I Am A Cat (Tuttle Classics) by Soseki Natsume (EPUB)

Description

A nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn’t have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn’t much good for anything except watching human beings in action… –The New Yorker Written over the course of 1904-1906, Soseki Natsume’s comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. A classic of Japanese literature, I Am a Cat is one of Soseki’s best-known novels. Considered by many as the greatest writer in modern Japanese history, Soseki’s I Am a Cat is a classic novel sure to be enjoyed for years to come.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I am nearly finished with this Soseki book, and I though I might write a review of it.First of all, one ought to recognize that the book was written over a hundred years ago in 1905-6 in Japan. It was originally published (much like some of Charles Dickens’ work) in installments in a magazine. Soseki is still to this day widely read by youth in Japanese schools and I would consider him to be one of many important influences in the formation of the modern Japanese Zeitgeist. That’s the real reason I, personally, picked up this book. I wanted some insight into the frames of reference, history, and culture of Japan. I have not been disappointed. Soseki is exceedingly generous in discussing and joking about all the various ways in which Western academic ideas and cultural notions are having their confluence – flowing into – Japanese culture during the Meiji Restoration period. Soseki was obviously an incredibly well-read and astute scholar, when it comes to both Oriental and Occidental academic thought, philosophy, and history. In this book, there are numerous references to the names and works of various famous scholars throughout history, and it is well worth the curious reader’s while to do a quick Google or Wikipedia search on these names, because it will flesh out the picture of what Soseki is trying to philosophize about.From a plot/story perspective, I think many English readers will be surprised with how differently Soseki (and many other contemporary and historical Japanese authors) construct their novels. Some weeks ago, I read another and much shorter book by Soseki – “Botchan” – and in both books, he seems to use the plot device of a form of relentless negativity in order to allow him to show the reader clearly and without bias what he thinks about a range of issues, or about a personality archetype (in the case of Botchan). This is a very unusual plot device which I have never encountered in a novel written by a Westerner. The main character in “I am a Cat” is, not suprisingly, a cat. This cat is used as a first person tool to give the reader something of a “fly on the wall” perspective into the friendships and drama that take place at the turn of that century in his master’s (a school teacher’s) household. Perhaps housecats were generally not treated as well in 1906 as they are today in modern countries. Because of constant ill-treatment, the cat is resentful and scathingly critical of all things human.On another level, however, I can see that if I were to climb into the mindset of mainstream 1906 Japanese society, I might find the whole book to be nothing but a barrelful of laughs. This is because nearly every sentence in the book seems to consist of some sarcastic remark about the society of the day. Soseki is a true master of the art of humor in this way. Sarcasm, of course, often doesn’t translate well to people with sensibilities which have been molded by growing up in another time or place. Prepare for your mind to be stretched!From a readability perspective, the buyer of this book ought to be forewarned that it was translated after WWII by the British academic Graeme Wilson. Therefore, the book is written in British English rather than American English. I have found that two or three times on each page I have needed to look up an obscure British word (many of them informal or slang) in an online dictionary. Sometimes the peculiar spellings in the book cannot be found in current dictionary editions.I also have noted with Soseki and other Japanese authors that they seem to allow themselves a certain amount of slop and a few inconsistencies when it comes to the plot if it is particularly important for them to be able to give whatever unique gift they want to give to the reader in a certain paragraph of text. Japanese bookworms seem to forgive this sort of thing much more than Western readers might.Finally, I’ll just note that Soseki is fastidious in realistically depicting the behavior of cats. This is something I suppose doesn’t change from nation to nation, or century to century. It is really beautiful and quaint how he dreams up some kind of internal dialog in the cat’s mind to justify playful and recognizable behavior just at the moment when the cat supposedly has his mind occupied with all sorts of anthropological notions about humanity.

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⭐This novel is amusing.It is funny like comic book. It is funny like comic dialogue.It is interesting like Don Quixote.In Japan, many people think that children can read this novel.And many people know that it is famous Soseki’s novel, but they do not read it.Because though it is interesting, it is untruth that many children can read.It is packed with Soseki’s philosophy and his view of life.Soseki Natume is well informed about Oriental philosophy.He is the best intellectual in Meiji era in Japan.His view of life is hidden in the conversation and the indifferent sentence of the novel.The cat talks a view of human beings and his criticism of civilization.I think that the following sentence is interesting.Please have experience of the following Soseki Natume’s sentence.【This Heat is quite unbearable, especially for a cat. An English clergyman, a certain Sydney Smith, once remarked that the weather was so intolerably hot that there was nothing left for it but to take off his skin and sit about in his bones.Though to be reduced to a skeleton might be going too far, I would at least be glad to slip out of my fur of spotted, palish gray and send it to be washed or even popped temporarily into pawn.To human eyes, the feline way of life may seem both extremely simple and extremely inexpensive, for a cat’s face looks the same all the year round and we wear the same old only suit through each of the four seasons.But cats, I can assure you, just like anyone else, feel the heat and feel the cold.There are times when I consider that I really wouldn’t mind, just that once, soaking myself in a bath, but if I got hot water all over my fur, it would take ages to get dry again and that is why I grin and bear the stink of my own sweat and have never in all my life yet passed through the entrance of a public bathhouse.Every now and again I think about using a fan but , since I cannot hold one in my paws, the thought’s not worth pursuing.Compared with our simplistic style, human manners are indeed extravagant.Some things should be eaten either raw or as they are, but human go quite unnecessarily out of their way to waste both time and energy on boiling them, grilling them, picking them in vinegar, and smarming them over bean-paste.The horrible results of all these processes appear to tickle them to death.In matters of dress they are similarly absurd. Iasmush as they are born imperfect, it might be asking too mush if one expected them to wear, as is the custom of cats, the same clothes all year long but, surely to goodness, they cannot need to swaddle their skins in such a heterogeneity of sheer clobber.Since it seems not to shame them to be indebted to sheep , to be dependent on silkworms, and even to accept the charity of cotton shrubs, one could almost assert that their extravagance is an admission of incompetence. 】

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⭐This book intersperses some lovely and very feline description of being a cat – the nameless cat asking for his breakfast in a tone he calculates ‘should make a wanderer in a strange land feel his heart is being torn in pieces’, being ignored is just the same in modern day Britain as it was in 1900s Japan, with a philosophical narrative. You need to set aside any pre-conceptions about whether cats think, write, read, and in the case have a very high degree of knowledge, and simply enjoy what a ‘mere cat’ might have to say if he could. I found the psychological questions (such as why humans need to write in journals and cats don’t) interesting, and a new take on what it is that makes us human (or feline). The observations are witty, at times a little long winded, though our narrator apologises for this, and astute. I found it a thoughtful read, with many bits I re-read, and just a few I skipped. I would say its a book that you do not need to necessarily like cats to read (though that makes it very pleasurable), but at a quarter of a million words you do need to like reading. An interest in people, culture and philosophy also helps. I would say it is about 20% about being a cat, and 80% about people.

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⭐Interesting and thought provoking book. Would highly recommend reading.

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⭐I truly enjoyed this one so much that after having been lent the paper edition from a friend and read it I decided to buy the kindle edition in order to be able to read it again and again. It’s one of the best book that I’ve ever read. A genuine masterpiece of world literature that deserves even more than the maximum five stars allowed in such reviews.

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⭐What a wonderful tale. Beautifully written too.

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⭐Nice book it was for my niece. She’s love it

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