The Cat Who Saved Books(20)

“That of summary!”

Rintaro and Sayo could barely believe what they were hearing.

The moment was punctuated by the end of the symphony’s third movement. There was a fleeting silence and then the fourth movement began with its intense cacophony of wind instruments. The scholar raised his voice even louder.

“Summary, synopsis—call it what you will. Those who have mastered speed-reading can even further increase their speed by the use of extracts from the text, known as a ‘summary’ or ‘synopsis.’ Of course, we eliminate all technical terms and jargon, unique or stylish phrases or expressions, or any rich or subtle idioms. The style is free from any individuality, expressions are deliberately kept to those in common usage—the passages are touched up to achieve the utmost plainness and simplicity. In this way, a story that used to take, say, ten minutes to read can now be polished off in under a minute.”

The scholar reached down to pick up a book that had fallen on the floor. Randomly inserting his scissors, he snipped off a fragment of a page, then leaned forward to show it to Rintaro.

There was a single line of text. Rintaro read it aloud:

“Melos was furious.”

The scholar nodded contentedly.

“That’s the summary of ‘Run, Melos!’ by Osamu Dazai.”

Rintaro was dumbstruck. Meanwhile, the man began to wave around what remained of the text.

“You see, even a famous short story like this one can be summarized. All it needs is this sentence. I performed extraction after extraction and ended up with this sentence. Naturally, if you use my streamlining method, you’ll be able to read the whole of ‘Run, Melos!’ in 0.5 seconds. Novels and other longer books pose more of a problem.”

He stretched a fleshy arm toward the boom box and turned the volume up even louder. “Ode to Joy” played by the lower stringed instruments echoed exuberantly through the room.

“I’m currently working on Goethe’s Faust. The goal is to get it down to two minutes, but it’s proving to be quite a challenge.”

He slapped a pile of books on his desk. The force caused several of the snippets of paper lying around to dance like snowflakes. It was impossible to tell if any of these books were copies of Faust, because they had seemingly all already undergone the scissors treatment.

“I’ve already succeeded in eliminating 90 percent of the book, but even at 10 percent of the original, this is still a huge project. It really needs to be condensed further. It’s going to take a lot of work. But there are many people who wish to read Faust, so I need to meet their expectations.”

The only reason that Rintaro didn’t come right out with “Are you crazy?” was because Sayo managed to get there first.

“Isn’t that a weird way to go about it?” She spoke up, but her voice was unfortunately overpowered somewhat by the sound of Beethoven.

“Weird? Why?” the scholar asked.

“Well . . .”

The directness of the question threw her for a moment. The scholar was halfway through turning his chair back toward his desk, but now he swung back around to face his visitors full on.

“They say that people don’t read anymore. But that’s just not true. They’re too busy. There really is a limit to the time they can spend on reading. But there are so many books they want to read. People naturally want to be exposed to lots of different stories. Want to read The Brothers Karamazov or The Grapes of Wrath? How should we fulfill that need?”

The scholar stuck out his double chin.

“Speed-reading and a synopsis. That’s how.”

He hadn’t touched the cassette player, but somehow the volume of the Ninth Symphony seemed to swell up even further.

“This book here . . .”

From the pile of paper scraps to his right, the scholar produced an ancient-looking book. It was the same title the trio had seen over and over on their journey down to the director’s office: Recommendations for a Whole New Way of Reading.

“This is my masterpiece, a compilation of all my research. Here, along with the latest speed-reading techniques, are the synopses of a hundred classic books, from both Eastern and Western cultures, that I have devoted myself to summarizing. In other words, if you have this book on your shelf, you’ll be able to read a hundred books in a single day. I have a second and third volume in the works. Very soon, people will have access to books from all over the world without wasting even the tiniest bit of time. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“I see,” said Rintaro. Of course, he didn’t really see at all, but he felt he needed to say something in order to stop the man going on forever.

“Even so, what you’re reading is something entirely different from the original book,” Rintaro added.

“Different? Well, I suppose it may have been changed a bit.”

“Not only a bit.” The tabby cat’s deep voice resounded through the room. “By doing this, collecting all these books and chopping them to bits, all you’re doing is mutilating them, reducing them to scraps of paper. What that means is you’re robbing the book of any life.”

“You’re wrong!”

The man’s voice tore at them like a great gust of wind. There was a weight to his tone that hadn’t been there before.

“I’m breathing new life into these books. Look . . .”