As the number of cat lovers increases across the world owning partly to the pandemic, so (I assume) does the number of books that place a cat at its centre. Yet, there is none as singular as Soseki Natsume’s nameless cat in I Am a Cat.
If you are expecting from the title a sweet little story featuring a cheeky little cat meowing and purring and looking pretty, you had better grab something else, like Jennie by Paul Gallico (the only other cat book I have ever read). Soseki’s cat is pompous and satirical, and he takes great pride in his philosophical thinking. Learned in the psychology of his master Kushami（苦沙弥）, he makes fun of the human world, pointing out the absurdity and inferiority of the human race with incredible eloquence and verbosity, when in fact the cat himself seems to gradually lose his cat identity and become more like a human. I greatly enjoyed the cat’s ‘Oh well, such is the (human) way of the world’ attitude.
Kushami is a middle-aged school teacher who teaches English, married to a wife, with three kids to look after. He is stubborn, awkward, cynical, naïve, and a bit of an intellectual snob. Despite his unsocial personality, Kushami is quite a likable character because he is so human. I cannot help giggling at the scene where he keeps dozing off while trying (or just pretending) to read an English book. It is partly because of those little seemingly unimportant yet relatable scenes that I was able to make it to the end of this chunky book.
Kushami’s friendship circle is also full of eccentrics who are delightfully dubious. Meitei（迷亭） is one such example. He always drops in to Kushami’s house as if his own mostly to entertain himself by telling jokey lies and teasing the English teacher. He is the kind of person who can never be serious about anything and has an unconcerned, humorous outlook on life. His wit and sense of humour somehow remind me of that of Oscar Wilde.
There are quite a few scenes that I found were truly thought-provoking and (let us say) philosophical, but I have clean forgotten them because the storyline often deviates from one to another and I found it impossible to take in everything seriously with so many footnotes. You could say it is a tedious book, but in a ‘feel good’ sort of way. So it may not be for an impatient reader, who might want to pick up a book more beautifully plotted with due twists and cliff-hangers in place. In my opinion, it is better enjoyed bit by bit with a sit-back attitude.