Fudoki

Love/War/Death #2

by Kij Johnson

Enter the world of Kagaya-hime, a sometime woman warrior, occasional philosopher, and reluctant confidante to noblemen--who may or may not be a figment of the imagination of an aging empress who is embarking on the last journey of her life, setting aside the trappings of court life and reminiscing on the paths that lead her to death.

For she is a being who started her journey on the kami, the spirit road, as a humble tortoiseshell feline. Her family was destroyed by a fire that decimated most of the Imperial city, and this loss renders her taleless, the only one left alive to pass on such stories as The Cat Born the Year the Star Fell, The Cat with a Litter of Ten, and The Fire-Tailed Cat. Without her fudoki--self and soul and home and shrine--she alone cannot keep the power of her clan together. And she cannot join another fudoki, because although she might be able to win a place within another clan, to do so would mean that she would cease to be herself.

So a small cat begins an extraordinary journey. Along the way she will attract the attention of old and ancient powers. Gods who are curious about this creature newly come to Japan's shores, and who choose to give the tortoiseshell a human shape.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Japan, Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Historical, Cats

316 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Kij Johnson is an American writer of fantasy. She has worked extensively in publishing: managing editor for Tor Books and Wizards of the Coast/TSR, collections editor for Dark Horse Comics, project manager working on the Microsoft Reader, and managing editor of Real Networks. She is Associate Director for the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, and serves as a final judge for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

Johnson is the author of three novels and more than 38 short works of fiction. She is best known for her adaptations of Heian-era Japanese myths. She won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short story of 1994 for her novelette in Asimov's, "Fox Magic." In 2001, she won the International Association for the Fantastic in the Art's Crawford Award for best new fantasy novelist of the year. In 2009, she won the World Fantasy Award for "26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss," which was also a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards. She won the 2010 Nebula Award for "Spar" and the 2011 Nebula Award for "Ponies," which is also a finalist for the Hugo and World Fantasy awards. Her short story "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change" was a finalist for the 2007 Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards. Johnson was also a finalist for the 2004 World Fantasy Award for her novel Fudoki, which was declared one of the best SF/F novels of 2003 by Publishers Weekly.

Reviews

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

How have so few people read this book? I will have to pimp it all over Goodreads now because Fudoki is simply lovely.

This book is two stories rolled into one. In 12th century Japan, Harueme, an elderly princess, sits down to write a story that's just itching to get out: of a cat who's turned into a woman and a warrior and has the adventures Harueme never had. Harueme's memoirs intertwine with the story of the cat, without real boundaries between the two. This might be best described as historical fiction, since the fantasy elements are all in the cat's tale and the cat probably doesn't exist, but there's enough ambiguity that it works well as historical fantasy too.

This was an unusual reading experience for me. I initially read the first few pages, decided it wasn't the thing for me at the moment, and set it aside, but then found myself thinking about it. And that's the way this book works. There's nothing flashy or in-your-face about it; it draws you in subtly, plays on your emotions without your realizing it, and you slowly come to realize just how good it is. I'm used to reading books through in a mad rush these days, but this is one that demands you slow down and read a little bit at a time. "Calming" is a good way to describe it.

The stories of both the princess and the cat are compelling, and the character development is quite good, especially with Harueme (the cat-woman is simpler, as cats are, and even in human form her personality resembles that of a cat). Harueme lives in a world of women, and her relationship with her attendant and best friend, Shigeko, is well-done. The writing is also good, and genuinely reads like the voice of an older woman who's learned a lot about life (rather than a younger author trying to sound wise and being trite instead). To quote an example that encapsulates Harueme's outlook on life, and made me smile (background: her uncle and cousin are upset about her rejection of a suitor):

"I knew they could not see me well through the screens, so I learned to slip a small notebook into my sleeve, to have something to read during these visits: if they had nothing useful to say, I saw little reason to attend carefully. I actually read all the way through the Diamond Sutra in this fashion, which I am sure did more for my soul than any remorse they might have hoped to engender."

Not flashy, but full of thought and humanity. And it also brings me to my last point, which is the setting. Johnson isn't Japanese, but you might not realize from the text; the book is clearly well-researched but the details stay in the background, subtly fleshing it out as needed. The setting feels three-dimensional, and never exoticized. The mythology is interesting and fits very well into the story; I knew I was hooked from the moment the cat encounters a dead woman's ghost trying to shake her body into wakefulness.

I'm not quite prepared to give 5 stars--maybe I need a little more flash, the kind of book that will bowl you over--but I am prepared to say that Fudoki is excellent. This is exactly the sort of thing I like--historical fantasy with a non-western setting, focusing on women and their relationships, and with cats--but I think it will appeal to a wider audience too. Now on to Johnson's other book....

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cats are too fierce for gods; they came godless from Korea many tens of years ago, and they worship no one. This is good, for they are free in ways men are not; but this is bad, because they are utterly alone in the world.

Fudoki is the story of a cat, told by a princess trapped in her rooms by old age, tradition and ill health. But like any great story, it is much more than the surface detail. It is about freedom and courage, love and friendship, conflict and poetry. Set in 11th Century Japan, at the height of the Heian period that was famous for the rigid formalities of court life, for the rise of the military caste, for the writing of classic monogatari epics, for the rise of Buddhist and Chinese influence on the Japanese culture. All of these historical facts are masterfully captured in the pages of Kij Johnson novel, combined with subtle fantasy elements, also typical of Japanese tales: ghosts, animal spirits, kami deities ( they are everywhere, in everything from a family's shrine to a dying cycad-palm on a beach in distant Satsuma province; and their voices are everywhere, all chattering or twittering or intoning at once ).

The term fudoki is used to describe self and soul and home and shrine, all in one to a cat , continuity and tradition and identity through stories. When a feral cat living in an abandoned residence sees her world destroyed in an earthquake and the subsequent firestorm, she loses her fudoki and is cast adrift on an epic journey that will gain her the title Kagaya-hime, the Cat Who Traveled a Thousand Miles.

The tale of Kagaya-hime is put down on paper as a journal of the last days in the life of Imperial Princess Harueme. Born under a thousand thousand rules, the princess finds solace and escape from her monotonous, cloistered existence in imagining the adventures of the little tortoiseshell cat.

The two stories weave around one another, giving meaning and purpose to each other, princess and cat becoming kindred spirits, sisters-in-arms, dream and reality walking side by side. As Princess Harueme recalls the loves and friendships that made her life endurable, so Kagaya-hime learns to abandon her loneliness, her isolation and to relate to the people, animals, and kami that are part of her story.

If you are looking for an action packed, edge of the seat thriller, this book most probably will not qualify. It is a poetic meditation, often infused with sadness, mostly contemplative and passive observation of the world. Both main actors are outsiders: Harueme is often forced to look at the world and converse with people from behind a privacy saving curtain, her every gesture and word subject to rules and interdictions; Kagaye-hime is isolated by her predatory instincts, her orphaned status and her fiercely protected independence.

The prose of Kij Johnson is a joy to behold, feelings and moods often reflected in nature's shifting landscapes, in the play of rain and wind and moonlight on formal gardens or majestic vistas. The depth of the research is impressive, detailing the aristocratic dance of the Heian nobility, the frankly very liberal courtship traditions of the period (where the women often had the liberty of inviting a favorite into her private chamber, regardless of marriage status), the cultural and social interactions ( Young men and women together in the moonlight breed poetry as oak trees breed mushrooms .

War has a special place in the story. Although the exclusive province of men, women experience it either remotely through the scars left on their brothers and lovers or directly when their house stands in the way of war bands. The research is again exhaustive: the armour, the weapons, the strategies, the economic implications, the extreme cruelty, and the ultimate pointlessness of the exercise, they are all part of the journey of Kagaya-hime. Well, Takase said, his tone measured, as if he were about to comment on an arrangement of irises. We will kill them. They will kill us. But it will be done. Go on, then. : this is one of the most chilling and succint discourses from a general before the battle I have ever read.

Religion is another aspect explored in the text, beside court manners and warfare. Harueme grows up in the animist tradition of old Japan: Is not everything filled with kami, every stick and rock and leaf? Perhaps I have been the first to recognize and worship this kami, but that did not mean it had not been there, lonely and hungry for attention, like a bored little girl. Now, so many decades later that I do not choose to count them up, I think there may be another truth to this - that the rock was worthy of worship because it had been worshiped - that every shrine in the world began as mine did, with someone's longing for something greater than herself. Kagaya-hime is herself led and transformed by kami spirits, wild and unpredictable, probably benevolent, just as likely indifferent to her fate. Animals, as higher life forms than rocks and twigs, share both language and social institutions with humans, not so much different here than in the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine.

Some references to events and characters from the previous Kij Johnson novel (The Fox Woman) are present here, but the two stories are largely self contained and can be read independently.

If I were to draw a conclusion to the novel, it would be about the importance of stories in defining our fudoki , of revealing who we are and what our place in the world is:
Tales and memories, however inaccurate, are all we have. The things I have owned, the people I have loved - these are all just ink in notebooks that my mind stores in trunks and takes out when it is bored or lonely. It is in the recording of things, in our memories if nowhere else, that makes them real.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really great! At its core it's about isolation and loneliness and eventually making a home for oneself. It has a dual narrative: Harueme is an elderly dying princess writing the tale of Kagaya-hime, a cat-turned-human with no family, no home, and no fudoki. As Kagaya-hime embarks on a journey to forget the pain and loss in her past, Harueme begins to reflect upon her life and pass judgments on what truly mattered over the years. This book talks a lot about grief and mortality, which I really enjoyed, and came to some profound conclusions that were said in an offhand, humble manner. I loved the landscapes Johnson paints, especially the winter scenes. There were some bits having to do with warfare that didn't interest me as much, but I wasn't bogged down by it, either. I'll be reading everything that Kij Johnson writes in the future!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a cat who became a woman, in Heian Japan, around 1129 AD. The novel is related to her first novel, The Fox Woman , set in the same era, and there are a couple of related characters in this book. The novel is also related to “The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles”, http://www.tor.com/2009/07/14/the-cat... , which you may want to read first to get a feel for the setting.

The cat-woman is presented as a story within a story, "as told by" a contemporary princess who, in story-now, is dying of cancer, reminiscing about her long life at the Imperial Court, and setting her affairs in order. This device works pretty well, but gets confusing about halfway in, when the Princess seems to become unmoored in time.

The cat-woman becomes involved in a small provincial war, no less nasty for being small. The author has done her homework, and the level of historic detail in the book is remarkable. But I could have done without the graphic scenes of villagers being burnt out of their homes, and shot if they tried to escape the flames.

The war ends, and both stories come to sweet endings, which it wouldn’t be fair to reveal. So this one is a keeper: 3.5 stars and reread-worthy, though next time I’ll skip the gore. The cover art, by Michael Dringenberg, is exceptionally fine.

[Kitty G Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up as it counted for the challenge of reading a book which focuses on a PoC character, and this one follows a Japanese cat-woman, Kagaya-hime, and a Japanese Princess, Harueme. We follow the story of two lives, the first is our Princess, Harueme, who is now in her late seventies and is reminiscing about her life and the things she misses or enjoyed. We get to follow her tale through her notebooks as she writes in her old age to tell her life story.

We also follow through Harueme's notebooks, the story of Kagaya-hime. A young cat-woman who is lost after the rest of her family are killed in a fire, and so she transforms into a woman and yet retains much of her cat-soul in the transformation. She doesn't really understand the ways of humans, and we follow her as she tries to understand them and learn from them.

Overall, this is a solidly interesting story with a lot of reference to the Japanese culture and the influences are told beautifully throughout. I really enjoyed experiencing the life of the princess Harueme and seeing how she was an older character in a fantasy book was really refreshing too.

The Japanese elements come largely from folklore of Japan and we see Gods and spirit animals on the stage of the story too. I really found that there was a lot to learn and love about these tales and the Fudoki was something vitally important to the cats of this book.

I also think Kij Johnson did a really good job of personifying the cat at times and making her seem realistic but fun and lazy all at once, just as a cat should be!

I ended up giving it a 2.5*s as it was fun, but some sections were a bit slower paced than I would have liked and there was a fair amount of battle/fighting in the latter half too.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blank notebook demands words. Which words? I wonder.
—p.16

Princess Harueme is nearing the end of her life. The pain and heaviness in her chest is undeniable. She is saying farewell to her friends and servants, preparing to leave her great-grandnephew the Emperor's court and become a nun for the brief time she has remaining. This is during the Daiji era (1129 C.E.), not very long after cats first came to the Eight Islands of what we now call Japan. Among her accumulated trunks and boxes, Harueme finds a number of beautiful blank notebooks, each demanding words... and so she grinds some good black ink, picks up her favorite wolf's-fur brush, and begins to write the tale which becomes Kij Johnson's 2003 novel Fudoki.

No, "fudoki" is not some new number-puzzle game. Google Translate tells me, without apparent irony, that its English translation is "feng shui"—which I'm willing to believe is technically accurate, but the way Kij Johnson uses it here, the word means something more like "oral genealogy"—the proper arrangement of matrilineal biographies, stretching back for generations of lives.

Feline lives, that is:

The tortoiseshell's fudoki was many cats long, and she knew them all—The Cat with a Litter of Ten, The Cat Born the Year the Star Fell, the Fire-Tailed Cat.
—p.18

Fudoki feels its way slowly and carefully, building up its utterly convincing milieu from many small, perfectly-placed details. Its fantasy elements become apparent only slowly—the first few chapters are straight historical fiction, however exotic the setting.

Most monogatari tales are about what their authors already know: life as a court noblewoman, the mannered round of exchanged poems and misunderstood intentions. I am intimately familiar with this world: I was born for it, and have lived at court for fifty years. And here, where I tell the tale of the cat who became a woman, I confess frankly that much of my life bored me senseless.
—p.65

And yet, Fudoki contains drama as well. Earthquakes and fires, long journeys and fierce battles, figure into Princess Harueme's tale quite as much as quiet contemplation. This brings... well, something that seems like wisdom, at least to my aging yet somehow still naïve eyes...

What man, what lost love or deceased kinsman is worth death? The space in my life that my half-brother once filled is now an aching icy pain, like the hole left after a tooth is pulled, and I am dying in weeks or months—and yet I still fight for life, as every mouse does, until the final beak-blow. The grace in tragedy is not to succumb, but to fight on.
—pp.87-88

After all, doesn't every writer of fiction (except perhaps George R.R. Martin) eventually decide to stop—enough—to say 'I cannot inflict any more cruelty upon my characters, my own creations'? And yet it appears that the author of us all experiences no such compunctions, no such hold upon his mighty pen...

Fudoki is rich throughout with realizations like these.

Proverbs:

—it is easy to ignore a cat when she is not of a mind to remind you of her existence, though otherwise it is impossible.
—p.160

Similes and metaphors both apt and concise:

My woman Shigeko came to me as suddenly as a sneeze.
—p.173

And things the young should never have to come to know so soon:

I find that insights grow more frequent as I have less time to take advantage of them.
—p.242

Although Kij Johnson herself is from the far-off prefecture of Iowa, and as of this writing lives in an even more exotic locale called Kansas, Fudoki itself always felt intensely real to me—deeply researched and consistently voiced, as authentic and respectful as a gaijin's account could be.

If a comet is without meaning, it seems possible that a woman is likewise so; and I do not wish to think this of myself.
—p.43

Princess Harueme needn't have worried, and neither should Johnson—comets do not have such wishes, something which of itself ascribes meaning.

After I had enjoyed Kij Johnson's recent The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe so much, I was already primed to reach out for more of her work—so Peter T.'s endorsement came to me at a very auspicious time. Fudoki was an amazing find, worth every second of the time I spent finding and reading it.

[Phoenixfalls · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, I have to say, that jacket description is riddled with so many small inaccuracies about this story that I was tempted not to include it. They aren't fundamentally important inaccuracies -- though it is very important to realize that the "she" referred to at the start of the second paragraph is Kagaya-hime, not the "aging empress" who isn't an empress at all -- but it bugs me now that I've read the story to see how wrong it is. Ah well, moving on.

This is a wonderful book, sure to appeal to fans of Patricia McKillip and Catherynne Valente, though it's more accessible than either of their work. It's very much rooted in the myths of Japan, and while I don't know a ton about the time period, nothing of what I do know was contradicted by what Johnson wrote, so I am assuming that she captured the era (Heian-era Japan I believe) with some degree of accuracy. Like in McKillip and Valente's work, this is not fantasy that lovingly details a set of rules for its magic system; it is fantasy where there are gods and there are humans and there are animals and the lines between these things are not sharp at all, where anything can happen and no one is much surprised when anything does. Logic plays a role, but it's dream logic, and the worst error to commit is in assuming that any other being's motivations match our own.

But what made this book brilliant (and caused it to be nominated for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award) is the way in which it is fundamentally a womens' fantasy. The fudoki of the cats is entirely female; there is no place for males, and none of the fudoki cares to even know the names of the toms that fathered their kittens. Harueme (this would be the aging noblewoman narrating Kagaya-hime's tale, half-sister to the former Emperor Shirakawa) also lives in an almost entirely female world, where women have husbands and lovers but their days are spent hidden from male sight (and even the seductions take place with an eye to maintaining the illusion that no man can see their faces). Harueme loved her half-brother, and reminisces about her soldier-lover Domei, but the most important relationship she has is with her attendant, Shigeko. The novel even acknowledges that women menstruate -- I'm pretty sure I can count on one hand the SF/F novels that do that -- and there are elaborate (historically-based, I assume) codes of conduct built around that simple fact of life. It's a novel about women's issues: family and home and place in a society when all of those things are rigidly proscribed.

It works on a pure fantasy level too, with the cat-transformed-into-a-human element and the presence of the kami (which are a whole class of gods, not the name of a specific god as the jacket implies) and even a small war of revenge that leads to a seige; and I'm pretty sure it works as historical fiction, though as I've said I don't know very much about the time period so I can't attest to its accuracy. But it will linger in my memory because it shows a slice of life fantasy novels too often forget, not with any particular message, but just because these are stories that rarely get told. I wish there were more novels like this.

[Jacqie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Popsugar 2021: The book that’s been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time

I love cats and and am a Japanophile, so this book was a treat. It's a story-in-a-story. An elderly Japanese princess is preparing to retire from the world. She has a disease that will eventually kill her, and she is going to become a nun and end her days in seclusion. As she sorts through her trunks and burns most of her past possessions, she finds several blank notebooks and becomes compelled to write a story "just for her". As a princess, she is never alone, and the idea of some thing private to herself is appealing.

The story is that of a tortoiseshell cat who loses her home and fudoki in a fire. Fudoki, in this book, means something like a cat's clan, home ground, and history all combined. The little cat has lost everything but herself and she cannot stop moving along the road or stop mourning. A road kami takes an interest in her and changes her into a human form, which is one more loss to bear.

As the princess writes her tale, she meditates upon her own past, thinking of her now deceased emperor brother, her favorite lover, and the natural world around her that she loved to study (an unusual interest for a princess). She also thinks about how constrained she has been in the world, how few choices she has had of her own, and how little she has seen except through curtains and screens. The little cat becomes her proxy, adventuring into the world and doing as she likes, but with no home or attachments.

Of course things change. As the princess divests herself of unimportant possessions, the cat-woman gains more of them.

Initially, I thought the story of the cat was the most interesting one. As the book progressed, I became more invested in the princess herself. By the end of the book, I was more impatient to get back to the princess's part of the book than the cats', perhaps because it felt like time was running out for the princess. The cat-woman also got caught up in a small war, and that was surprisingly uninteresting to me, who usually is interested in that subject.

I'd love for Kij Johnson to come out with another book soon- it's been too long.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fudoki is an entrancing fantasy set in medieval Japan. Johnson skillfully interweaves the reminiscences of an aging princess with the tale the princess is writing of a woman turned into a cat, who may or may not exist outside the princess's imagination. The language is exquisitely precise, with never a wasted word, and the portrayal of medieval Japan brilliantly vivid.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinarily beautiful book, written in clear, sweet, lyrical prose that I found so calming, I could only read it before bed. (A bizarre quirk of mine, perhaps? But I tried to read this over breakfast one morning, and found my thoughts - racing ahead to anticipate the day - completely unsuited to the gracefulness of the prose, and so I made it a bedtime-only read.)

There are two stories in this book - that of the elderly Princess Harueme, and that of Kagaya-hime, a cat who takes on a woman's shape for reasons that she does not understand. In the beginning the tales are separate - Harueme writes Kagaya-hime's tale to occupy her as she prepares to leave the Emeperor's palace and go into a convent to die - but somewhere along the way they begin to weave together. The blurring of boundaries between the two women's tales is masterfully done, and not every segue is apparent until you're deeply inside the thoughts and feelings of the opposite woman to the one with whom you began. "We" and "I" become loaded terms that pull you, as the reader, into the text as well - the book itself loses its boundaries, and the tale becomes a living thing that encompasses all female experience.

That said, the subject matter is not dainty, or sheltered, or female by the measure of any particular trope. Princess Harueme loves beetles and mice, loved to draw the wings of birds as a child, has read as much about war as she can lay her hands on. Kagaya-hime travels long distances, defends herself when attacked, hunts and comforts and fights, on her own and with others. Between the two tales we see the measure of a woman as defined by convention, and the measure of a woman defined by herself.

And the ending - oh, the ending is exquisite, and I put down the book and just smiled happily into empty space when I was done. Such a lovely, lovely book.

[M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 4.5/5 stars, Fudoki is a entertaining and fascinating read. If you've enjoyed 'The Fox Woman', you will enjoy this book. The main character in question here is a cat rather than a fox. At first you wonder why she is on this journey, but the events that transpire along the journey make it interesting. The parts of the story from the Princess' point of view are also interesting and educational, though if I were a Princess in that era, I'd be bored due to the restrictions. Personally, I feel the story would have done better without Princess' part of the story, it just didn't feel relevant to the story of the cat.

At the end of the story, the reason for the journey is revealed, and everything makes so much sense - so if you didn't like this book at first because of the seemingly pointless story, just KEEP READING ON and your patience will pay off. It was a strangely satisfying ending, and I was happy when mention of the kitsune appeared within the story (a nice nod to Kij's first book) Overall a enjoyable and satisfying book, highly recommended!

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 12th century Japan, Harume is nearing the end of her life and writes the tale of Kagaya-hime (the Cat Who Traveled a Thousand Miles) as a last creation.

This is a wonderful story but I'll pre-warn you that it moves slow - it took me a month to finish it. While the story of a cat who was transformed into a human is what originally caught my interest, I found myself enjoying the bits about Harume the most. Kagaya-hime is learning to deal with being human, interacting with people, and going to war. Harume is facing health issues, saying goodbye to family, and enjoying quietness and writing. I identified more with Harume.

I've read three books by Kij Johnson and would rank them from most enjoyed as: "The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe", "At the Mouth of the River of Bees", and "Fudoki". They've all been excellent.

[Chelsea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This Japanese-inspired historical fantasy was two stories intertwined. One, an autobiography of a 12th century elderly woman reminiscing about her youth at court; two, a memoir of a cat who survived the tragic loss of her entire cat clan after a horrific fire (and who is subsequently transformed into a human).

I thought that this book would appeal to me more than it did since it possessed many elements that I am interested in (folklore and fairy tales, historical fiction, women's history, etc.). Unfortunately I could not connect to the characters or fully immerse myself in the story. Everything lacked nuance and depth. Plus the pacing was soooooo slowwwww. It was painful to get through. Nothing of note happened. It was a meandering journey with no purpose. A lot of mention of grief and loss, of rape and murder, of death and war, but to what end? I don't understand how others have rated this book so highly.

Another item that weighed on my conscience was that the author does not appear to have any academic, familial or cultural ties to Japan. "Kij" Johnson is a pen name; her first name is Katherine. She is an American from Iowa and has earned her B.A. and MFA in English/creative writing at different American universities. She is a professor of English at the University of Kansas. So...what was her inspiration? Why Japanese folklore specifically? Personal interest? I am intrigued, particularly because I noted the primary source reference material in her author's notes were all translations; she probably isn't fluent in Japanese. The people she thanked for assisting her all appeared to be American English as well. I am curious how a Japanese person would interpret her interpretation. It highlights an ethical conundrum - can an author do justice when writing a story about a community they are not a part of? It is an interesting debate in the literary world. I truly wonder how this work would be received. I for one didn't care for it, but that may not mean anything at all based on the other stellar reviews!

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a full 120 pages to finally get truly interested in this book. It's just so very slow. Now, it's meant to be. It's about a dying old woman who, while writing a fictional story, is contemplated her life. From the very beginning there was a lot to think about, but I was honestly bored. However, once Hime becomes human things pick up a little...or maybe I had finally just adjusted to the slow pace.

But once I got past the slow pace, I was really impressed with this as a contemplation on place—the idea of one's social place, place as a physical location and the intersection of these ideas that construct our sense of ourselves (Fudoki). Harueme is a princess—daughter, grandaughter, sister and aunt to emperors. But this same high rank (place in society) is a prison of sort, keeping her in her place dreaming of being free, of seeing the world and new places. She is never allowed to escape her place, physical or cultural. While simultaneously, Hime is a cat who has lost her Fudoki, her place and therefore the sense and understand of self that it provided. She spends the whole book looking for a place to be her and her own.

If you're looking for a contemplative read and have any interest in 11th century Japanese culture I recommend picking this one up.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ancient Japan fascinates me and I can't think of a more interesting time that Heian-kyo, 11th century in Japan's old capital now known as Kyoto.

While this story takes place in late Heian - 1129, I believe the author mentioned - it has all the charm and cultural nuances one would expect. Sei Shonagan finds her name in these pages, as does Murasaki Shikibu. We read about ancient Japanese marriage customs and war and seiges. We learn about the life of the gods that govern and of times of hardship.

We follow the life of a cat who suddenly finds herself in woman-form on a quest though she does not yet know it because she is just 'nothing and no one'. This is also a tale of an old Heian princess as she slowly fades away from this world to the next, some unnamed tumor growing inside her killing her a bit day after day.

It is a sweet story of life, loss, and home and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved reading about Kagaya-hime (even if her name is so similar to Kaguya-hime that I kept thinking of the moon!) and of Harueme, the 70+ year old princess scribbling away her last days in her journal before she finally moves on. A recommended read!

[Philippa Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantasy like I have never read before - it is really a mix of fantasy and historical fiction. It is such a unique book based on Japanese myth that is beautifully written - it is an adventure that will have you engaged until the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed the two storylines of Harueme and the cat woman Kagaya-hime, and it is the type of book that you just don't want to end. Johnson did a phenomenal job at making both narratives engaging and I can't pick a favourite. I also loved the setting of 11th century Japan and it was interesting to learn more about court life, especially for the women. If you are interested in Japanese culture, history and/or mythology then you will most likely enjoy this. I highly recommend it.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won’t say DNF. I do want to finish it one day. The prose in this thing is absolutely gorgeous, full of lines that shine like diamonds.

Alas, the narrative flows like wet cement. Maybe later.

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this was so close to being a DNF for me, but I'm glad I stuck it out.

I really struggled to get through this book. The prose is threadbare -- it gives just enough to spark the imagination, but few other frills that would easily engage a reader. But it makes sense, because it reads much like a lamenting final journal entry, penned by a wisened old 12th century princess close to death.

It really takes time for the plot to unfold like a syrupy-slow, Ghibli-esque dream (much as I'm reluctant to compare the two, I'm struggling to find other means to describe the ambience -- in one moment, you have a little cat-woman conversing w/ the soul of a tiny rice ball, and in the next, she's trekking through the forest with a war band in the midst of ruthless combat...). And it can be painful reading something styled so languidly slow like this. Major plot events are laid out plainly, devoid of embellishment for shock factor, and conveyed with somewhat of a soft wistfulness. It feels like how you'd imagine someone writing a story meant for their eyes only, like you shouldn't even be reading this book at all. But honestly, I found that really fucking cool. That, on top of the fact that the dual narratives intertwine and sort of lazily cross paths, felt really intimate even considering how distant the prose was.

I think you only really reach clarity once you get to the end of the story, which feels sort of enlightening when you're looking back at the whole ~Experience~, but is an absolute slog when you're 200 pages in and trying to make sense out of things. That said, this is one of the few cases where I think it was worth the struggle for me, because these stylistic choices struck me as fully deliberate and effective, even if you can't see the bigger picture clearly at first. And from a historical standpoint, this book is extremely well-researched and sensitive.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating tale, written in the form of an old woman telling a story. Reading it reminds me of fairy tales read to me as a child. The language is beautiful and, well, it tells the story of a cat, so if you love cats, you will love this book!

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5 stars really]

“Fudoki” consists of two stories. The first is about a cat who, after the death of her clan (in the story, cats live in clans) in a fire, decides to strike out along the road that runs north from Kyoto, and is turned into a woman partway there by the spirit (or kami) of the road. Subsequently she makes friends with a noblewoman she meets on the road and ends up being involved in a small but vicious war between noble families in the north, which is technically part of the Japanese Empire but is still fairly wild and appears to have considerable autonomy. To contrast with this rather fantastical story — it’s not just that the cat is turned into a woman, and that the kami continues to provide her with whatever she needs, up to and including servants, as she travels along, but also that she is so easily accepted as a woman who is really a cat by the other characters — we have the other half of the book, which is essentially the autobiography of the royal princess Harueme, who is writing the cat’s story. Since she is also dying of cancer, she has a strong incentive to look back over her life, and it becomes increasingly clear that the cat’s story is merely a chance for Harueme to think about her life from an unexpected angle: in particular, to think about the love of her life, Domei, a guardsman from the north whose leaving she still mourns, though it happened decades ago. This is an interesting idea: unfortunately, as the story of the cat-woman continues, and it becomes more and more a way for us to watch Harueme think about events and people that she has avoided thinking about for years, its intrinsic interest decreases, mainly because its fantastical elements increasingly appear to be simply imposed from the outside by its author (Harueme, that is) to push the story in the direction she wants it to go. The way that this sheds light on Harueme’s thinking does not compensate for the damage this does to the credibility of the cat-woman’s story, especially since the sections of the book that are simply Harueme describing her life and musing about her past are both more enlightening and more interesting. By the middle of the book, I found myself no longer much caring what happened to the cat-woman. Which is fine, as Harueme is more than interesting enough to carry the book by herself, but I think that ideally the proportion of the book devoted to the cat-woman’s story would be reduced as the book goes along and Harueme increasingly assumes center stage. Once the cat-woman’s story becomes a slog, Harueme’s story is inevitably affected as well. Johnson’s novel “The Fox Woman” (some characters from which appear in the cat-woman’s story) does a better job as an adaptation of Japanese folktales about magical transformations, and her story “The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles” is better as the story of a cat who travels a long distance in Japan. However, Harueme’s character is enough to keep you reading: an intelligent and strong-willed woman trapped in the restrictions of Japanese imperial court life, she’s not necessarily all that original, but Johnson does an excellent job creating her voice, and the reader ends up far more invested in her past than in the cat-woman’s future. (Credit should also be given to Johnson’s research, the breadth and depth of which is readily apparent.)

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed after reading this book because I had first read The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson and the voice of the narrative was so different. What I had liked most about The Fox Woman was the way it was written: very wistful and almost romantic while still remaining mystical and supernatural. I also loved the poems written by each of the characters. None of that was in this sequel.

When I first started to read, the tragedy that occurred to the tortoiseshell cat drew me in and I wanted to know more and wanted to see what would happen to the cat. However, once she transformed into a woman, I lost my desire to continue reading for a good part of the book(I did continue, though). What had made me sigh in disappointment was the fact that once she had been turned into a human, in what was (sort of) meant to be a punishment or road to understanding, everything that she needed just magically appeared. A farmer's wife asked if she carried needles, and suddenly she did. Often things would appear out of no where even if she didn't even realize that she had needed them because she had never been near humans and didn't know about these things. Knives, a sword, a bow and arrows, needles, a horse, servants...she did not ask for them and didn't know she needed them, and yet they were magically provided. Now, at the very end of the story I realized the reason why these things magically appeared, but it was still distracting every time it happened until the point in the story where the reason is hinted at (at least for me). As a reader, I felt that too many things were being provided to her so freely, especially if the one who turned her into this form was seemingly upset with her. I expected a little more hardship, I suppose. Otherwise, the tortoiseshell's story was very engrossing and I read it mainly for the cat.

However, mixed in with the story of the cat is the story of the court woman writing the cat's story. In the beginning of the book, I didn't really want to read about the court woman. Slowly over the course of the book, I began to want to know more and more about her. In the end, I ended up wanting to skip the parts with the cat to see what would happen to the court woman. I ended up being fascinated by the rules a court woman from that time period in Japan had to live by.

Overall, this was a very good book, but for me it definitely lacked a bit in the middle.

[Patricia J. O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fudoki is an amazing book but won't be for everyone. It is slow, sort of meditative in style, following the preparation for death of an aged princess. She is cleaning out her belongings, including many notebooks of writing, but she finds she needs to fill some blank ones with one last story.

That tale of a cat who loses her home and travels far, turning into a cat-woman and warrior as she journeys, mingles with Princess Harueme's memories of her sequestered life and of her lost dreams.

Their stories become more complex, intense, and fulfilling as Fudoki moves toward its conclusion.

I love beautiful writing and this book is filled with it.

Here are a couple of examples:

"She was learning something about grief, that it begins with a great blow, but heals with a thousand tiny strokes."

"There was a day, beautiful and surprisingly cold: autumn, though winter was a clear omen in the air. The forest shivered gold and red and pine-green in the wind. There were ducks overhead, shouting directions at one another as they arrowed south in great untidy flocks."

[Lydia]

This was a lovely little tale. I can tell that it's not a favourite, because I didn't devour it or feel any need to be completely immersed in the novels, but it was lovely.

The way that Johnson flicked between the tale of Kagaya-hime, Harueme's present life, and Harueme's past, was wonderfully done and it never confused me. There's nothing more irritating than an author writing a story in this convoluted way, but not having the skill to do it well.

The relationship between Harueme and Shigeko was beautifully written and Johnson perfectly depicted the strong bond of female friendship and love. Oh, and the writing was goddamn perfect.

There's nothing I can pick out that I disliked about this book, it just didn't have that "wow" factor to make it a favourite. But it was a wonderful book about life, friendship, family, love, and a cat.

[Bruna Bellini · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like the book. I tried but I really didn't like it!

For me, the characters wasn't that kind that you really feel connected with it.

Hime is very cat like, huh? Independent, free of sentimentals towards the others. (That's why i prefer dogs.)

While reading it, i felt like i was watching the movie Genji Monogatari. But i enjoyed the movie, while this book was really boring! The dialogs on the book are very poor and very annoying!
It was so hard to finish it!
It's nice to read a book with japanese characters and also an historical one, but the author didn't even explain what means certain things, since japanese culture is very complex.
Anyway, for me, it was a waste if time.

[Ariana Deralte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the cat parts of this story, up until the last third when I enjoyed the lady's part of the story more. But, the constant interruption of either text made the story utterly impossible to get into and left me frustrated enough to never want to finish it. It was an effort of will that I eventually did, and I only managed that by skimming so I didn't get so annoyed at all the meandering. It does very well to set a tone, I suppose, but dear god it was annoying. I like my books to be able to draw me in, not kick me out of the story every page or two!

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

260910: set in historic japan, written by an american, this fantasy is possibly a typical japanese ghost story, elaborated. there are two threads of plot: the writer, a very old princess, and the written, a cat who becomes human and has adventures that reflect her cat-nature. an interesting portrayal of an imagined fantasy story from a sheltered life. the politics, the times, the revenge that offers only bittersweet resolution: ‘you killed some enemies, they killed some of you.’ a fantasy neither pastoral, urban, european or american. a fantasy that is at its best, philosophical...

[Yune · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few times I've been equally enthralled by two entwined narratives, instead of skipping through to read about my favorite character. In historical Japan, a cat loses the story of her bloodline, and must deal with her grief when she is turned human; an empress is dying, and begins writing her own tale.

I've also found Johnson to be one of the few convincing Western writers of an Asian perspective.

[Evan Jensen]

Sorrow for mortality and the desire to alter things from what they are. These are the overwhelming tones of the book. Great characterization and unique portrayal of anthropomorphized animal character.

[Emina Buket · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çok güzel bir kitap. Metis yayinlarina ve Özde Duygu Gurkana bu kitabı Türkçe'ye çevirdikleri için çok teşekkür ederim.

[robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were to pick a book for every season, my brother said last night, spring would have to be Secret Garden. For winter... maybe The Dark is Rising.

We got no further than that. I might choose the LotR trilogy for autumn, because of that bittersweet sense of loss and fulfillment that I always feel at its conclusion, but then I choose LotR for a lot of things.

Fudoki is not a seasonal book, save perhaps in the sense that our lives themselves have seasons. In that case, it might feel like autumn and also like spring. I would call it a journeying book; I've seldom felt such a sense of passage and change and destination, in reading any story. There is the journey of the storyteller, a static meandering backwards and forwards in her own life as she writes the story of a cat's journey in a series of notebooks. And that story is both a literal journey in space and geography, and more metaphysical, in spirit and philosophy and maturation.

I read once that if you follow any story too far, it always ends in death. Fudoku does not avoid that. BUT - uniquely, there is no sorrow here; only the anticipation of a new adventure, a different life, a continuing journey.

In "Grimbold's Other World," a childless queen, aging but beautiful, weeps over the lines on her face, mourns that the knights she sends out to seek her perfect flower no longer return with the flowers of spring, no longer journey for very long.

A boy asks her why she would weep for spring when summer has come, and she challenges him to carry his metaphor further, into autumn and then winter. What flower, what hope would he offer her in winter?

Perhaps, he says, the promise of another spring.

That is the journey that Fudoki takes; a long journey through winter, and a promise of renewal after that. It's very beautiful. I read it in two sittings because it carried me irresistibly forward. To speak merely of craft, the juxtaposition of the story-teller's life against the cat's life is deftly handled, and - unusually, I find - I was equally interested in each. I love both these women. I love the thought of their lives continuing after this story ends, for however long, and I feel that I can sense the shape that they take.

This book is also a lovely comment on the reality of those things we create; that these characters we joy and sorrow with are as real or moreso than the people we actually spend our lives with. That being the case, I am infinitely glad to add these characters to the company of those I travel with.