AUTHOR: Nicanor Parra
PUBLISHER: Libros del Zorro Rojo
GENRE: Children's book
READER’S NAME: Lynn Eddy-Zambrano
DATE: August 10th, 2023
Gato - "Cat" - is not your conventional feline protagonist. He's not a purring, cuddly ball of fur. The author provides no physical description of Gato; renderings of him are entirely the product of the illustrator's imagination. Personality traits that emerge are his propensity to wander, to go missing, and to scratch humans in self-defense when necessary.
Gato expresses some feelings, but only internally. He does not have a voice in his story; it's the humans in his life's path readers hear from. These are mostly indifferent to Gato, sometimes disdainful. They don't care or think about him much at all. He is "carelessly wrapped up in some papers" and carted about. He is frequently stepped on. Gato is not endearing, nor is he endeared to anyone (at least, not for very long.) His life is a repeating cycle: he wanders away or is abandoned, he's found, given away or offered for sale, ends up back with his original owner, and so on.
This story of Gato's adventures - highlights being sojourns to Nicaragua and France - is amusing in its quirkiness, but actually kind of sad, and not so compelling as to inspire any real affection for him.
Technically speaking, translating the book would not be challenging in terms of language, culture, or setting. Illustrator Casaramona's thumbnails footnote the pages of Parts I, II, and III, visually resolving any questions the reader might have. A final section of the book is Casaramona's full-page, detailed illustrations of selections from the text.
It's hard to get a fix on an age group that would find the book appealing. Written by Parra in 1935, Gato en el camino, a story, text only, was published in a literary magazine founded by the 20-year-old author and a colleague. At that time, reading, and being read to, were important sources of entertainment for children. It would be interesting to know if the story was popular among children back then.
But now? Even with the added support of Casaramona's illustrations, words - printed in a small, not kid-friendly size font - dominate the pages. The narrative is not engaging enough to hold a young listener's attention for the duration, or to reel in children reading it for themselves, not now in the universe of on-demand streaming, YouTube and TikTok. The book's just . . . not that interesting or funny.
Is this 2022 edition of Gato en el camino even intended to be a children's book? The editor's afterword is very academic (it includes citations), discusses the history of the story and its debut role in a revolutionary genre of Parra's creation - the anti-story. The final message (written by?) dedicates the book in posthumous homage to Parra. Neither the editor nor the anonymous writer mentions children's amusement as an aim of the book.
