{"id":19274,"date":"2018-01-01T13:54:02","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T19:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=19274"},"modified":"2018-01-01T13:54:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T19:54:02","slug":"book-report-the-tao-of-meow-by-waldo-japussy-and-carl-japikse-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/01\/book-report-the-tao-of-meow-by-waldo-japussy-and-carl-japikse-1990\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: The Tao of Meow<\/i> by “Waldo Japussy” and Carl Japikse (1990)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BookI closed out my annual reading with this volume. After all, I’ve read books on the various Tao this year (Tao Te Ching<\/em><\/a>, The Tao of Elvis<\/em><\/a>). I’ve read books purportedly by cats (I Could Pee On This<\/em><\/a>) and books about magical cats (The Catswold Portal<\/em><\/a>, No One Noticed The Cat<\/em><\/a>). So this book fit right into my annual reading selections.<\/p>\n

The schtick is that the author’s cat wrote 81 poems just like Lao Tzu, and each talks a little about the way. And about being a cat. In the first couple dozen poems, I wondered if the author was really trying to walk a fine line between amusing and actually trying to convey serious elements of Taoism in the book, but it hits one of the poems–I forget which one–where the author basically says that this is a humor book and not to be taken too heavily.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit of a stretch to get a full 81 poems out of the conceit, and the results are uneven. Some are thoughtful, some are amusing, and some are sort of pro forma. But I enjoyed it enough for what it is.<\/p>\n

Now that 2017 is over, perhaps my cat book binge can be over, and I can start focusing on ferrets or pot-bellied pigs as pets, detectives, and philosophers in 2018.<\/p>\n