A Cat at the End of the World

Perišić (No-Signal Area) draws on mythology and history in this immersive if arcane tale about the founding of a Greek settlement on the Illyrian island of Issa (the present day Croatian island of Vis). Narrative threads alternate between the omniscient moral philosophizing of Scatterwind, a genderless, 2,500-year-old wind spirit, and the maturation and travels of Kalia, an enslaved boy in fourth-century B.C.E. Syracuse. Sabas, Kalia’s master, buys an Egyptian kitten named Miu, who takes to Kalia instead of to Pigras, Sabas’s son (and Kalia’s half-brother). Pigras’s increasingly violent attempts to subordinate Miu cause Kalia to run away with the kitten. The two hide out in the stable of a donkey named Mikro, and soon the three of them leave Sicily on a Greek ship headed for Liburnia. Arriving on Vis, Kalia apprentices with Teogen, a stonecutter and urban planner; befriends Arion, a one-armed mercenary, whose tomcat mates with Miu; and marries Avita, a Liburnian born on the island. As Scatterwind charts the evolution of humanity’s domestication of animals, Kalia’s arc becomes patchy, and Scatterwind’s asides increasingly feel more breezy than profound (“since my arrival, nothing has changed on the Earth apart from humans”). A gratifying conclusion, however, remains elusive amid the copious historical detail. Classicists will find lots to love. (Nov.)