The Guest Cat (2001) by Takashi Hiraide #ReadingtheMeow2026 #20BOS26

 

🐈 My second (and last) read for #ReadingtheMeow2026 hosted by Mallika, is a Japanese semi-autobiographical novel by an acclaimed Japanese poet Takashi Hiraide. It was based on Hiraide's own part of life, where, as freelancers, he and his wife had lived in a small rented cottage in the quiet part of Tokyo, and their attachment to a certain cat. Hiraide wrote this as a novella, with his poetical style of writing, combining a beautiful narrative with a touching story of relationship between human and animal, spiced up with a little mystery at the end.

🐈 The narrator, like Hiraide himself, is a freelance writer, who rents a small cottage which had been a kind of pavilion to a big house, where the landlady lives. The cottage is uniquely placed, tucked into a corner down a kind of zigzagging alley. I love how Hiraide describes the cottage and the alley, which he calls Lightning Alley - due to its zigzag shape, similar to lightning (I suddenly thought of Harry Potter's scar!) Anyway, a cat invites herself to their kitchen one day. This cat, which is called Chibi, does not seem to belong to anyone around the neighborhood. Sure, the boy next door is kind of the formal owner, but in reality, Chibi just let herself being fed and played with for only a certain time by the boy. At night she sleeps at the narrator's cottage, inside a box in the cupboard. The cat let itself in from a tiny gap at the window (Chibi is a small cat). At a particular time every morning, she would leave, just in time to see the neighbor boy go to school.

🐈 Despite Chibi's seemingly 'aloofness' (she never allows anyone touch her, and she never lets out even a single meow), the narrator and his wife are soon attached to her. The guest cat brings bright shine to their existence, and slowly but surely, Chibi seems to be part of their family. Just like how Chibi had first appeared at their cottage, one day she just stopped coming. This distressed the young couple not a little - just as if their child is suddenly missing. They wait and wait in vain, then one day the author heard from his neighbor (mother of the boy who 'owns' Chibi), that the cat had been found lifeless in a nearby street corner, presumably having been hit by a passing vehicle. You can imagine how grief-stricken the couple had become.
🐈 The depth of the narrator and his wife's attachment to Chibi could be seen from how they were distressed when the landlady decided to sell the house, which meant that they have to move out. The thought that they would be far away from where Chibi had been buried (under her favorite tree), forced them to find a house nearby from where they could still take a look at the tree. It is clear that they did not have a proper closure to Chibi's tragic demise. And that's understandable, because of the little mystery that surrounds the beloved cat's death. I won't reveal anything here; it is sufficed to say that human's relationship with animals and dealing with grief are two most important aspects of this novella. The ending is ambiguous, highlighting the fact that we could never know everything we want to, and some tragedy could remain mystery forever. One just needs to try to cope with it, and move on.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Reading the Meow 2026

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri

20 Books of Summer 2026
hosted by Annabel @ AnnaBookBel

Five Quarters of the Orange (2001) by Joanne Harris

🍊 My first introduction to Joanne Harris was Chocolat; I knew I have started that book years ago, but couldn't remember whether I've ever finished it. I think not. Either because it's a borrowed book, and I have to return it before I have finished; or it must've been sold while I was reading (I ran an online second-hand book store back then). Anyway, Five Quarters of the Orange, then, became my first book of Joanne Harris which I did finish. It's a big relieve when I had finished it; it's not a bad one, just that I was not in the right mental state to give it a proper credit. It's a complex story of dark secrets, a childish-folly-turns tragedy, acceptance, revelation, and resilience.

🍊 Framboise Simon was sixty years old widow when she returned to her childhood home in a small village on the banks of the Loire. She owns a creperie, serving delicious food she loves to cook; mostly recreating her late mother's dishes from the recipe scrapbook Framboise inherited from her. Although she was born in the village, the villagers thought Framboise a stranger, because she does not dare to use her own name, Dartigen. Framboise Dartigen was only nine years old when she left the village after a terrible tragedy during the German Occupation in the 1940s. This, then, is an intermingled mixture of Framboise's past and present life; how the past affected her present, and how the present helps her to be free from the haunting past. 

🍊 Framboise's childhood is a troubled one. She lived with her widowed mother Mirabelle Dartigen, brother Cassis, and sister Reine-Claude. Mirabelle was a hard woman, who's often mean and cruel to her own children, although she loved them. Her life seemed to be full of hatred and bitterness, and she poured it to her children, whom in turn, hated her too. She's often a victim of splitting headache, which was usually started with smelling non-existing oranges - a fruit she always hated. The title derived from Framboise's idea to trigger the headache on her mother, so that she and her siblings could be on their own; by secretly slicing a tiny sliver of orange - the fifth of the supposedly quarters - to be placed near her mother's pillow. Once she inhaled it, she'd have another spell, and off the children would go. Go where?

🍊 It's during this German Occupation that a handsome German officer who speaks a perfect French called Tomas Leibniz introduced himself to the children. They instantly took to him, but especially Framboise, who worshipped him. Their friendship grew bigger; but unfortunately, also, their risk. It finally led to the tragedy. But Framboise did not quite understand that at that time, and it was now, while browsing through her mother's recipe book, was written snatches of her mother's thoughts, did Framboise finally (almost) fully understood what had had happened.

🍊 Maybe if I had read this five years ago, I would have appreciated it more. Now, it distressed me a little. I was troubled with how Framboise treated her mother - though I could see why. The only person I could like in this book is Paul. I admired his support and friendship for Framboise, and I liked how it all ended. It was a troubling book, but still worth reading, if nothing else, for its beautiful writing.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐