I Am a Cat
Ratings17
Average rating3.3
I feel bad to give such a low rating. I really feel that I was just the wrong audience and so couldn't appreciate what it had to offer. I picked it up randomly in the library and thought that as a lover of cats, it would be a good read. But it seems you also might need to have a deep understanding and appreciation of Japanese culture, especially during the Meiji era. I found every part of it too long. The conversations of the people the cat observed as well as the thoughts and opinions of the cat himself. I kept going because I read that each book is better than the last, but sadly that was only the case for me because it meant I was closer to finishing it. Im very sure for the right reader this book is wonderful in many ways. I'm just not one of those readers. And as for the ending.....
WARNING: THE CAT DIES IN THE END! It got drunk, fell in a vase full of water, couldn't get up, and there was just enough water that it couldn't keep its head over the surface, so it drowned. It was a peaceful death in the end, when the cat finally stopped fighting it, but the last minutes... I know, I know, should probably have put the first sentence in spoilers too, but I wish I had known before I decide to read it.
I mean, it's a great book. I agree with all of this:
“Written from 1904 through 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.”
Masterly, funny, more in the amusing way sarcasm works rather than laughing out loud, though I did that too. The cat hunting rats was one of those bits.
But I still didn't want to read about the cat dying. :´(
