French cartoonist Sfar, known for his Little Vampire children’s book series, stretches out in this wildly original and funny graphic novel for adults. The narrator, a cat belonging to a rabbi in 1930s Algiers, eats his master’s parrot, thereby gaining the power of speech, and starts bugging the rabbi to teach him the Torah. Later, the rabbi’s daughter marries into a secular family, prompting a trip to Paris to check out the groom’s parents. Throughout, the cat’s wisecracks and insights are hilarious and poignant, Sfar’s visual style is intricate and almost poetic, and the portrait he presents of a society in which Muslims and Jews got along well is a startling and ultimately hopeful one.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2005.
