"I Am a Cat" by Soseki Natsume: A Classic Japanese Novel

Víctor Alberto Hernández Luna: Yo cuando soy el libro mejor escrito

Mexico on Oct 12, 2023

Peter S: This is an extraordinary work. Written with a humorous slant and enviably perceptive insight into human frailties, this novel proves to be a compulsive read from cover to cover. At times it reads rather like Lawrence Sterne's "Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy - Gentleman" - a celebrated "shaggy-dog-story" to which reference is made in the text and it could be argued that some targeted editing may have been beneficial. Nevertheless scarcely a sentence can be viewed as surplus to requirements and at times the scan of scholastic references arising in conversations witnessed by the cat is truly breath-taking. The cat's observations on the table manners of its master's offspring are hilarious and the finale to the novel is fitting and beautifully written.

United Kingdom on May 12, 2023

Mohammad Mossa: „Ich bin eine Katze“ – Natsume Soseki Satire auf die japanische Gesellschaft während der Meiji-era durch die Augen einer Katze. Kurz gesagt, Katzen sind allen anderen Wesen auf der Erde überlegen.

Germany on Apr 17, 2023

Lance Yamada: Book was well recieved

Canada on May 24, 2022

Laif: 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...

United States on Apr 03, 2014

Dew Kuriyama: 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...

United States on Sep 12, 2013

Lucinda Stern: 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...

United Kingdom on Jan 23, 2011