We’ll prescribe for you a cat
By Syou Ishida
Audiobook
My cat keeps bringing me mice, sometimes a shrew and once a squirrel. I know he is showing me what a great hunter he is and providing for me, but the problem is they are not always dead. Sometimes they get up and scamper under the furniture. So, the cat sits and stares under the bookshelf and I obsessively monitor for mouse droppings wondering where it went. While I appreciate the work he does, I am not impressed with the method of providing deliverables.
I am probably the last person on the planet to discover that there is a cat culture in Japan that sounds like an entire population obsession. And as anyone who hosts a cat or 12 knows, Cats are strong medicine.
The frequency of a cat’s purr ranges from 25 to 150 Hertz which coincidentally, is the range of vibration that may promote bone and muscle healing and provide pain relief. Correlation, not causation. Oscar the therapy cat, would curl up next to patients’ hours before they died and staff came to use him as an alert of impending death. The internet (a questionable source of information at best) will tell you about cats that can detect cancer in their owners before medical science. It also tells you that petting a cat for 10-15 minutes will lower your BP and in fact there are actual studies verifying that cat ownership reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and death.
Thus, armed with my understanding of cats in my own culture and a long-standing inn-keeper to cats, I was fascinated by the discovery of a whole genre of cat literature in Japan.
Translations, I think, are difficult. Language is crucial to culture and if you have a very limited experience with a culture, trying to grasp it with your native language likely leaves great gaps. For me, initially, the characters were slightly weird, but functioning within the formal Japanese culture. I thought perhaps translation made them seem stilted and lacking dimension, however, by the end I realized the structure and formality within Japanese culture seems to be very confining and the characters are struggling with feelings of isolation or having conflicts relating to others. Cats it seems, help with that and flesh you out into a more dimensional character.
An enchanting story of magic, medicine and healing power of cats and a discovery of a whole new genre to explore. A little bit of magical fantasy, a little bit of exploring another culture and a little bit of learning; all good outcomes for a simple novel. It will not keep you awake. It is however a comforting tale and this we certainly need right now.
Also, did you know?
Cats in Japanese culture, are seen as good luck and there is a Cat Day on February 22. Pet your cat. You deserve it.
