Compromise and Conceit

I am currently reading <i>I am a cat</i> by Soseki Natsume, who is apparently a much-loved author from Meiji era Japan. The book is set in Japan in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese war, and is told entirely from the point of view of an apparently omniscient cat, who is nameless. The cat lives with a dyspeptic, penny-pinching English Teacher and his unfortunate wife, and comments on the trivial comings and goings of their daily life in a highly critical, extremely sarcastic and scathing tone. 

The central conceit of the book appears to be that the cat is himself a complete wanker, in exactly the way one would expect of a cat. The author manages to maintain this perspective with singular devotion and skill through many pages of sneering commentary on the very ordinary people with whom the cat lives. The book alternates between sublime descriptive passages (as when the nameless cat foolishly attempts to catch rats), hilarious interactions between the humans, slapstick, and scornful monologues on the nature of humans – usually all at once. Yet despite the constant criticism, the tone of the book is light-hearted and cheerful. It is mostly a delight to read – cutting presentation of the foibles of everyday people was never so sugar-coated. 

Plus it makes me think of my own cat, who is probably engaging in just such a feline monologue right now, in the home of my partner’s parents in far away Australia (where, no doubt, it is warmer than London!)