The Tenderness of Love

Book Review

Title: The Travelling Cat Chronicles

Author: Hiro Arikawa

Translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel

Publisher: Penguin Random House, 2019

Pages: 249

This book will touch the most tender core of your heart. It is a love story with a difference: it is love between a man and his cat. Right from page one to the last page, this novel gives the reader a feeling of tenderness. Reading this novel is like sitting on the side of a beautiful mountain brook and listening to the gurgling of water while feeling the gossamer caress of the cool breeze on your body.

I bought this book precisely because I have four pet cats who all have a special place each in my heart. If you love cats, this book will keep you hooked. Even if you don’t have a soft corner for those creatures, you will still love this book for the tenderness it makes you feel. The author, Hiro Arikawa, is a cat-lover, obviously. 

Hiro Arikawa with her cat

Satoru Miyawaki is a young man who takes care of a wounded cat that he found on the roadside. He names the cat Nana whom he takes to a vet and then looks after until it gets well. Satoru and Nana become the best of friends. They understand each other well, they respect each other, and a unique bond develops between the two.

But for a mysterious reason (which will be revealed towards the end of the novel), Satoru decides to part with Nana. He goes from place to place, meeting friends who are willing to adopt Nana. But both Nana and Satoru will find some excuse in each place for not leaving Nana there. So Nana travels with Satoru. We meet some of Satoru’s friends who are also quite gentle people. There are no villains in this book. There are no vicious characters. There is only goodness. And it is the kind of goodness we see in some simple people whose very nature is like a soothing music that plays itself on the strings of our heart’s guitar.

Satoru had lost his parents to a car accident when he was a boy. His mother’s sister looked after him. Now, unable to leave Nana with anyone else, Satoru goes to that same aunt who agrees to accept Nana too. Satoru and Nana will live in the aunt’s house.

But the climax of the novel has quite a few twists which will turn the sweet melody into a melancholy song. The strings of your heart’s guitar will experience painful tugs. It was hard to suppress my tears as I read the final pages.

This is the kind of a book that mellows your heart even if you are not a cat-lover. This is a sweet melody of tenderness. But remember: ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.'