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A review by schnaucl
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
It was a promising concept but it turned out to be gatekeeping with bonus sexism.
The book conflates books and reading, in ways that aren't always helpful. In the first labyrinth, the problem is with people who collect books to brag about them, want to brag about the number of books they read and therefore never reread them.
I rarely reread books these days. When I was younger I often reread books I enjoyed and didn't understand it when adults said they didn't reread things. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that as a child I had more leisure time and while I certainly had access to books and parents who encouraged reading, it's different as an adult with my own disposable income and access to bookstores. I don't remember having an actual written to-be-read list when I was young, as an adult it's currently about 350 books, partly because the Internet gives me access to so many different avenue for book recommendations. So even if I didn't add another book to the list until I finished what's currently listed, it would take me years to finish it so it can feel difficult to justify rereading something I've already read when I have so many books I've already bought but haven't read yet.
To be honest, I do think publicly tracking what I've read probably makes a difference, especially since until relatively recently the book sites I use didn't make it easy to include a reread of a book as a book read that year. Would I read more books if I didn't set a book reading challenge or track what I read? Maybe.
I know the best books always give something new when reread, but I have some fear that maybe I'd find I don't like the books I remember fondly as much if I reread them, especially older books where societal views have changed (usually for the better). And certainly there are things I might notice more now that I was just oblivious to then.
I have the least problem with the second labyrinth, which basically says if you read a one or two sentence summary of a book that's not the same as actually reading the book. You miss a lot of nuance and can't possibly get much out of it.
The third labyrinth has to do with selling books which include a lot of the types of books from the first labyrinth (summaries, abridged versions, etc) but also just books people might enjoy but aren't great works of literature.
There's a very strong feeling through the whole book that there's only one "right" way to be a reader and a lover of books and it's to read only great works of literature and probably reread books often and any other kind of reading is at least a less good and pure form and maybe just bad. And that's crap. People aren't inferior or bad because they like reading things that are not considered part of the great works of literature. Let people read what they want to read. Stories can be told in all sorts of forms and maybe someone who starts with one type of book eventually branches out to the kind of books this one considers acceptable. But maybe they don't. That doesn't mean that the books they read don't help them empathize with other people or that they don't learn other valuable things from them.
The end conclusion, that books teach empathy, is a good one, but that is also true of books that aren't, say, Shakespeare, which, as I understand, was pretty much the vulgar popular fiction of his day.
Rintaro would also be a pretty terrible book seller, at least for his female patrons. He recommends Pride and Prejudice to Sayo explicitly because she's a girl and keeps recommending romances only because she's a girl and apparently all girls like to read romances. (Obviously Jane Austen is great, and has a lot to say to everyone, regardless of gender). But he never asks her what she likes to read, it's just, you're a girl, you must like love stories. She's the only female main character and she struggles with reading (when reading Pride and Prejudice she complains there are so many words and so many pages and when she's ready to branch out he recommends another book she complains about and he basically says it's good to read things you struggle with. Which, yes, is true, but if you're trying to get someone to enjoy reading maybe don't make it like eating your vegetables or taking medicine).
Rintaro is also a shut in and the book takes pains to say a life of the mind isn't enough and you should also go outside and talk to other people sometimes.
The translator also made the choice to refer to the cat, Tiger, as "it." There's a note in the back that explains that pronouns aren't used as often in Japanese, and the original story doesn't specify the gender of the cat. I realize "it" is technically the gender neutral in English, but I also think it has a derogatory connotation that's usually meant to be insulting. While that clearly wasn't the intention here, I didn't know that until the end since that's where the translator's note is.
The book conflates books and reading, in ways that aren't always helpful. In the first labyrinth, the problem is with people who collect books to brag about them, want to brag about the number of books they read and therefore never reread them.
I rarely reread books these days. When I was younger I often reread books I enjoyed and didn't understand it when adults said they didn't reread things. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that as a child I had more leisure time and while I certainly had access to books and parents who encouraged reading, it's different as an adult with my own disposable income and access to bookstores. I don't remember having an actual written to-be-read list when I was young, as an adult it's currently about 350 books, partly because the Internet gives me access to so many different avenue for book recommendations. So even if I didn't add another book to the list until I finished what's currently listed, it would take me years to finish it so it can feel difficult to justify rereading something I've already read when I have so many books I've already bought but haven't read yet.
To be honest, I do think publicly tracking what I've read probably makes a difference, especially since until relatively recently the book sites I use didn't make it easy to include a reread of a book as a book read that year. Would I read more books if I didn't set a book reading challenge or track what I read? Maybe.
I know the best books always give something new when reread, but I have some fear that maybe I'd find I don't like the books I remember fondly as much if I reread them, especially older books where societal views have changed (usually for the better). And certainly there are things I might notice more now that I was just oblivious to then.
I have the least problem with the second labyrinth, which basically says if you read a one or two sentence summary of a book that's not the same as actually reading the book. You miss a lot of nuance and can't possibly get much out of it.
The third labyrinth has to do with selling books which include a lot of the types of books from the first labyrinth (summaries, abridged versions, etc) but also just books people might enjoy but aren't great works of literature.
There's a very strong feeling through the whole book that there's only one "right" way to be a reader and a lover of books and it's to read only great works of literature and probably reread books often and any other kind of reading is at least a less good and pure form and maybe just bad. And that's crap. People aren't inferior or bad because they like reading things that are not considered part of the great works of literature. Let people read what they want to read. Stories can be told in all sorts of forms and maybe someone who starts with one type of book eventually branches out to the kind of books this one considers acceptable. But maybe they don't. That doesn't mean that the books they read don't help them empathize with other people or that they don't learn other valuable things from them.
The end conclusion, that books teach empathy, is a good one, but that is also true of books that aren't, say, Shakespeare, which, as I understand, was pretty much the vulgar popular fiction of his day.
Rintaro would also be a pretty terrible book seller, at least for his female patrons. He recommends Pride and Prejudice to Sayo explicitly because she's a girl and keeps recommending romances only because she's a girl and apparently all girls like to read romances. (Obviously Jane Austen is great, and has a lot to say to everyone, regardless of gender). But he never asks her what she likes to read, it's just, you're a girl, you must like love stories. She's the only female main character and she struggles with reading (when reading Pride and Prejudice she complains there are so many words and so many pages and when she's ready to branch out he recommends another book she complains about and he basically says it's good to read things you struggle with. Which, yes, is true, but if you're trying to get someone to enjoy reading maybe don't make it like eating your vegetables or taking medicine).
Rintaro is also a shut in and the book takes pains to say a life of the mind isn't enough and you should also go outside and talk to other people sometimes.
The translator also made the choice to refer to the cat, Tiger, as "it." There's a note in the back that explains that pronouns aren't used as often in Japanese, and the original story doesn't specify the gender of the cat. I realize "it" is technically the gender neutral in English, but I also think it has a derogatory connotation that's usually meant to be insulting. While that clearly wasn't the intention here, I didn't know that until the end since that's where the translator's note is.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexism and Death