I Am a Cat

This book was written in installments to be published in a periodical, and because of this is nearly plotless, focusing mostly on the personal foibles of a group of middle-class members of society. Beyond a bit at the beginning and at the end and a few very brief interludes the author rarely alludes to the idea of a story narrated by an anonymous cat. Most of it might as well have been related by a human third-person viewer, one who never takes part in the dialogue and who has a comically dry, detached viewpoint, nearly a fly on the wall. This cat follows this one and that one without self-interest but mainly to witness the ordinary behavior of these individuals, each self-absorbed in their own way.

It is pretty long in book form but the episodic nature makes it pretty easy to digest in little doses over a long time, more or less the way it was written. In this translation, there are recurring characters whose names have been approximated in English, the cat's owner Sneaze and his family, the perpetual student and suitor Coldmoon, and so forth. The author writes with a lot of self awareness, such as the time when one character tells a long and pointless story periodically interrrupted by the objections of those hearing it, which adds to the fun. Even the big events which take place fall short of being epic, such as the confrontation with the trespassing neighbor students, where he refrains on making any explicit comments on the components of society.

The translation has a nice writing style, not too grotesque and not too old-fashioned, letting the farcical scenes speak for themselves. It was interesting to get a glimpse from time to time of what it was like at the very beginning of the twentieth century after some decades of contact with the West, although I wouldn't say that this was pervasive. The culture was just different enough to not be confusing or annoying, I think. One example of this was when Japanese or Chinese verse is dropped in during the midst of ordinary dialogue, which I wasn't sure whether was supposed to represent bad poetry, mediocre conventional poetry, or something else whenever it happened. There were other places where some notes could have been helpful so that I could get the full experience of what was being implied.

In the end, I think it was a nice enough satire, but by its nature one does not feel like it's a must to read the whole thing.