel about the nature of life and the way it feels to live it. Written by Japanese poet and novelist Takashi Hiraide, the book won Japan's Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, and was a bestseller in France and America

1 edition

Stephanie Jane reviewed Guest Cat by Hiraide Takashi

A thoughtful prose-poem

4 stars

Reading this understated and poetic novella almost felt like a meditation. I was surprised that a book in which so little actually happens could be so compelling, but The Guest Cat is one that, once I started, I didn't want to put the book down until its final page. Hiraide beautifully describes the immediate area of Tokyo surrounding the narrator's rented house and I got a strong sense of the couple's loneliness prior to Chibi's arrival. They seem alienated from each other and isolated from their neighbours until the cat adopts them, giving especially the wife a new sense of purpose.

I am not sure how much this book would appeal to non-cat lovers and have even seen reviews complaining that the cat does not have enough of a starring role. The Guest Cat isn't really about the cat per se. For me it was more a thoughtful prose-poem about …

Reading this understated and poetic novella almost felt like a meditation. I was surprised that a book in which so little actually happens could be so compelling, but The Guest Cat is one that, once I started, I didn't want to put the book down until its final page. Hiraide beautifully describes the immediate area of Tokyo surrounding the narrator's rented house and I got a strong sense of the couple's loneliness prior to Chibi's arrival. They seem alienated from each other and isolated from their neighbours until the cat adopts them, giving especially the wife a new sense of purpose.

I am not sure how much this book would appeal to non-cat lovers and have even seen reviews complaining that the cat does not have enough of a starring role. The Guest Cat isn't really about the cat per se. For me it was more a thoughtful prose-poem about friendship and love, about finding a place that feels like home, and about living quietly with the passing of the seasons and finding joy in small events.

altlovesbooks reviewed Guest Cat by Hiraide Takashi

Review of 'Guest Cat' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

"For me, Chibi is a friend with whom I share an understanding, and who just happens to have taken on the form of a cat."

This was very much a Japanese fiction book. There is no plot, exactly, so it's going to be hard for me to say definitively if you'd like this book. It's a slice of life fiction book revolving around a couple who rent a guest house from a wealthy couple. A cat owned by another neighbor further down their alley wanders in from time to time, and the book is, on its surface, about their interactions with the cat and the impact the cat, Chibi, has on their lives. If you dig a bit deeper, the book seems to be more about the ephemeral in your life, things like cicadas, dragonflies, winter, summer, life and death, that sort of thing. Trying to hold onto that which …

"For me, Chibi is a friend with whom I share an understanding, and who just happens to have taken on the form of a cat."

This was very much a Japanese fiction book. There is no plot, exactly, so it's going to be hard for me to say definitively if you'd like this book. It's a slice of life fiction book revolving around a couple who rent a guest house from a wealthy couple. A cat owned by another neighbor further down their alley wanders in from time to time, and the book is, on its surface, about their interactions with the cat and the impact the cat, Chibi, has on their lives. If you dig a bit deeper, the book seems to be more about the ephemeral in your life, things like cicadas, dragonflies, winter, summer, life and death, that sort of thing. Trying to hold onto that which you can't control can hold you back rather than let you progress.

I was prepared to not like this book, particularly after (late book spoilers) Chibi dies. Instead, while I don't think it would make a favorites list of mine, it did make me think a bit. In typical Japanese literature form, the writing is lyrical, beautiful, and conjures up images almost effortlessly. I really, really, really wish I lived in their guesthouse, for instance. I also appreciated (once someone in the reviews here pointed it out) that while the cat, Chibi, is named, our narrator and his wife never are. Neither are any other humans mentioned by name, only by description, or by letter abbreviation. That's a neat touch.