October 22, 2023
episode description
After reading Genki Kawamura's If Cats Disappeared From the World, I can safely say that my journey reading translated books has been very interesting so far. Tune in to both a non-spoiler and spoiler review of the book to hear my thoughts. And although this book wasn't exactly what I was expecting, I'm very much looking forward to reading my next translated book.
transcript
I don't know whether I'm happy or sad. It's difficult to say. But there is one thing I do know. You can persuade yourself to be either happy or sad. It just depends on how you choose to see things.
That's a quote from the book I'm going to be reviewing today, If Cats Disappeared From the World. I decided to read this book because it is another translated book and after reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, I just craved another translated novel.
I remember I went to Barnes Noble's and I was like I need to find another translated book to fulfill this— like scratch this itch that I'm having and I found this book. It was right next to Before the Coffee Gets Cold. I wasn't really particularly looking for another book translated from Japanese. I just wanted to read another book that was translated, but because this book was right next to Before the Coffee Gets Cold and it looked similar, had a similar vibe, you know, it was a small book, I was like, maybe this is it. And then when I read the synopsis, I was like, okay, I'm definitely kind of intrigued because it gave a similar vibe.
So this book is about a dying man who makes a deal with the devil and in this deal it's basically saying like in exchange for making something disappear from the world he gets to live one extra day.
So the first thing that the devil makes disappear from the world is phones. And at first I was kind of confused about this concept, because I was like, so his phone just disappears? Like, I thought it was little individual objects in his room.
But actually, it's like he makes phones disappear from the world, everybody, like, nobody has a phone. Which made it a little bit more interesting for me. And it just talks about, like, how life is different without that one thing. And if it was worth it to him to give up that thing in exchange for an extra day of living.
Because the devil comes to him and is like, you're gonna die tomorrow, so this is a deal I've got for you if you wanna live another day. And it's basically him, like, kind of doing things that he never thought to do when he thought he had all the time in the world. For instance, he makes this list in the beginning where he talks about— basically a bucket list and he tries to figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his time on earth.
But honestly, I hate to say it, before I get to the non spoiler section. This book put me in a reading slump. It didn't draw me in right away in the way that Before the Coffee Gets Cold did, and I mean, that book didn't really draw me in either. It wasn't immediately like, oh my god, I'm hooked, it was just like, before I knew it. I mean, it didn't take long, like maybe 15 pages? But this book took a long time. Because I honestly, I had the same expectations that I had for Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and it totally did not fulfill those. Which is something I have to stop doing, like pitting up other books against each other.
Kind of like when I did with Memphis, when I was like, Oh, the concept is similar to A Vanishing Half, and A Vanishing Half is better, so Memphis is not as good. But that also feels kind of like inevitable. I remember one time when I was taking a class about publishing, and someone was like, do not think you can write the next Harry Potter because everyone will compare your book, your story to Harry Potter, and Harry Potter is beloved by so many, so it's kind of hard to get that published.
I feel like comparisons are inevitable. And honestly, the writing at the beginning felt very juvenile. It reminded me of writing that I read in my intro creative writing class. Even my own writing in my intro creative writing class. I'm honestly scared to read my first ever story that I had ever written (beginning to end) in college.
I do not want to see that. I remember my teacher, she liked it. I don't know. I'm scared to read it.
Anyway, it just felt like it didn't flow right, or it felt like the— what's it called? The points they were trying to make, were fake deep.
When you're new to something, you think you're so brilliant at it, and you're like, oh my god. And I'm not sure if this has to do with the translation aspect of it, like maybe the story itself in Japanese in the original version doesn't suffer from this, but the translated version felt kind of stilted, like kind of like stiff.
And it felt kind of flat, not very personable. I didn't really feel very connected to the main character as well. Like he wasn't very sympathetic to me. But I'm saying all that to say, the writing did get better towards the end of the book. I would say the last 50 pages, it was like, I was really into it. But it was a struggle to get there and it took me a long time. Obviously from the gap between my book reviews from the last book review, which was at the beginning of September and it's like October now.
Another thing before we get to the spoiler section of the review, I didn't really like how the devil was portrayed in this book at first. In the beginning I was a hater, for real, I was a hater. I was like, this is so corny, like, the devil looks exactly like the main character and he wears Hawaiian shirts and shorts and bright colors and whatever. And it kind of reminded me of— if you've ever been to Trader Joe's, the managers, they wear Hawaiian shirts, that's their uniform. And it was like, this is like a Trader Joe's manager, what is this? Why is the devil a Trader Joe's manager?
But still, this book somehow managed to leave me with like a sense of calm. Like it kind of inched its way into my heart, wormed its way in there. So I kind of feel like, you know, it was rough to get there, but the story does get better at the end, and it's the kind of story that sticks with you a little bit, a while after you finish, like it gives you things to think about, kind of in the same way that Before the Coffee Gets Cold does.
I'm gonna start with the spoiler section of the review now. If you have not read this book yet, come back after you do read it.
Let's start by talking about the things that our main character gets rid of in order to live an extra day. So he gets rid of phones, he gets rid of movies, and he gets rid of clocks.
So with phones, it feels like he learned to be more present. He learned to enjoy, the little things that he wouldn't have noticed if he was staring at his phone. But he kind of gave up connection because in this section it talks about his ex girlfriend where he sets up a date which he's a whole hour early to, but he doesn't know that and so he's like panicking He's like, oh my god, like she stood me up or she's not coming. And maybe something happened to her But he can't call her to figure out what happened. So he's just like panicking basically. He loses that like instantaneous connection and then also their whole relationship is built off of telephone calls because when they talk in person like he becomes like shy and mute and doesn't know what to say— which honestly kind of relatable, so he loses that that aspect of connection that works best for him, or at least like he's able to be his true, more open self, through that form of connection.
And then with movies, he learns to appreciate human emotions, empathy, and the role that it had in his life in the past. I guess like portraying the things, the emotions that you experience when you watch a movie and you just feel so touched or you can just like really empathize with the character even if you haven't had that exact experience you can empathize with their pain, their sadness, their love, their laughter. You can empathize with those things and you feel a sense of human connection and he learns to appreciate that more, but he gives up that emotional companion.
Movies were an emotional companion for him and then with clocks, the last thing he gives up, he learns that time is a human construct. So basically like time really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's 2 p. m. or 3 p. m. really that's something that humans made up. And hyperfixating on what's coming next, like what's after this, and what's the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, is so unhealthy and stressful, but then in the same vein he gives up certainty. He'll wake up and you'll be like, it's morning and he's like, but what time in the morning? Is it almost lunchtime or is it early morning? I don't know. It's just morning. So I thought that was interesting and then he stops giving up things when the devil tells him that to live an extra day you need to give up cats, cats gotta disappear from the world, which is obviously the, the title of the book.
But the main character is unable to give up cats. When I read this I was like, oh, so if he gave up cats he'd be giving up companionship because his cat was basically his companion. And he just— he couldn't do it. And so I was reading this and I was like, what is this book actually about though?
So it's about a dying man who gives up things makes things disappear from the world in order to live an extra day, right? Like but really what is it actually about? And I felt like when I thought about it for a little bit, I felt like this book Is about processing death, which is mainly his own, but also his mother who dies I think four years earlier and then thinking about regrets related to death and grieving.
So looking back at your life and thinking about what could have been, what should have been, and what would have been. And then also living in the moment, realizing that the next moment is not guaranteed and to just savor this one. And in that same vein, I feel like this book is also about treasuring the little gifts that life gives you.
So, the feeling of connection you feel when you watch a good movie or when your cat comes and sits in your lap and purrs or all and the names of all the different types of flowers that there are in the world, like just treasuring those little gifts, those little moments of joy in life.
But above all, I feel like this book is about healing. He has a tumultuous relationship with his father. He has a lot of unresolved things in his life where he didn't either didn't have the courage or didn't really act how he wanted to act without filtering himself, which is something that I definitely relate to.
I feel like a lot of the time I filter my reactions to fit what I think people would want me to do instead of just doing like what I want, which is something that I'm working on. I'm getting better at just truly being myself. It's more than just like doing the things you like or dressing how you want.
It is so, it truly is really multifaceted. And his relationship with his father was so interesting to me because the book goes through the scene where his mother is dying, right? His mother is literally dying before his eyes, and he's like, where's dad? Like, he should be here.
And his mother's like, Oh, he's fixing my watch. And the son, the main character, he's like, what the hell is he doing fixing the damn watch? You're literally dying. He needs to be right here. Like, what? Who cares about that watch? He needs to be here. And I think that was really the breaking point in the relationship. I think before that it was still tense but that particular moment where it felt like his father valued something else over being with his mother in her final moments was the main character's final straw with his father. And his mother simply responded by saying like people show love in different ways which is so interesting because him fixing her watch was his way of showing love for her, but I can see also where the main character's coming from where it's like that watch will always be here, but his mother will not.
I want to talk about Tom. So Tom is a man that he becomes friends with when he's on a trip to Argentina with his girlfriend and with Tom, they have a ball. They hang out together every night. They're having a great time and then all of a sudden they're waiting for him for the usual hangout and Tom just like is dead. He just doesn't show up and then they're like, where's Tom? And then other people tell them that Tom is dead basically and it was actually the first moment in the book where I was like taken aback.
I was like, oh my god, what the heck? He's dead? And I think from that point on when Tom died is when I became more invested in the book. It just became more like interesting to me overall and especially because Tom was an interesting character because he says really interesting things.
He says at one point there are many cruel things in the world, but there are also just as many beautiful things.
And that honestly was a really beautiful quote, where I felt like there is a lot of horrific things in the world, especially when we're thinking about the war going on in Ukraine, the war going on between Hamas and Israel, like, there are a lot of horrific things happening in the world right now.
But then— and this is not to downplay how horrific these things are, but it's just so interesting how such beautiful things can coexist in the same moment as such horrific things. Like a baby is being born right now at the same time that, you know, bombs are dropping in other parts of the world.
Or a person is getting cured from cancer, they're finally ringing the cancer free bell in the same breath that someone else has been murdered. Not to be bleak, but the dichotomy of those two things coexisting at the same moment is just such an interesting part of the world.
But anyway, so as I said earlier this book does feel like it's a lot about processing death and Tom's death is the first instance that we really really see this at play in the book where, especially this quote on page 54, it says, Tom suddenly disappeared. He hadn't turned up at the hotel after heading out for a day of sightseeing. That night we sipped our wine and waited for him in our usual spot, but he never showed. The next day we found out that Tom was dead. He had taken a trip to the border between Argentina and Chile to see the historical statue of Christ when the bus he was on fell off a cliff. It was like a dream. It didn't seem real. I could still see Tom joining us in the dining room, bottle of wine in hand, saying, Come on, time for a drink. But now Tom wasn't coming back. We spent the rest of the trip in shock. On our last day in Buenos Aires, we visited Iguazu Falls, which was 30 minutes from the airport. After two hours of hiking, we reached a narrow crack in the earth's surface that goes by the name of Devil's Throat. We'd seen this place in the Hong Kong film that we were obsessed with at the time.
The Devil's Throat sits at the top of the largest waterfall in the world. Water rushed over the edge with an unimaginable force. The magnificence and scale of that place gave me a sense of the sheer violence nature is capable of. Then I noticed that my girlfriend was crying next to me, but I couldn't hear her no matter how loudly she sobbed. Her voice was drowned out by the deafening sound of the falls. It was then that it hit me, the undeniable, tangible feeling that someone I had knew had died. Someone I'd grown close to. Tom was dead and we would never see him again. No more talking late into the night, drinking red wine or enjoying meals together. It was the first time. The finality of death had really hit home for either of us, and so she started to cry there, in that place. A place where there was no denying just how powerless and utterly helpless we human beings are. I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could do to console her. All I could do was stare blankly at the white, foamy water as it cascaded down the falls and was swallowed up by a great hole in the earth.
So, it was really interesting to think about that quote and just realize that death is so abrupt. Even when it's not abrupt, it's still abrupt because it's like one moment you're here and the next moment you're not.
This book also touches a lot on relationships ending, particularly the relationship with his girlfriend ending. He tries to figure out why did their relationship ended. And then the girlfriend is like, well, like, what's my favorite color? And he's like, blue.
And she's like, no, it's red. Then she's like, what's my favorite food? And he's like, um... And she's like, it's waffles. None of his answers are correct, but that was the dynamic that was going on in their relationship. And I was like, oh my god, how could he be like, why did we break up?
And she's like, you never listen to me. You don't know me. But really she says that she thinks that the beginning of the end was that trip to Argentina after Tom had died. She just felt like the relationship was just over. And the main character kind of wishes that on that flight back, that when they didn't talk to each other after Tom's death— when they were just in such shock, that they had talked through their feelings.
But because, like I said earlier, he was only good at talking through his feelings over the phone, he wished that they had had, like, cell phones, I guess even, like, texts to talk about their feelings. With that little barrier because a telephone communicating over a phone is kind of like a barrier you don't see body language all the time and it feels like you can be a little bit more open. At least some people probably feel like you can be a little bit more open with that barrier of the telephone. So when the main character is reminiscing on their relationship, there is this one quote that is so sad, and it kind of goes into what I was talking about with regrets, which I'm gonna come back to later, but it's so, it's so interesting to think about regrets in this way.
So the book says, We didn't even have to talk about anything special. Just talking would have been enough to show that we were there for each other and that we cared. It would have been nice to have taken the time to listen to what was going on in the other one's head, to understand each other's feelings. If only. When we parted ways at the station near her house, she gave me a faint smile as we said our goodbyes. I still remember that smile. It was embedded in my memory and implanted somewhere deep in my heart. It was like an old football injury that ached on rainy days. But I guess that's not unusual. I must have a whole collection of small injuries tucked somewhere away in the recesses of my mind. I suppose those are what some people call regrets.
Oh my gosh, thinking about regrets as a collection of small injuries. That is so true. Like an old injury that comes back to remind you all the time, just when you forget about it, your knee starts to hurt or your back starts to hurt. Like just when you feel like you're totally healed, something will remind you that that injury will always be with you.
Another concept that I thought was interesting to think about was what the dead leave behind. There's a lot of death in this book. But I mean, this book is about a man that's dying. Like, duh, there's gonna be a lot of death. But honestly, there's a lot more death than I thought. It's not just his death. It's his death and his mother's death and Tom's death and the cat's death, his first cat's death.
Like, it's like, damn, there's so much death in this book. Anyway, um, so because there's so much death in this book, it made me think about like, what do the dead leave behind and it feels like the answer that this book gives is that the dead leave behind nothing, but they also leave everything behind and there's two quotes to explain what I mean by that.
So first I want to read a quote that explains why I say that this book tells us that the dead leave nothing behind.
As I gazed at the blank screen, I remembered a photograph I once saw. It was a picture of the inside of a movie theater. The photo was taken from the projection room and showed the seats in the screen. The photograph had captured one entire film and was taken by opening the shutter at the beginning of the film and then not closing it again until the film ended. In other words, the photograph recorded an entire two hour long film. The end result of absorbing the light from every scene in the movie was that the screen in the photo showed nothing but a white rectangle. I suppose you could say that my life is like that photograph. A movie that shows my whole life would include both comedy and tragedy, all the joy, anger, and sorrow I've been through, the result of which would be nothing more than a blank screen. There's nothing there, nothing left, only an empty space.
Because once you die there is nothing left of those moments, of those comedy, of those tragedy. Not thinking about things like photographs and stuff, there's nothing left. You know, you're just, you're gone. You know what I mean? Not to be bleak, not to, not to sound scary, but like, it's like, you leave nothing behind.
But then in that same vein, when I talk about leaving everything behind, when you die, you leave everything behind.
I am thinking about the letter that his mother left him. Where she talks about all of the things that she loves about her son. Well, she says all the things that make her son so wonderful. And so when I was reading that, It reminded me that, okay, so you leave nothing behind, nothing of yourself, like, nothing of your soul, but you leave everything behind in the sense that you are leaving all these people that have memories of you behind.
And I feel like the quote that really, really encapsulates this is when he's talking about all of his memories of his mother. So the quote is:
My mother rubbing my back to comfort me whenever I was sick. The way she held me in her arms after I got lost once at an amusement park. The time I wanted the same kind of brightly colored lunchbox as all the other kids in my class, and my mother ran around town all day long just to find the right one. How whenever I fidgeted too much in my sleep and kicked off the covers, she'd always come to tuck me in again. The fact that she always bought me new clothes whenever I needed them, yet she rarely bought anything new for herself. How she made the best omelets that I could never eat enough of. And when I'd finished, mine was still hungry. She'd always give me a piece of hers. The time I gave her a gift certificate for a free massage, but she never used it because she thought it was too special of a treat and didn't want to spoil herself. When she bought a piano so that she could play my favorite songs for me. But it turned out she wasn't very good and always played the wrong notes. My mother, I wondered, did she have any time to herself? Did she have any hobbies of her own? Were there things she wanted to do, hopes and dreams she held onto? I always wanted to thank her properly for all she'd done, but never found the words. I never even brought her flowers because it seemed like a cheesy gesture at the time. Why couldn't I at least have done something small for her? Why was this simple action so hard for me? Why did it take me this long to understand?
So, when you die, you leave behind all these memories— all the memories of omelets. Especially that part where he would eat all his omelet and then she was still hungry and she would give him a piece of hers.
Like, damn. It's so sad.
Like, that's what you leave behind when you die. Like, those moments that the other person remembers of you is what you leave behind. So, you leave behind nothing, but you also leave behind everything.
And going back to the regrets part that I talked about earlier for a little bit, the main character also just talked about all the regrets that he had left after his mother had died but then at the end he has some sort of epiphany that was honestly so beautiful. This is what I meant when I was saying the end of the book sticks with you to the end of the book, it's so much better.
Is it worth it to go through the beginning? Like, I really don't know, but am I glad that I did it? Yes, so do with that what you will. But, he says:
Over the last few days, I've come to realize that there's a certain beauty in those regrets. They're proof of having lived. I'm done with making things disappear from the world. Maybe I'll regret my decision when the moment comes, but that's okay. No matter how you slice it, life is full of regrets anyway. I was never able to be myself completely or live my life exactly how I wanted to, and I'm not even sure if I ever figured out what exactly being myself and living out my dreams really meant. So I guess I'm going to die with all those failures and regrets, all those unfulfilled dreams, all the people I've never met, all the things I've never tasted, and all the places I've never been. I'm taking all of that with me to my grave, and I'm okay with that. In the end, I'm satisfied with who I am and the life I've lived. I'm just happy to have been here at all.
Which was like, that was so profound for what like the way the book started to the way the book ended. Like, where was this energy in the beginning of the book? This is so heartbreaking, especially the part where when the the devil is like, okay we're gonna make cats disappear and the guy's like no like please not the cats and the devil's like do you want to live an extra day or not? And he's like, I don't know and let me think about it. The devil gives him time to think about it and then he's like talking to his cat and thinking about it And then the cat says, for you, sir, I would gladly disappear.
And I'm just like, oh my God, pets are just, we don't deserve them. What would I do without my dog? I think that part hit for me so hard because I was thinking about my dog. Would I live, would I give up him just to live an extra day? I absolutely would not like, which sounds crazy.
Four years ago, before I got my dog, I would have been like, that's ridiculous, it's just a dog. To be completely honest with you, I'd never had a dog before, I didn't understand the connection— I didn't get it. But now I do, I get it. And I really, really don't think I would give up my dog just to live an extra day.
Because I think the quality of the day I could have with him there is so much better than that last day without him. Because I would just spend the whole time being like, oh, I wish he were here.
When he tells the devil that he is not gonna make the cats disappear, I'm just gonna die. The devil's like, what the heck but then he also reveals why his appearance is the way it is. So when the devil is explaining this he says, I'm the person you could have been I'm the side of yourself that you've never shown to the world. The cheerful but shallow wearing flashy clothes doing whatever you want whenever you want without worrying about what other people would think, saying whatever comes to mind no matter how appropriate. I'm made up of all those little regrets in your life.
What if whenever you reach the fork in the road of life, you'd gone the other way? What would have happened? Who would you have become? That's what the devil is all about. I'm what you wanted to become but couldn't. I'm both the closest and the furthest thing from who you are. Which, I mean, I guess that's an interesting interpretation of the devil. I don't know. It was interesting to read.
I think about the other road, the other options of my life a lot. I think about what if I became a teacher? I think about what if I had done sports in college? Who would that version of myself have looked like?
And really, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because that's not the version of myself that I want to be, obviously, because I made the opposite choice. I feel kind of satisfied with this version of myself. I don't wish that I was that other version of myself, but I do wonder about her, you know what I'm saying?
Anyway, so this book ends with the main character writing a letter to his father. And this is really like the first time where he allows himself to be completely honest and raw in a way that he never has been before. And I honestly feel like it's the perfect way to end the book because like we know he's dying. We know he's about to die but before he does he allows himself to be his true self and express everything that he wanted to express but something was holding him back from expressing it without hesitation, without reservation and sometimes I do feel like I wish I could live my life like that.
I wish I could just say exactly what i'm feeling all the time. I wish I wish I could just live a hundred percent transparently, like honest all the time.
It's not like i'm lying all the time, but i'm not i'm not showing you all of myself because it's hard to be. Because I think for me, doing that requires a sense of vulnerability that I'm not comfortable with yet.
I kind of am the type of person that likes to hold their cards to themselves and be like, Mmm, I don't want to show you all of that side of me. It is kind of difficult for me to live like that, but I, like, I yearn, I wish, I want to live like that so badly.
And it really does feel a lot easier to live like that around people that I haven't known me for a long time, which I'm not sure why that it is, but it's true. And I feel like him doing that at the moment before he dies is kind of like, you know— I don't want to say mean, but it's kind of like a cop out or I feel like it's only possible in those moments when you know you won't be around to deal with the consequences or the fallout from doing that.
Um, because when you know that you are most likely going to live to see the next day, dealing with people's reactions is so intimidating. But in general, my final thoughts on this book, it made its way into my heart, even though it was literally, like, pulling teeth just to finish this book.
It was rough and I'm not sure if it was, like I said earlier, the translation process that did this, because honestly, genuinely, at the end, I can say that it was a pleasant story, an interesting story with some really nice life— not lessons, but like, I don't know. I can't think straight right now, but like thinking about life and how life is difficult.
And sometimes you realize that it's not the book. Sometimes it's not the book that is the problem. Sometimes it's just you. Maybe it's just me.
Maybe this book would be a brilliant book for you. Maybe the place I'm at right now and my schedule just makes this book not the book for me at the moment, at least to give it a higher rating, but I can say there are some good aspects of this book.
Anyway, that's the end of this week's episode. I am working on doing more book reviews, but like I said doing more book reviews requires reading more books which I have to find the time to do and it's not that i'm not reading books, but it's just so easy to read a romance novel before I go to bed rather than like something that's contemplating life. Like sometimes I just can't handle that after a day of work. Like I really just want to relax in my bed and eat a snack and listen to some very handsome man proclaim his love for a girl.
I will not review those books because those books do not need to be reviewed. Like, if I had a good time, I'm going to give it a 10 out of 10. Even if the book is trash and it's just like a copycat of another book that has the same trope, like I'm gonna give it a 10 because I had a great time.
So I'm not going to review those books. Anyway as always, don't forget to leave a review if you enjoyed the podcast so far. And also, make sure to follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube @jumblepodcast. Also, the website is still a thing, bit.ly/jumblepod.
I am going to go draw some sunflowers because that's all I've been thinking about lately. So I'm gonna go do that. Make sure you guys are staying warm. It's getting colder and colder every day unless you live somewhere like Florida or California. But it's getting colder there too, just like not horribly cold like it is everywhere else. Anyway, stay warm guys wherever you are.
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