The full book is a fantastic read, yet beware that it takes some quite dark turns describing the author's depression at length and it includes some scatological depictions of animal suffering. It's ultimately a tale about grief and so it's peculiar that the cover design gives the impression it's a cute, feel-good story.
Reads like a warm breeze.
The bonds we forge with other animals can bring another source of durable meaning to our lives. Even a brief show of trust from an animal while present in their environment can create a memory that lasts forever.
One of the more pleasant aspects of being human.
This is an pre-publishing excerpt from "Mornings Without Mii", coming out on the 25th.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374614782/morningswithout...
And that book is a translation of the 1999 Japanese ミーのいない朝.
Ha, I know just the nerdy factoid to trot out to legitimize the frontpage placement. Brace:
These little cat-human conversation pieces embedded within remind me enormously of the telepathic conversations in Alfred Bester's mighty genre classic The Demolished Man and their special typesetting.
https://speculativerhetoric.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads...
https://universesofthemind.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wp...
Also employed in The Stars My Destination. Criminally underappreciated writer.
my ex girlfriend found a similarly 'lost kitten' 4 years ago, she gave him a similarly silly name "Pufu". I am allergic to cats, so I was not into it.
we did not work out and she took him with her when she left.
I miss that little bastard so much.
> I miss that little bastard so much.
What about the cat?
This is a fabulous example of Japanese storytelling and the translation is rather good, too :)
Yes, it’s interesting how different cultures have such different ways of telling stories (although sometimes that gets a bit muddied with the massive cross pollination between global media).
I once encountered this diagram comparing cultural thought patterns in a Japanese textbook, it comes to my mind regularly https://jellypictu.re/p/8dd73d2c
I would greatly appreciate if you could share the name of the textbook in question. I found the work it cites and am interested to know how others perceive it.
https://www.colby.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kaplan_CR_1...
Its possible that the Japanese text book is a translation of Purves (see below) or just an excerpt.
FYI For other readers...on researchgate I found the same picture, and the paper that embedded the pic cited it as:
Kaplan, R. B. (1972). Contrastive rhetoric and second language learning: Notes toward a theory of contrastive rhetoric. In A. C. Purves (Ed.), Writing across languages and cultures: Issues in contrastive rhetoric (pp. 257-304). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
The paper on Researchgate was at this URL:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354859830_Involving...
(I found it by googling for some of the words in the pictureand adding "1970s", since I had a feeling that the terms used were rather old fashioned, even if strictly accurate in a dictionary sense (like "Oriental"). And modern academia doesnt pay as much attention to Russia as it once did, but the author called it out.)
And of course, if you Google for, say,
文化的思考パターン kaplan
(Cultural thought patterns kaplan)
Youll get a lot of japanese language books and articles that use this picture. I didnt check to see if any were the one whose photo was posted.
Oh nice find! I took this picture of the textbook over a decade ago when a friend showed it to me, so I really can't help you with that though.
Thanks anyhow!
Animals are amazing, something to hold onto and keep us sane in the coming storm.
Not gonna lie, when I clicked the link I was expecting a tutorial on how to make a cat Mii on the Wii.
Can’t say I was disappointed after I reset my expectations though.
"What can possibly be said about Miis these days?".
Turns out I was pleasantly wrong.
What a beautiful story. Thanks for bringing me out of the High Tech/AI anxiety loop with just a nice human story of beauty and a cat :)
Lovely lovely story. I'll look for the book, and as delusional says, an unexpected charmer to break up a day of tech think.
lil baby
