Neyse evet, ciddiyet. Japon kültürüne ve bize epey yabancı adetlerine, Yakuza'ya, Tokyo'nun dinamiklerine dair çokça ilginç ayrıntı var. Ben tabii bunlara hakim olmadığım için yazar ne kadar Batılı gözüyle bakmış, ne kadar doğru aktarmış onu kestiremiyorum. Ama ne zaman Japonya'dan bir şeyler okusam özellikle cinsiyet ve cinsellik konularında alıştığımızdan ne kadar farklı olduklarına şaşırıyorum, yine oldu. Bir Mişima yahut Tanizaki kadar karanlık ve rahatsız edici olmasa da burada da bana çok acayip gelen detaylar vardı.

I absolutely loved this book and can't believe it's a debut. There are lots of intertwining stories that are connected in clever – sometimes subtle, sometimes clearer – ways that go beyond the cat. I found myself completely immersed in each and every story, despite their short length, but the disappointment of moving on to another story was short-lived as I was immediately drawn into the next. There wasn't one weak story, which can be rare for this type of book! There's a fair bit of swearing, and drunken, loutish behaviour (nothing like a night out at a Karaoke bar, right). One of the chapters is sexually graphic, which seems incongruous with the gentle, artistic cover. Perhaps not the ideal choice for younger readers who the cover may appeal to. And our delightful calico cat is injured in one of the stories, which is distressing (though I'm relieved to say, she heals beautifully, and helps others to heal by default). His life and his stories have a direct impact on so many of our characters here. His one son is an early protagonist in the book: a man who found his own success, but who has since fallen on hard times.

How cringey is your writing for you to remind me of my very own cringey ass 17-year-old fanfiction ???? dont answer that Ichiro’s story was especially moving and made even more poignant by the links with his family members throughout the book. But, I also enjoyed reading Flo’s story, especially as she’s an outsider in this huge city. Flo, the translator, sees herself as a “Japanologist” rather than a “Japanophile”, she says, and it seems that Bradley feels the same way. His author biography reveals that he speaks fluent Japanese and has a PhD focusing on the figure of the cat in the country’s literature. For any readers who want to know more about Japan, calico cats, loneliness or the interconnectedness of fractured lives, this intriguing debut is an excellent place to start. " https://www.theguardian.com/books/202..." Mari who tells her English boyfriend to be sexually violent to her (and incidentally has high cheekbones and a short haircut) and Natasha the Russian ‘angel’ sex worker with blonde hair, blue eyes and white breasts that ‘swell’. Incidentally all the non Japanese women have blonde hair and blue eyes. There are reasons behind why people behave the way they do and to portray half the human race (my half) as empty headed sex robots is not a revolutionary tactic in literature and this was a disappointment. Also, sex work is something women generally do as a very last resort. It’s not freedom, it’s not an expression of your natural desires, it’s a difficult, dangerous, self abnigating job. I can’t see a cat doing it.

This book is written by a debut author who I think was painting himself in the opening quote – an Anglo-Saxon who lived in Japan working as among other things a video game translator, a lover of Japanese language, literature, culture (high and low) – but one who wants to hold that culture up for study and examination.But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers - from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer.

As we are all discovering now: as great as technology is, there’s nothing that can quite replace the physicality of human interaction – the smile from a stranger holding a copy of your favourite book, the librarian who remembered the book you came looking for last week and kept it behind the counter for you… from the title, cover and the blurb, i was promised a good cat and city story reminiscing the more heartwarming The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Guys, I've been HAD. I've been CHEATED AND SCAMMED. This is my villain origin story. As their stories unfolded, my eyes kept watch for a green-eyed calico cat that made its appearance in every story. This little creature brought help and comfort to several of the characters; it also howled at cruel folks. Soon, I also expected to see the girl with the tattoo who seemed to pop up everywhere. Tsundoku – a word that required a sentence in English: buying books and piling them up on shelf without reading them I loved this. A collection of (at first glance) stand-alone short stories. But incredibly cleverly woven together using a calico cat as a golden thread. Each story is a gem of description of the city of Tokyo, the Japanese culture and language. But at their heart, they are stories of families: close, estranged, new or old to which we can all relate. Not only that, each story is written in the style of the person who happens to be relating that tale. An elderly person, a child, a yakusa, or a poet, and all totally believable. You don’t have to be a lover of cats to read and enjoy it, you just need to be a lover of stories, and open to the magical world of a vibrant city and its inhabitants.” About the authorWow what a ride! I finally had the chance to finish this gem and it was so worth it - strong hints of "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" and the movie "Crash" (2004).

As for who these characters are, it’s impossible to cover all of them here. But there is one character worth discussing in particular, and he is the only one who never actually takes any shape or form in the book. His name is Nishi Furuni, and in life he was a science fiction writer. In the sixth story in The Cat and the City, “Chinese Characters”, a teacher of Japanese tells her American student: “Characters shift meaning when placed alongside others, so it’s important we focus on the relationships between them. No character truly exists in isolation, and there’s always a story for even the most complicated or simple of characters.” She is talking about kanji, the characters used in written Japanese, but what she says is equally true of the cast of this unusual novel, who skim across each other’s lives having the narrowest of misses and the most profound impacts as they follow their own trajectories across Tokyo. Taxi driver Taro reminiscences about his dead wife, his daughter living in New York, and his childhood. Flo had hundreds of these thoughts that swam around in her head throughout the day, but no one to share them with. But she would always tell herself, who needs friends, when you have books. Her bookcases were filled with not just her favourite fiction, but also tomes of linguistic textbooks, dictionaries and reference books, all relating to Japanese language and culture. She considered herself a Japanologist, rather than a Japanophile. To her, there was a big difference.Tokyo comes to life in this book in a way rarely seen in literature, and it does so through the fully realised and vibrantly coloured characters Bradley has created here.