Book review: The Guest Cat - a gentle meditation on cats, life and change

The Guest Cat
by Takashi Hiraide
Picador

Some books make unlikely bestsellers. This is a gentle, thoughtful and subtly profound work, utterly without pretension or pyrotechnics, by a Japanese poet in his 60s, and - I am almost inclined to say "and yet" - The Guest Cat has been a runaway success in France and America; it's also been catching on in the rest of the world.

Could its success be something to do with cats? The Japanese, after all, are not the only people who are fond of felines. The cat of the title is one of those with which many of us are familiar: the cat belongs to someone else, but comes to our home for more food and to take a few extra naps.

In these situations an ambiguity arises: to whom does the cat really belong, or is there a gradation of ownership? And what is the effect on your relationship with the neighbour who owns it? You can imagine how these questions can become particularly important in a society as formalised as Japan.

The story is set in the late 1980s, and we are given every reason to believe that it is autobiographical. Yet this does not diminish or compromise the delicate artistry of its telling. In fact, it brings its skill into sharp relief.

A married couple, one a writer, the other a proof-reader, rent a small house in the corner of a garden containing a larger property. The arrangement is temporary, and set against a backdrop of rising house prices and economic insecurity.