Sfar, Joann: Rabbi’s Cat, The

Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat is an absolutely charming graphic novel that I suspect has wide appeal. In 1930s Algeria, a rabbi’s cat eats a parrot and gains the power of speech (out-loud speech; he already narrates the story). To his master’s distress, he only tells lies.

He tells me that I have to be a good Jew, and that a good Jew does not lie. I answer that I am only a cat.

I add that I don’t know if I’m a Jewish cat or not.

After an argument, the cat demands to be bar-mitzvahed if he’s a Jew, and so they go to the rabbi’s rabbi to see if it’s possible. Unfortunately the cat gets in another argument, this time with the rabbi’s rabbi:

The rabbi’s rabbi tells the rabbi that he doesn’t want to see me anymore and that I should be drowned.

The rabbi tells his rabbi that he won’t drown me because he loves me and I don’t like water.

And I tell the rabbi that I am God, who has taken the appearance of a cat in order to test him.

I tell him that I am not at all satisfied with his behavior.

I tell him that he was as dogmatic and obtuse with me as some Christians are with Jews.

He gets on his knees and begs my forgiveness.

I tell him that it was a joke, that I’m only a cat, and that he can get up.

The cat’s speech is part of what’s not so much a plot as a progression, a series of events in the lives of the rabbi, the rabbi’s daughter, and the cat. The cat is changed by the acquisition of speech; the rabbi has to take a spelling test so that the French will officially approve him as rabbi; the rabbi’s cousin Malka and his tame lion come to visit; the rabbi’s daughter falls in love and gets married; they all visit Paris. It’s very loose, but it’s held together by the characters and the quiet, central theme of what it means to be Jewish—in terms of belief, conduct, and ethnicity. It’s funny and thoughtful and open-ended and a bit bittersweet, and sits smack in the intersection of literary fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy—hence my comment about the wide appeal.

The lines of the art are scratchy but expressive, and the colors and occasionally non-literal backgrounds do a very nice job of establishing the mood. The page layout is always the same, two panels across and three down, and within the panels very little is done with the placement of speech ballons; somehow this creates a feeling of pacing and rhythm, not boredom. I don’t have a scanner, but was able to find images from the original French edition; a translation of page one and page two is behind the cut. (The book is translated by Alexis Siegel and Anjali Singh. Oh, and Joann is in this case a man’s name.)

I read a hardcover copy from the library, but the paperback will be out very soon, so go take a look. This edition collects what were originally published as three volumes (La Bar-Mitsva; Le Malka des Lions; L’Exode); the author’s since published another two, so I hope there will be another U.S. collection in the near future.

Edit: I should have thought to look at the U.S. publisher’s site, which has more sample pages (“spreads”) linked on the left of the page.

Translations of the sample pages. Each new line is a new panel.

Page 1:

Jewish people aren’t crazy about dogs.

A dog will bite you, chase you, bark.

And Jews have been bitten, chased, and barked at for so long that, in the end, they prefer cats.

Well, maybe not all Jews, but that’s what my master says.

I am the rabbi’s cat.

I don’t disturb him when he reads.

Page 2:

The rabbi doesn’t bother me when I do things.

He says he has to respect my free will.

He also says that my freedom ends where the freedom of others begins.

But when he says that, I don’t listen. I am absolutely free.

The only thing that could curb my complete freedom would be if someone slapped me around.

But the rabbi says that the human hand is too subtle a tool to hit people or cats with.

(Dog lovers, fear not; a nice dog shows up later in the book.)