Translated by Jeremy Tiang
It’s great to be able to cover two challenges with one book – as well as being one of my 20 Books of Summer, Invisible Kitties is also for Mallika’s Reading the Meow 2025, the third year of her feline reading challenge, and what a super book I picked!
I really had my fingers crossed that his book wouldn’t be twee and over-whimsical given the use of ‘Kitties’ in the title, and I was so relieved to discover its sub-title ‘A Feline Study of Fluid Mechanics or The Spurious Incidents of the Cats in the Night-time‘ – the fluid mechanics won me over instantly!
It’s billed as a novel, but is really a series of vignettes about a young couple who find themselves living with a cat, narrated by the wife. It’ll be clear right from the start whether this is a book for you, or not: of course cat lovers are naturally predisposed to read on. The first few or the 60 short chapters – most are two or three pages – are very quirky indeed. Thinking about cats, the wife imagines one into being, she christens it Doughball, who remains with them for a while. She and her husband discuss where cats come from – some are rained into being, others are planted and harvested in the spring. Yes, there are oodles of impressionistic musings in this book, all accompanied by the author’s own illustrations which are quite charming (see the planted kitties below). And then Cat arrives, just pops into being from the air.
As she continues, Cat is never named – just called Cat, the following chapters chronicle a developing relationship with the creature for her and her husband, and musings on all the usual foibles of cat life that owners will be familiar with – from chasing its own tail to hairballs, from castration (Cat is male) to kneading and a dislike of citrus. And then there are all her imaginings: including how cats shape and drape themselves – from snakes to springs (with accompanying drawings), and wondering what cats are thinking when just sitting or sleeping and more. Everything about cats is considered. Here are a couple of illustrative quotes:
While only some willow and poplar trees produce cat-kins, every single kitty that grows fur also sprouts cat fluff. Strictly speaking, these cat-kins are a natural phenomenon, not manufactured, In spring and autumn, cat-kins come particularly thick and fast, drifting around as if they carry cat seeds and must travel to be propagated farther afield.
Cat-kins look beautiful as they skim through the air. They stay aloft for quite some time, then tire and settle down, or simply come to earth when the air currents have stalled. Sometimes they carelessly allow dust to hitch a ride until too many motes pile on and their combined weight sinks the fur.
It was only when I started living with Cat that I realized: we may only have one moon in the sky, but there are others scattered here on Earth. All over our floor, Cat sheds his claw casings at regular intervals, perfect little translucent crescents, so many I have lost count.
When I press my fingertip to one of them, it sticks and I feel like I’m holding the tiniest moon in the whole world.
These crescents are exquisite and pearlescent, cropping up wherever Cat has been, gleaming from every corner of the flat.
Invisible Kitties was a delightful read for me. Quirky, not over-whimsical and very impressionistic at times, also typically Asian but familar to cat lovers everywhere. The author is also an acclaimed poet and you can see that in the text, artfully translated by Jeremy Tiang. The book did remind me of Muriel Barbery’s novella, The Author’s Cats, which is narrated by one of her three cats, who are equally supportive of an owner that they like. If you liked that, you’ll enjoy Invisible Kitties.
Source: Own copy from the TBR. 4th Estate flapped paperback, 2024, 238 pages.
Sounds super cute!
Happy to send it on to you if you’d like.
Thank you for this review, Anabel. Like you, I thoroughly enjoyed this one when I read it last year–the whimsical parts are fun as is her imagination, she captures cat behaviours so well–something anyone with a cat/s could easily relate too. I loved the illus as well–nice and quirky!
It was a happy choice for me! When I bought it last year, I thought – perfect for Reading the Meow – and it was.
I wasn’t sure if I’d like this, but as you say, under the whimsical-ness lies a deep familiarity with and fondness for cats, so I ended up loving it.
Finally a Chinese take on cats! (Although I do like Japanese cats, I’m having a bit of indigestion by too many of them getting published nowadays)
This sounds so lovely! I especially liked that quotation about the claw casings being like little moons. (I would have worried about it being over-sweet too, but that subtitle sure helps.)
This sounds like a lot of fun!