| NOTA |
(*)(trans. by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson) (★)(Soseki Natsume had originally intended to write no more than a short story, but when what is now the first chapter of ´I Am a Cat´ appeared in the literary magazine Cuckoo in 1905, its immediate success encouraged him to develop further installments. Ten followed, to complete one of the best-known works of modern Japanese literature. Though the total book is held together by the continuing theme of a nameless cat´s observations on upper middle-class Japanese society of the Meiji era, its essence is in the humor and the sardonic truth of these various observations. In the first three chapters (those translated in this volume), a stray kitten wins a place in the home of a dyspeptic schoolteacher of many enthusiasms but mediocre ability. Observing the pretensions of the master and his friends, the cat reflects on the peculiarities of human behavior and compares experiences with his feline neighbors, the sleek and powerful Rickshaw Blacky and the elegant Miss Tortoiseshell. Soseki´s modernity is strikingly illustrated by the fact that sixty years ago the characters in ´I Am a Cat´ were all fully engaged in the ploys and counter-ploys of gamesmanship and oneupmanship, which seem especially characteristic of our own time. In fact though, the weaknesses of society and human nature remain the same, and Soseki misses few of them. This excellent translation by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson appeared originally in the Japan Quarterly. The story is completed in Books II and III, from Tuttle.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
Print Page