May 01 2008
“I Am a Cat”
Well, I’m not, as a matter of fact, a cat but I have recently been reading a book with that title by the Japanese author, Natsume S?seki, written at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
Originally published in ten instalments in the literary magazine Hototogisu between 1905 and 1906, I Am a Cat is a satire on upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era, portrayed through the eyes of an “unloved, unwanted, wandering kitten”. And it’s very amusing in a wry, philosophical sort of way; easy to dip into and with a storyline that’s more a string of anecdotes and observations than a rigid narrative structure.
I’m enjoying it; the observations on the superiority of cats over humans are really quite droll, especially if you know even a little of how cats behave; and with it tonight I’m also enjoying some 2000 Long Yuan Hao Yi Wu Mountain raw puerh that I got as a sample from Yunnan Sourcing. Very nice indeed, and my first ever puerh: the smokiness, dried fruit aromas and lasting flavour are quite intense, and not what I was expecting at all.
Okay, so that’s Chinese tea, with a Japanese novel, itself translated into English: but it’s Thursday night and it’s been one of those weeks…
Looks like an interesting read.