I often say that I would die for my dog and cats. And I truly think that I would. But how well do I really know myself? If I was actually in a situation where I had to choose between my life and my cats', which would I choose?
The narrator of Genki Kawamura's slim novel If Cats Disappeared from the World must grapple with this very question. The protagonist is a young postman who suddenly discovers that he has a tumor and is about to die - the very next day, in fact. Alone, in shock and despair, with his cat Cabbage, he tries to come up with a bucket list of things to do before he dies.
But while he's thinking about what he would even put on such a list, the Devil shows up and offers to cut a deal. The Devil will extend the narrator's life by one day, in exchange for making one thing completely disappear from the world.
After some deliberation, the narrator agrees, and the next days follow him as he wraps up his time on earth and discovers what he can and cannot trade for his own life.
I'm tempted to give this book a 7. After all, it did make me cry, and it's a nice little novel. I especially enjoyed how the Devil looked exactly like the narrator. The fact that "evil" is just ourselves, that "temptation" is solely the person we could have been, the choices we could have made...that is endlessly fascinating and a treatment that I haven't seen in any other novels.
But while it was touching, it was predictable - I mean, the first thing the Devil makes disappear is telephones and cellphones. It's the "we spend too much time on our phones" argument, without any new insights.
What really shines in this book is not so much the philosophical ruminations on what is important in life, but the relationships between humans and animals that make life worth living and dying for.
6/10 📕