{"product_id":"the-garden-of-the-departed-cats-9780811215510","title":"The Garden of the Departed Cats","description":"In an ancient Mediterranean city, a tradition is maintained: every ten years an archaic game of human chess is staged, the players (visitors versus locals) bearing weapons. This archaic game, the central event of \u003cem\u003eThe Garden of the Departed Cats\u003c\/em\u003e, may prove as fatal as the deadly attraction our narrator feels for the local man who is the Vizier, or Captain, of the home team. Their \"romance\" (which, though inconclusive, magnetizes our protagonist to accept the Vizier's challenge to play) provides the skeletal structure of this experimental novel. Each of their brief interactions works as a single chapter. And interleaved between their chapters are a dozen fable-like stories. The folk tale might concern a 13th-century herbal that identifies a kind of tulip, a \"red salamander,\" which dooms anyone who eats it to never tell a lie ever again. Or the tale might be an ancient story of a terrible stoat-like creature that feeds for years on the body of whomever it sinks its claws into, like guilt. These strange fables work independently of the main narrative but, in curious and unpredictable ways, (and reminiscent of Primo Levi's \u003cem\u003eThe Periodic Table\u003c\/em\u003e), they echo and double its chief themes: love, its recalcitrance, its cat-like finickiness, and its refusal to be rushed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With many strata to mine, \u003cem\u003eThe Garden of the Departed Cats\u003c\/em\u003e is a work of peculiar beauty and strangeness, the whole layered and shiny like a piece of mica.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/12\/2004\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780811215510\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.62lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.03h x 5.15w x 0.67d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/2003 pg. 1244\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLambda Book Report\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2004 pg. 25\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMulticultural Review\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2004 pg. 56\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bilge Karasu","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51634783912117,"sku":"9780811215510","price":16.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_571831a4-12b3-4ec2-b289-224a26324ba0.jpg?v=1756788909","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-garden-of-the-departed-cats-9780811215510","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}