We, the Children of Cats

by Tomoyuki Hoshino

By turns teasing and terrifying, laconic and luminous, the stories in this anthology are drawn from sources as diverse as Borges, Nabokov, Garcia-Marquez, and traditional Japanese folklore, and yet they ultimately reside in a slyly subversive literary world that is all their own. Blending an uncompromising ethical vision with exuberant, free-wheeling imagery and bracing formal experimentation, the five short stories and three novellas included in We, the Children of Cats show the full range and force of Hoshino’s imagination. The stories include a man and woman who find their genders and sexualities brought radically into question when their bodies sprout new parts; a man who travels from Japan to Latin America in search of revolutionary purpose only to find much more than he bargained for; a journalist who investigates a poisoning at an elementary school and gets lost in an underworld of buried crimes, secret societies, and haunted forests; and two young killers, exiled from Japan, who find a new beginning as resistance fighters in Peru. An afterword by translator and editor Brian Bergstrom and a new preface by Hoshino himself is also included.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Science Fiction, Asia, Collections

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incorporates some of that magical realism shit without making you feel like a fourteen year old girl, which is cool... not that there's anything wrong with feeling like a fourteen year old girl. It's just not my style. This shit is spacey as fuck though, and some of the stories do really fun stuff like blend the narration of multiple characters, and a whole bunch of other crazy crap. The story where the dude has sex with the ground and then meets some starving children is particularly awesome. Check it out.

Oh I also wrote this other review where my voice discussing this book is maybe less annoying. Here:

http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran...

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting collection, though I ended up enjoying the short stories more than the novellas (which was a shame, since the novellas made up more of the book). Hoshino reminds me of Kenzaburo Oe with his brutal, explicitly political vision, and this collection is mostly written with the same kind of grotesque realism, though on occasion it does move into full-blown surrealism. The major standouts were "No Father's Club" and especially "Paper Woman".

[Иван Величков · Rating 3 out of 5]

Това е първата японска книга, която рязко ме изкара от зоната ми на комфорт. Принципно "изяждам" всичко японско до което се докопам, от чист реализъм, през така любимите ми техни криминални истории, до брутален хорър.
"Ние децата на котки" е печелила доста награди в и извън Япония. От там очаквах малко по-шантави истории, но това което получих беше... БУФФФ...

Томоюки Хошино е роден в Лос Анджелис, но семейството му се връща в Япония, още когато е на три години, така че спокойно можем да говорим за отраснал в родината си писател. В произведенията му се оглежда изключително голямата му любов към Латинска Америка и нейните автори. Това води до една уникална сплав между магически реализъм и чисто източна литературна бруталност, която не мога да определя подобрява или опошлява така популярния стил на Борхес и Маркез.

Хошино съвсем умишлено танцува по ръба на бръснача, като успява да дразни чувствата на читателя, но внимава да не го изкара от нерви. Състоянието в което изпадаш докато четеш прозата му е един път, хем ти се иска да хвърлиш книгата, хем не можеш преди да я довършиш.
На края (на английското издание, де), след разказите и повестите има няколко обединени в едно есета от преводача, които са доста интелигентен литературен анализ на темите засягани от автора, но няма да го повтарям тук. Обаче си заслужава четенето, което не можа да се каже за повечето подобни включвания (отношение, лично, нищо лошо).

Хартиена жена - Разказът много добре подготвя читателя за настроението в цялата книга. Един писател започва връзка с жена, която е обсебена от желанието си да е лист хартия. От чисто сексуални, взаимоотношенията им стават особено шантави, когато той започва да пише произведенията си на нея. Психичната ѝ трансформация с физически податки е зверска.

Клубът "Без баща" - Група деца полусираци основават въпросния клуб в който си измислят и разказват истории за несъщесдтвуващите си бащи. ТОва им помага да преоткрият себе си и да израстат. Сладка и горчива история.

Чино - Отново имаме преобразяване. Бунтуващ се младеж пътува до Мексико, защото иска да отхвърли Японската си идентичност и да се присъедини към отряд партизани, които се борят с мексиканското правителство. На място се среща със своя сънародничка, отказала се от род и родина и тази среща ще преобърне представите му на 180%

Ние децата на котки - Заглавното произведение е чист социален реализъм и странно, но точно то ми вдигна оценката за цялата книга. Една дългогодишна двойка говори за деца. Говорят с откровеност, която рядко се среща дори в литературата. ГОворят така както никога не съм се осмелявал да говоря с която и да е от прителките си. Това изважда разказа от японския контекст и го прави глобален, общочовешки, защото едно такова откровено разкриване оголва надкултурна същност, която явно е заложена в хомо сапиенс.

Въздух - Най-изкъртеното произведение в сборника. Тук магическия реализъм на Маркез среща бруталния цинизъм на Буковски и се пречупва през един Японски калейдоскоп. За шемета спомага и рязката смяна на гледните точки на двамата герои - направена съвсем умишлено, както ще видим и в една от повестите.
Две сродни души ще се намерят след дълго търсене. Двама души, които не са на мястото си в нито една ниша на съвременото ни общество, дори и при най-радикалните, дори и при най-различните. Ммм, няма да разкривам през какви точно трансформации преминават героите, но определено всеки читател ще остане изненадан. За протокола - дойде ми малко прекален този разказ.

Пясъчна планета - Първата от трите повести в подборката определено е отвяваща - Един посредствен журналист разследва масово отравяне на ученици от прогимназията. Докато установява, че това е попит за масово самоубийство, който следва от още няколко такива, му се иска да напише статия за бездомниците живеещи в националния парк. Това ще го сблъска с няколко истории на завърнали се от Латинска Америка имигранти и всичко ще се преплете в една умопомрачителна блъсканица, от която ще излезе статия граничеща с фантастич1ното. На края самият пишещ ще бъде променен.

Дневниши на измяната - Предполагам от тази повест е излязъл в последствие печелилият награди разказ "Чино". Ала тук прозрение липсва, за сметка на изкуплението. След убийството на учителката си, един тийнейджър е изпратен в Аржентина при далечен чичо. Там той се преоткрива в лицето на подобен нему хлапак (и двамата са с японски корени) и влиза в терористична група на младежи. Животът му се изпълва със секс, насилие и празна идеология. О, да и предателства, много предателства. Всичко това ще доведе до... сами ще трябва да разберете.

Милонга за топящата се луна - Последното произведение в книгата доста ме измъчи. Не напразно е оставено от съставителя да завърши този цикъл. От една страна тук имаме еманация на сливането и трансформацията на двама души, от друга литературният експеримент се изостря в... ми в милонга. Главните герои са двойка мексикански бандитоси. Мъж и жена, които постоянно менят гласовете, спомените, дрехите и дори пола и същността си. Авторът сменя гледните им точки рязко и без пауза и слива двамата в едно крещящо противоречащо си цяло. Историята, дори така завързана на неразплитаем масур, е доста приятно звучаща, въпреки леко мрачните финални тоналности. Не мога даже синопсис да ѝ направя, но става въпрос за страст, ревност, обсебване и трансформация.

Ако някой е издържал да изчете целя този ферман по сборника, то трябва да му е направило впечатление, че думите трансформация, преобразяване, израстване и прочие се срещат през изречение. Това е темата около която се върти творчеството на Хошино или поне тук. Да отбележа, че като символ на тези извършващи се, често незавършени промени се явява русалката. Без да участва пряко, като митогема в сюжетите, образат ѝ изниква между редовете във всяка една история и задължително вещае промяна, дали физическа, психическа, психо-соматична или чисто идеологина - няма значение.
Сега, на кой да я препоръчам тази книга... нямам представа. На някой който има съвсем различни от моите литературни интереси. Все пак да кажа, че щипка японска бруталност накланя магическия реализъм една идея към правилното, но някак не достаътчно.

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoshino's stories morph across gender and place and context, in order to give a unique sense of how we as human narratives change our relationship to selfhood over the course of his time. His more interesting stories take place in Latin America. I think I would have liked the stories to have gone deeper into the fullness of his characters, and I also think it would have been nicer if he had explored some of the cultures with more depth. The story involving Japanese immigrants in the Dominican Republic was the best, and provides a lot of space from which to imagine how Hoshino's cross-national style could grow.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a mixed bag for me. I see the Oe comparisons in Kyle Muntz's review; Hoshino pushes further into metafiction and magic realism. I really liked "Paper Woman" and "No Fathers Club", and enjoyed most of "A Milonga for the Melted Moon"; not so keen on the rest.

I'm also not sure about Hoshino's device of switching first-person narrators from paragraph to paragraph. It was pretty interesting on first encounter, but when it appeared in more than one piece, the novelty kind of wore off for me.

[Will E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great collection of stories. Hoshino NEEDS to be read and translated more. Serious, imaginative, political, contemplative. I didn't particularly like "Milonga for a Melted Moon" but that's because the Marquez influence is heavy, and I freaking hate Marquez.

[Bookteafull (Danny) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those of you who follow my Instagram stories know I'm not the biggest fan of short story collections. They tend to fall flat for me and be rather forgettable the second I place the book down.

The first half of this collection, though? WOW. I still have no idea how Hoshino's stories would transition from being somewhat mundane and boring to an episode of Black Mirror.

Me, while I was reading (especially during 'Air'):





Some of these short tales will stick with me forever if only because of how graphic and perverse they were. I oftentimes found myself unable to put my kindle down until I reached the end of that particular story - which is a rarity for me. When I say I normally dislike these types of collections, I mean it. The only reason I picked up this novel in the first place was to satisfy criteria for my Read Harder Challenge of 2018, which demanded I'd read a work in translation.

Anyways, onto the individual mini-reviews:

Stories

Paper Woman - 4 Stars

"Becoming a mother is the same as becoming an author."

⚫ My first 'what the hell did I get myself into' reaction. I was not expecting to be unable to tear my eyes away from a story where a woman was erotically satisfied by being used as a book. Obviously, there was a deeper meaning entwined into this story (as with all of them) but the delivery was kind of hard to get passed. The only reason I didn't give this short story a full five stars was because the beginning was a bit confusing.

The No Fathers Club - 3/3.5 Stars

⚫ Although this story was engaging, something about it fell flat for me in relation to the protagonist. We somehow go from playing soccer with no ball to forming a club for kids with dead fathers who pretend they're alive 24/7. Yes, this was my second 'what the fuck am I reading' reaction lol. The premise was interesting but... idk something was missing - and it wasn't just his dad.

Chino - 2.5 Stars

⚫ This guy was the epitome of #richpeopleproblems. The idea of finding purpose in a third world country because you can't hang in the tedious world that is your high-class life has always annoyed me. This character's actions just came across as so stupid to me that I couldn't rate it higher than I did even though his reaction to the bombing and thought process on the bus were mildly amusing.

We, the Children of Cats - 4 Stars

"It's hard to find a reason for living these days. It's simply no longer the case that having children or starting a family will automatically give you one."

⚫ A whirlwind of emotions. Initially, I thought this story was going to be suspenseful (what with the secret recording and all that) and then it turned surprisingly sweet. This is the tale in which the meaning came across clearly and impactfully and left you satisfied with somewhat of an open-ending. The couple in this story spoke of the act of giving birth and pregnancy and their relative reservations and yearnings for it in such a profound manner that I found myself not caring about the fact that it's never actually stated whether or not they plan on having a child. They'll figure it out in their own time.

Air - 4.5 Stars

⚫ What the fuck, but also, what the fuck? When I spoke about graphic and perverse earlier THIS WAS THE STORY I WAS MAINLY TALKING ABOUT. No amount of mind-bleach will wipe away the imagery I developed reading that final air-dick and air-vagina scene. Yes. Yes you read that right. This story gets all the points simply because it was 100% memorable and cringe-worthy (unless scabs, blood, etc. turns you on) and completely understandable. I sympathized with the main two characters even whilst I was shaking my head no during that sex scene.

Novellas

Sand Planet - 2 Stars

⚫ Jarringly long compared to the previous stories. At the time I didn't catch that it was the beginning of the novellas sections and so I felt like it went on forever. There were too many descriptors and internal monologues, in my opinion; the whole thing just read as boring. *Shrug*

Treason Diary - 3.5 Stars

⚫ A murder-y tale that was captivating at moments to read and... not so much during others. I may reread this particular short story in the future as I do think it's one that I may grow to enjoy the more diverse genre reading/stylistic experience I have under my belt.

A Milonga for the Melted Moon - 2 Stars

⚫ Already forgot about this one. That should tell you all you need to know ESPECIALLY since it's the most recent one I read. I can tell you that it was decently written and didn't invoke any feelings of anger - so thats a plus.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed some of these stories quite a lot, but some were too weird for me

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

can't make up my mind whether it was really good or really ... odd. settling w/ mediocre, since at times the plot was too confusing, presumably on purpose, or just bizarre which in this concentration I'm not a fan of.

[Robert Sheppard · Rating 4 out of 5]

FROM THE WORLD LITERATURE FORUM CONTEMPORARY WORLD WRITERS SHOWCASE SERIES VIA GOODREADS —-ROBERT SHEPPARD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Robert Sheppard‘s insight:

World Literature Forum invites you to Check Out "We, The Children of Cats" by Japanese winner of the the 2011 Ōe Kenzaburō Literary Award Tomoyuki Hoshino. This collection of related short stories explores climate change, authoritarianism and the culture of fear, Japanese majoritarian pressures to conform and the cult of suicide amoung young Japanese. The story "Chino" tells a tale of globalization and crisis in national identity as the protagonist flees to a small Latin American nation to "eradicate all Japaneseness" from his being. Hoshino focuses on the pre-doomed nature of such quests for modern transformation, including sex-changes and body modificaitons, linked to the flawed role of literature and of the reader: "writing fiction is an art that wavers, like a heat shimmer, between joy at the prospect of becoming something else and despair at knowing that such a transformation is ultimately impossible……….." Check it Out!—–Robert Sheppard, Editor-in-Chief


Robert Sheppard
Editor-in-Chief
World Literature Forum
http://robertalexandersheppard.wordpr…
Author, Spiritus Mundi Novel
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17…

Copyright Robert Sheppard 2013 All Rights Reserved

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even for a collection of short stories and novellas, this isn't an easy read. Once I mulled over the more opaque stories a little (and read the translator's essay at the end of the book), I was struck at how amazingly unnerving these stories really are. All of them feature characters in a state of transition (from one definition of a person to another), and many echo real events that happened in the last 10 years in Japan (again, reading the essay really gives a lot of helpful context). My favorites were

Don't let the innocent picture of birds on the cover fool you! These stories are far more disturbing than anything I've read out of the "Horror" section in ages.

[Sae-chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried to avoid Oe-san's writing, but I have to agree with him on Hoshino-san's works. They resemble Abe Kobo's, albeit they are much more readable for me.

The only problem is that he likes to pour a bucket of cold water at the end of the story. As a reader, I liked to linger on that distant enchanting (bewitching?) place a little bit more even after the story ends. Instead, he yanked me back to reality just before the last words. Not a good feeling.

And the last story was a bit too much for me. I tried so hard to immerse myself there-- it was so intriguing. But in the end I could only stand on the sideline and watched the story went by.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few stories in this were good and got progressively more strange and uncomfortable. While I would recommend a few of the short stories from this, I probably wouldn't recommend it as a whole unless you really enjoy strange sort-of magical realism stories about sex, sexuality, gender, displacement, and murderous tendencies.

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of course, not all my former lovers have been knifefighters. It's just that those are the only ones I remember."

I'm stoked to discover these short stories and novellas from a new-to-me Japanese writer, Tomoyuki Hoshino. He has one of the most creative literary minds I've come across in a long while. Each story is quite different from each other, and each one is full of such unique writing, ideas, and plots that it honestly sort of boggled my mind. Taking inspiration from Nabokov, Garcia-Marquez, Borges, Kafka, with touches of Murakami (both Haruki and Ryu) and even the eye-rolling ridiculousness of Boris Vian's Froth on the Daydream (in the last novella), each story is an absolutely unpredictable ride. What a mind, what a mind.

Even when some of the themes and story by-lines and major plots are not exactly my usual cup of tea, he treats them so well and so thrillingly that I usually became quite unable to stop reading (especially the short stories). He's a joy to read.

He's got a couple other books that have been translated into English. Whew, that's good news.

Some of my favorite bits:

"Statistically speaking, the number of people reading novels is decreasing, part of a general decrease in the sales of literature, but I think the real problem may be that fewer and fewer people really read any more, really consume literature as if printing the words on the interiors of their bodies. As I've continued my professional writing career, I've come to think of it as an art that wavers, like a heat shimmer, between joy at the prospect of becoming something else and despair at knowing that such a transformation is ultimately impossible. One could say that a novel's words trace the pattern of scars left by the struggle between these two feelings. Which is why a novel should never be seen as a simple expression of an author's self."

"On the internet, within fanboy culture, anyone can pose as anything. But I increasingly get the feeling that no one is truly attempting to become something else, or rather, that no one has anything in particular to aspire to be, that they don't have any real idea what they want to become at all."

"I'd just been killing time, perhaps, since the day I was born. I was raised in aimless plenty, average in my academics and athletics, in my looks and my conversation, in the economic status of my two working parents. Maybe that was why my passion had thinned. Despite my youth I already felt like I was just living out the rest of my days."

"She did not want to forfeit her new life here, nor did she want to leave [her friend] and her child. That's why she didn't want to die, that's why she had the energy to try to stay alive. Did I have anything that made me not want to die? Or were living and dying not all that different to me?"

"I have a lot more blank pages left in me!"

"I'm sorry. I guess I just overestimated how alike we'd become, thinking we'd merged completely, body and soul. It seems I've been neglecting my efforts to get even closer to you."

"I tried to guess what she was thinking when she stared blankly into space, using all the information about her that I'd gleaned to attempt to replicate her thoughts down to the letter. Whenever I'd succeed in expressing Paper's feelings even better than she could, or supply her with the exact word she was grasping for, she'd smile like an artificial flower blooming underwater. I loved this smile of hers above all."

"All I ever wanted was to understand everything there was to understand about the people important to me. I want to understand the you that even you don't understand."

"Watching you I thought, here was a person with whom I'd be willing to escape the closed circle of my everyday."

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been sitting on this one for a little bit trying to make it thru the afterword essay for the collection, but I've made peace with never finishing it.

The main thought I have about this text is perhaps unfair, in that I purchased it from a radical bookstore and yet, among the most strong memories of the book, it has some pretty low opinions of the so-called revolutionaries who would most likely populate such a place. Which is nice: folks who want to watch the world burn need to be taken down a peg, even if they're on the left instead of the right. The revolutions of Chino and Treason Diary are painted as caring more about themselves than the folks they're lining up to support. They're taken to task from folks who are actually living life in those realities, they're causing more harm and destruction for the innocent in order to stoke their own savior complex. Maybe actually saying that out loud is the real radicalism?

Anyway, this whole collection would probably be worth it just for Sand Planet, which combines folklore and activism and colonialist history and magical realism and questions of media authenticity into one big stew. The novella has a lot going on, and builds its own reality connecting each element. Throw in the No Fathers Club, and you're even better off. The characters, who connect through a shared fantasy of bringing back the dead, explore what it means to be connected, both with those we want to know and those with whom we are tossed into contact. It's hard to tell if it's more Hope or sadness.

But there's also some very cringy gender exploration here... not cringy in its exploration, mind you, but in its imagery. The final "Milonga" plays with gender with an ever shifting point of view, which leads to dizziness sorting the two main characters apart, but it also leans heavily on queasy content like stabbing and drinking eyes, and realities that shift as dramatically as those viewpoints. It leaves the meditation on self too jarring to easily connect with. Similarly, Air, a meditation on gender as identity vs gender as biology, plants some very interesting crops, but the literal rawness of genital mutilation makes it a very hard read. Which is a shame, because these are places where that radicalism implied through the book's point of sale could have been beautifully brought to bear through these topics. It's hard to know if the dysphoria expressed here would be even harder to comb through for someone who isn't cisgendered, or if such a person would find less squeamishness and more of a feeling of being seen, but even thinking of the meticulous descriptions here makes me, er, tender.

So it's a mixed bag that's hard to really recommend, but it has a few clearly bright spots and definitely no shortage of creativity.

[Timber · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of Short Stories and Novellas, of which most involve similar themes of transformation and illusion (related to South America & Japan) in one way or another. I just stumbled upon this collection and never heard of Tomoyuki Hoshino beforehand, so I went into it completely blind (though I did have experience with works from other Japanese writers).

I'd say my opinions per piece differ greatly.

To mention a few:
I liked "No Father's Club" the most. I found the concept it presented very intriguing, especially as it progressed and intensified. "We, the Children of Cats" and "Sand Planet" were interesting as well, as they were somewhat relatable and well written.

The others were interesting as well, but sometimes (in my opinion) unnecessarily vague and confusing; it cost me effort to get through them properly. This often made them uncomfortable for me to read, especially when a story was (or went) plain bizarre. I really had to challenge myself to read some seemingly unprovoked sex-related bits like: the MC's excitement during a guerilla ambush in "Chino," and Yoshinobu's random asparagus thought in "Sand Planet," in order to stay immersed. I basically read the entirety of "Air" with squeezed eyelids while questioning just about every sentence.

Perhaps those are my own shortcomings, but it convinced me the book is definitely not for everyone. I'd recommend it to anyone willing to put some effort in immersing themselves, and for those who don't shy away from heavy (sometimes disturbing) abstractness.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pumped full of poetic imagery and cultural references hence the 2 months it took me to read. I went through the ups of loving the metaphors being drawn in a story, and the lows of feeling that reading a dense section was boring or difficult.

What I feel really tied it together and turned my overall opinion positive, was the work of the translator both in introducing the book to the reader and providing an analysis of the book at the end. Their words and the extra love and labor having gone through the book with its methodical wording was a much appreciated addition.

In terms of the merit of the stories themselves, I am in love with the fluidity of it all. I am a person who gets excited by stories with a lack of absolute in a relationship or a person. I am happy when I read a story and it presents a person as multifaceted, ever changing, and growing. These kinds of stories speak to me. Ones where there are characters that are neither quite friends nor in a relationship, where those two absolutes are not the determining factor of the connection. I like books where a character is human and concept, kind and cruel. This book strives to portray these kinds of fluid states with each story inside of its covers.

I originally bought this book spontaneously at a book faire maybe 3-4 years ago. I am glad I let my intuition guide me towards this collection of admittedly, rather odd stories.

[Tartisgood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is crazy. There is a lot of perversion here. If you are at all reactionary you should probably steer clear. That said, if you are an interesting person you should probably read this. Each story has a timeless feeling, of a sort, but along a very contemporary and precent setting.

It has taken me months to get through this book, so I am unsure if the thoughts originated here or elsewhere. But it is odd, I have been thinking a lot about athletes lately. How effortless they can make their work look. How beautiful it is, without parading the pain and the struggle to get there. I am feeling a big part of beauty is when something expresses itself fully, sincerely, without the need to scream about its past. An arrival to a pure sort of expression, without the forming trauma. And yet! In this book! The characters' past aren't (exactly) hidden! It makes me feel it is not only that-beyond-history that can be beautiful, but also that-rising-above-it. The title is very very apt so it could just be my own generational relationship to the book, but I feel anyone could appreciate the depth of the characters, and their relationships.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very strange collection, this. The short stories are better than the longer efforts towards the back, where Hoshino seems to take the opportunity of a longer form to ramble without the stories having proper form. The central theme of the book is transformation, with a couple of the stories playing with the idea of gender, the central characters almost turning into one another and swapping genders. A more memorable and better story is one where a woman believes herself to be paper, with the narrator her husband who tries to accept this and writes on her skin to give her pleasure. But overall I found these to be just a bit too weird to enjoy properly, and sometimes too difficult to know what is going on, unfortunately. There is also a really long essay in the back discussing Hoshino's writing, but when you've not really enjoyed reading his stories all that much it's not very motivating to read the essay about him.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories work better than others. The commitment to narrative conceits is strong, which does lead to very defined stories when the conceit is clear (such as the paper woman story). Many blur those boundaries of work and life. At the end of the collection, however, I was not particularly impressed - perhaps a flaw in me rather than the collection.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Erik Tanouye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this at Skylight Books in Los Angeles at 5:47pm on August 6, 2014. (I was in LA for the Dillinger reunion show.)

[Fernanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the novellas, specially "Sand Planet"

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at ~60% just really not for me. All the stories had a strange vibe. An oddly masoganistic and maudlin tone throughout.

[Katharine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disjointed stories that confused me.

[marj · Rating 4 out of 5]

If black mirror was a book, this is what it would look like. It's very surreal and the author turns realistic turned surrealisic

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the afterword the best part. Some of the stories were intriguing but overall I found things to be rather too much effort. And yes, some books are worth working for but I didn't find the redeeming points that other reviewers noted.

Wouldn't read it again or recommend it. It appears that there is are stylistic choices that some folks prefer but didn't work for me.

[Sarah Grundy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my new favourites. Can't criticise, thought it was incredible.

[Nathaniel Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this at a time when I was essentially living out of a ‘95 Toyota Corolla and working as a cook at a super market. I had a library card for a small community library outside of Asheville, NC and picked this up while I was trying to combat the cold. It kept me sane, or possibly the correct amount of insane, for the few days that I went over each line trying to escape my own reality.

Although the writing jumps between magical and macabre, it was suited to the idea that reading something is a journey, some parts of the trail are easy and some are strenuous, but you come to the end altered in some way.

Personally I can understand how it isn’t exactly a comfortable read but I wasn’t reading it from a comfortable place and can say that it stuck with me for far longer than most collections do.

4.5/5

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It may have been officially bumped from contention for this year’s Best Translated Book Award, but Tomoyuki Hoshino’s short story collection We, The Children of Cats is still one of the most puzzling collections of fiction you’re likely to come across this year. Hoshino has a tremendous gift for creating and skillfully weaving together individual, unrelated pieces of information into powerhouse tales that are overly weird, yet at the same time firmly grounded.

His formula goes something like this: come up with a fantastical idea, and then combine it with elements of historical truth, and then develop extremely focused characters that are living on the precipice of making significant life changes. Shove all these pieces in a blender. Set it to high speed for fifteen to twenty pages or so. Repeat.

READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/we-th...