characters in i have lived a thousand years

They simply allow us the pleasure of their company.” Where it Succeeds And what you realise when you’ve lived with a cat for a long time is that we may think we own them, but that’s not the way it is.

“Cats and humans have been partners for over ten thousand years. The concept here is anything but new, but it comes at a time in our cultural story where the question is at everyone’s lips, and so as we read it we feel the very real weight of the protagonist’s choices and decisions. We have seen this story of existential dread in similar forms before, from classic films such as It’s a Wonderful Life to even more classic literature like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It is this that ultimately saves the novel from becoming trite and predictable. Minimalism is currently a global trend, capitalism is in its late stages and coming under fire from millennials, and young people are favouring travel and freedom over being a homeowner.Īnd so what better time to question what we actually need cluttering up our lives? This philosophy comes at a perfect time in our cultural zeitgeist. We can see clear as day the choices our mailman will be forced to make, the ethical struggles he must consider, and of course what is ultimately the neon-lit theme of the story: what, in life, is truly important? Much of this somewhat reverse-Faustian novel seems predictable from the start. We know from the title that cats will be one of the devil’s demands, and we can also assume that it won’t be the first, or second, but eventually, it’ll come. “When I found out, the first thing that occurred to me was that I was only one stamp away from getting a free massage on my loyalty card.” The devil is the one to make the demands our narrator then accepts and lives with the consequences, or doesn’t.

This devil offers our narrator an extra day of life for each thing in the world he is willing to sacrifice.īelieving at first he could simply choose to vanish a stain here or a rock there, he gladly accepts the devil’s demands, only to then be shocked when the actual honest-to-god capital D Devil proves to be -spoilers- deceptive. Upon returning home to his cat Cabbage, he is greeted by a happy Hawaiian-shirted version of himself claiming to be the devil. Our narrator – a film-loving, cat-owning, thirty-year-old everyman – is, in the book’s opening chapter, informed that he will soon be killed by a stage IV brain tumour he had no idea was hiding in there.

Characters in i have lived a thousand years