The one that stood out to me was when he says (in the Japanese) something along the lines of “the funeral salesman (can I call them salesmen?)” but the quirky “can I call them salesmen?” is missing from the English. There was also, now and again, snarky comments made by the narrator that didn’t seem to appear in the English. ”) A large number of comments I’ve seen about the English is that this book is a chore to read, and I wonder if this might be why? (I think it’s also because the narrator in quite unlikable in English.) (There was a lot of repetitions of “ on their face” instead of “looked. This made short, punchy Japanese sentences feel a little slower or clunky in the English. (At least, from what I’ve experienced.) As a result there were times when it felt that every single word was included in a sentence. British writing tends to be a little more wordy and passive than American writing. I don’t know where Selland is from but I’m guessing he’s British from how this was translated. Characterization (which I’ll also go over later.).

Cultural references were…hit and miss (but I’ll go over that later.).There were times when quirky comments in the Japanese were missing.There were times when every word was translated in a sentence.

Reading the translation (the US edition) alongside the Japanese (which is the first time I’ve ever done this) I noticed four thing: What would you give up if you could live for just one more day? It’s a story about what is meaningful in life, what value do we place on objects and people.

However, the Devil makes a deal with him: for every one thing he makes disappear from the world, he may live one day longer. This is a novella about a man who finds out he only has a few days left to live. If Cats Disappeared from the World was written by Genki Kawamura and translated by Eric Selland. The theme of this book is (as the narrator says many times) “you must lose something to gain something.” And, as a result of gaining the English edition for this novel a certain spark was lost from the original Japanese.

What if all the cats disappeared from the world? What would be lost, what would be gained?

If cats disappeared from the world