Book Review of The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai
* * * * *
A teenage adventure and the power of truth.
If this novel was intended only for teenagers, then they probably don’t know when they are being spoiled.
A thrice-bereaved High School boy, Rintaro, comes to terms with the death of his grandfather who has looked after him since the death of his parents, by going on alarming adventures with a strange talking cat. The cat is, by Japanese standards, really quite rude and blunt, but that’s just what Rintaro needs. Each adventure is a fable giving a different perspective on the meaning and nature of books. The adventures take place in “labyrinths”, created either by the personality or the will of the character whom Rintaro is going to confront, but all are sustained by the power of truth. The way, the only way, for Rintaro to resolve issues is to find a way in which the character in that labyrinth is lying (perhaps to themselves) or under a misapprehension. If he can get his “adversary” to recognise and correct the lie, then the process immediately becomes non adversarial: things resolve themselves and books are freed. The last labyrinth, though, is created by someone far older and far more powerful than the others. And there is much more at stake than Rintaro’s own existence or happiness. He has to show how books give hope even if their power is waning in the modern world. And he needs all the insight and understanding he has gained from his adventures to answer that one.
Truth is the key, not just for the successful execution of Rintaro’s missions but also for his love-life, because Sayo, whom he doesn’t even see as his friend to begin with, sees through everything and is completely unimpressed by the High School’s star pupil and sportsman, whom even Rintaro loves a bit.
This novel was translated by Louise Heal Kawai.
The Cat Who Saved Books is published in the UK by Picador on the 16th of September 2021.
2 comments:
Aagh! No they really did drink Assam and other Indian teas in the story. I would never change something like that :-o
Sorry.
The reason why I thought that might be the case, is that I once made the expensive mistake of buying genuine matcha tea as a 95th birthday present for my well-travelled and cultured father, who used to think nothing of going on a ferry crossing of the North Sea just to eat a genuine Moluccan fish curry at his favourite restaurant in The Hague. He and my stepmother hated matcha tea and told me so.
I will do an edit before the review gets posted to Waterstones, where it cannot be edited at all. This is something that authors and publishers need to be aware of.
Love
Matthew
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