Kittens and Other Essays

Two cats enter a household, and a scientist discovers that their individual characters and affections can alter his own inner life. When kittens arrive, joy becomes entangled with responsibility, remorse, and the difficulty of knowing another creature’s world.

Kittens and Other Essays gathers ten complete works by Terada Torahiko. A seaside lesson explores waves and sand. Early articles explain color photography, the Milky Way, and moving stars. Three dreams transform beautiful landscapes into disturbing visions. Essays on Shiki, Sōseki, and Utsuno reveal the meeting of literary character and scientific curiosity.

The closing essay follows a wasp building its nest, a beggar whose words unexpectedly touch the narrator, a bagworm mistaken for a philosopher, a family’s search for a nova, and children enduring a summer at home. Ordinary observations become occasions for humor, uncertainty, and reflection on knowledge and human feeling.