The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

Packs an emotional punch for a light novel

The Travelling Cat Chronicles is not the first Japanese novel featuring a cat that I have read and reviewed and nor will it be the last given the significance of the feline narrator in Japanese fiction. From A Cat a Man and Two Women (1936) to  The Guest Cat (2014) via Murakami classics like The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (1994) and Kafka on the Shore (2002) the role of the cat can be mystical and mysterious or domestic and mundane but is always knowing. In The Travelling Cat Chronicles Hiro Arikawa uses a cat to question themes around loyalty, friendship and isolation. But what is it about this book that has led to the label 'International Bestseller' with a film adaptation in the works?

The book was originally published in Japan as Tabineko Ripoto. The story appeared in serialisation between 2011 and 2012 in wildly popular weekly magazine, and cultural barometer, Shukan Bunshun. As such, the novel is regarded as 'light fiction' in Japan which builds on the post-war pulp fiction trend. That said, translation duties fall to literary stalwart Philip Gabriel, of Murakami fame, who has mastered the art of translating Japanese into English in an accessible yet characteristically Japanese style.

The story is episodic, ideal for weekly serialisation, and Arikawa switches the narration alternatively between young man Satoru and his cat Nana. This allows for effective storytelling from two distinct viewpoints. In the story Satoru saves abandoned and injured cat Nana who reminds him of a cat he had in his childhood. The pair live together blissfully for 5 years until Satoru announces that Nana can no longer live with him and that they must embark upon a journey to find a suitable new home for her.

Satoru sets out to visit all the important people from his life so far until he finds a new guardian for his cat. Old school friends and acquaintances rake up the past for Satoru who finds the experience tough from the off. Arikawa never really explains why Satoru is so isolated when he has clearly made connections in the past. Like a cat he seems to follow his own path with little thought to loyalty.

That is until the reason for Satoru's journey becomes clear for he is terminally ill and driven by a need to find a new home for Nana until he passes away. This later part of the novel is the most successful as you come to understand that Arikawa has been simply setting the scene for an inevitable farewell.

The friendship that exists between the two is vividly real and the heartbreak viscerally real. Gabriel's translation refrains for sentimentality and instead explores the bond that can exist between a cat and a human. Nana articulates Satoru's feelings throughout the book and allows him to come to terms with his own personal history. 

Though there are more successful stories about cats in the Japanese literature canon The Travelling Cat Chronicles packs an emotional punch for a light novel.  

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (translated by Philip Gabriel) published by Doubleday, 256 pages.     

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Promo poster for the upcoming film adaptation