The Garden of the Departed Cats

‪Surreal in the vein of Jorge Luis Borges or Italo Calvino. An experimental narrative that comprises a collection of stories interspersed with a framing narrative about a man traveling in a foreign country in which the town’s traditional human chess game is about to take place. The collection defies easy interpretation: Like a faint star, meaning can only be gathered by glancing at the stories together obliquely. The overall effect is strange and sad. No cats die, but love is like a cat and may depart.‬

Strange narrative about a traveller who grows embroiled into a conspiracy / human chess game, interspersed periodically with fables, metafictions and allegories. Sounds promising: the combo of "fantastic tales plus framing narrative" recalls Calvino, and the tales themselves are akin to Kafka's parables. But in the end, the book misfires more often than it connects, rendering these comparisons tragically superficial.