世界から猫が消えたなら (If cats disappeared from the world)
Summary
Japanese
僕は生きるために、消すことを決めた。
今日もし突然、チョコレートが消えたなら, 電話が消えたなら, 映画が消えたなら, 時計が消えたなら, 猫が消えたら, そして, 僕が消えたなら
世界はどう変化し、人は何を得て、何を失うのか
３０歳郵便配達員。余命あとわずか。
陽気な悪魔が僕の周りにあるものと引き換えに１日の命を与える。
僕と猫と陽気な悪魔の摩訶不思議な7日間がはじまった―――
消してみることで、価値が生まれる。
失うことで、大切さが分かる。
感動的、人生哲学エンタテインメント。
English
My own summary:
A 30 year old mailman finds out that he has cancer, and doesn’t have much time left. When he gets home, he meets the devil who proposes a deal: for every day the devil adds to his life, he will erase something from the world.
The book explores how the man’s life and relationships change with every item “erased” from the world.
Availability
Personal Opinion
I loved the movie enough to buy the novel, and would love to read it with a book club! It’s slow and thoughtful, and has a bit of romance, friendship, supernatural (kinda time travel), and cats. I was able to watch and understand the movie for the most part (without subs) and the first few pages of the novel seem very doable.
I highly recommend watching the movie, regardless!
Not to be confused with 世界からボクが消えたなら, which I believe is a spin-off based on the MC’s beloved cat’s perspective
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Appeals to a wide audience
- Could make a nice “first actual novel” read in Japanese
- Theres a movie on Netflix Japan/Amazon Video with NO english subs (trailer), and the book was published in English recently. You can try those before committing.
- there’s a manga adaptation but I haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it
- it has 7 chapters roughly 30 pages each, which would be easy to split up into 10 or 15 pgs/week
Cons
- no illustrations
- its kinda sad (but so is life)
- you might end up adopting a cat
Pictures
Difficulty Poll
How much effort would you need to read this book?
- No effort at all
- Minimal effort
- Just right
- Challenging
- Impossible, even with everyone’s help
- I don’t know (please click this if you’re not voting seriously)
0 voters