The Chronicles of a Travelling Cat recounts the story of a young man dying of cancer, who travels with his cat in the hope of finding him a home.

I was looking for a novel with a fantastic element and while browsing through the bookstore, this book was recommended to me. I got excited within the first page. The voice of the cat grasped me by the third sentence. Despite my premature joy, I realised that this book was not going to have a fantastic element other than the cat having inner thoughts, and being able to understand his surroundings and human beings.

The pace is slow. The storyline takes its time to unravel and develop. The multiple perspectives are mingled nicely, at least for three quarters of the book. The writing is brilliant and the character arcs are well tackled – except for the main ones, but I am going to get there in a minute. The author took the time to develop almost every one of them with care. We see their crossing journeys and their transformations.

The cat is seen as the witness. He is detached but caring in a way that stays true to himself. He reasons things out in a way a few humans are able to. His observations of the people he encounters throughout his travels seem unbiased. His judgment is fair. Every feeling from joy to discontentment is justified. He is maybe too right. I guess the cat is meant to allow us to look at the characters with an objective eye and re-discover the wonder of nature for the first time.

The Chronicles of a Traveling Cat was somewhat satisfactory until the author decided to drag the story to a limp and disappointing ending. I tend to be annoyed with authors that put lots of effort into creating a heartfelt story just to give up on it at the end of their writing process. But in this particular book, the last pages highlighted the weakness of the story. At some point we have a bl•••y summary of the travelling moments in bullet points. Why?!!. This idea of going through the entire book’s important moments again in the form of an essay conclusion left me confused. I wish I could stop there, but the drama surrounding the main character kept amplifying. Satoru’s ordeal never stopped till the very end. It looks like he is never given a break except when his cat is around. Satori is a good person with no character flaws, the cat is a good cat with no character flaws. The only characters that go through changes are the ones that cross their lives; their friends. These characters are given the opportunity to reflect on their issues through their interaction with Satoru and the cat.  Are the latter some sort of angels? The ending of the book was bad. To me, it is clear that the author wanted to satisfy every reader with a combination of both a tragic and happy ending. What a mistake! Soturo dies, but not really. Here we have a fantastic element I was waiting for, but not one that is smart. We have the sense that Satoru despite being the perfect human being on earth was in fact lonely and had only his cat and five friends from his past. As a matter of fact, we do not know anything about his life just before his tragedy. This book reinforces the stigma that ‘cat people’ are isolated. I wanted to know about the five years Soturo and his friend, the cat spent together navigating their daily life. But instead, we have no details at all. And, it looked like there was nothing. After all, there seems to be the same five side characters at his funeral with whom he rarely got in touch later on in his life. How come? If Soturo is described as an easy-going and friendly person that does not need to be crafted as a human character because he is a saint, can I have the reason for him having only the cat as a companion? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I need more. I understand the story wants to focus on their relationship, but something important is missing. The author attempted to give Soturo substance by cramming overbearing predicaments into his life, and it is too much. As for the cat? His parts feel redundant at times – we end up knowing his every move before he makes it. His wit gets tiresome. But, I must say, I liked his personality overall. The book had so much potential. The writing is excellent, the description of the scenery made me want to travel and reconnect with nature. The chapter ‘Between Friends’ for example, was perfect – the colours of the flowers, the hills, the landscape and the horses, etc. seen through the eyes of our protagonist, was like a long prose.

I am struggling with my thoughts on this book. I loved it because of the five supposedly side-characters and its descriptive aspect of the environment, and I hated it because of the ‘too-brushed up’ pitiful main character. Soturo.