I Am a Cat, by Natsume Sōseki

[esmeraldus_neo]

I've just finished reading a satiric late19th-century Japanese novel originally published in installments. It's been published a variety of ways: as ten installments in a magazine, as three shorter books, and as one very hefty volume. I have the hefty volume.

It's about a nameless cat, written in a very formal, stuffy way (the cat uses the royal "we

Comments

[waelisc]

Oh! My sister gave me a copy of this long ago. I don't have it anymore but I remember enjoying it greatly. I must have had one of the small shorter books; I don't remember it being the hefty volume you describe.

[esmeraldus_neo]

It's 638 pages in the single-volume version I have. It might have seemed heftier than it is just because even though I'm used to 19th-century prose, 19th-century Japanese even in translation was another remove from my POV and it took a little while to read.

[rachelmanija]

I'm glad you posted on this. I kept seeing it in bookshops in Japan and was curious, but never bought it because I didn't want to lug a huge book all over Japan.

[esmeraldus_neo]

It was good. It just wasn't a brisk read.