This book is classified as humor, and undoubtedly it was designed to be a quick, fairly inexpensive, gift for someone you know who has a cat, whether that person (or cat) is a Taoist or Buddhist or not. It’s structured like a set of sutras (or suttas, depending upon your particular flavor of Buddhism) where a story or teaching of the titular cat is presented and then you get some explanation/exegesis (including disputes amongst the experts who study the titular cat).
So I think it’s supposed to be satire, but it’s actually pretty close to the mark as far as how books of this stripe go (remember, I’ve read some of Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on Buddha’s teachings and other work, so although I am not a scholar, I recognize the structure). And, I mean, some of the life lessons that the book presents are actually helpful life lessons even if you’re not a cat.
So I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be arch commentary riffing on Eastern philosophy or if it’s a gateway to Eastern philosophy, or at least the self-help elements of popular Eastern philosophy. Nothing in it is absurd or laugh aloud funny. I’m not sure anything even rises to the level of amusing, actually, as much of the book is fairly earnest.
It looks as though the author has a couple of cat-themed books, a book on runes, and wrote something for Wonder Woman comics. So I don’t know what to make of the book based on the other things that the author has written. So very, very odd.
