A CAT TIRADE FROM JAPAN

This mattress of a Japanese book is so funny and so smart that it must be required reading for all human beings by age 18.

Natsume Sōseki wrote I AM A CAT , a cat’s rant about humans, in the year 1905. It could have been written over a hundred years ago but this satirical feast is mordant, relatable and outrageously funny even today. It must become required reading for all the 8 billion humans on this planet. Consider how it begins.

“I am a cat. As yet I have no name. I’ve no idea where I was born. All I remember is that I was miaowing in a dampish dark place when, for the first time, I saw a human being. This human being, I heard afterwards, was a member of the most ferocious human species; a shosei, one of those students who, in return for board and lodging, perform small chores about the house. I hear that, on occasion, this species catches, boils, and eats us. However as at that time I lacked all knowledge of such creatures, I did not feel particularly frightened. I simply felt myself floating in the air as I was lifted up lightly on his palm. When I accustomed myself to that position, I looked at his face. This must have been the very first time that ever I set eyes on a human being. The impression of oddity, which I then received, still remains today. First of all, the face that should be decorated with hair is as bald as a kettle. Since that day I have met many a cat but never have I come across such deformity. The center of the face protrudes excessively and sometimes, from the holes in that protuberance, smoke comes out in little puffs.”

If that opener does not make you go to the mirror and look at yourself objectively, what will? Our feline narrator is more objective and more unbiased than all the humans that skitter about in the world as if the planet belongs only to them. Fondly called “Professor” by another cat called Tortoiseshell, our feline protagonist is wise not just about his species but also about us humans. His vocabulary is unmatched and I learned to use the word aliquant from this nameless cat.

At 638 pages, the version I’m reading—translated by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson— is so dense that I will be reading the book over the course of next week, too, I know. This post is hence a look only at the first half of the book.

Considered one of the greatest writers in modern Japanese history, Natsume Sōseki (born Natsume Kinnosuke) was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. Among his best known works are KOKORO, BOTCHAN, and I AM A CAT. Sōseki’s decision to make his protagonist a cat reminded me of the strategy adopted by the author of POONACHI, a Tamil novel I recently read in translation. In an introduction to this novel, writer Perumal Murugan (now on the long list for the International Booker for his novel PYRE) observes that the world has become such a dangerous place for a writer that it’s unsafe to write about anyone and hence his decision to tell the story of a goat.

One of the first things a reader notes about the feline in I AM A CAT is that he is jaded, right from birth. Early on he opines that humans are too selfish, spoilt and selective and he is on a mission to conquer humans: “For surely even human beings will not flourish forever. I think it best to wait in patience for the Day of the Cats.”

A hapless stray kitten in a poor teacher’s home, he, the nameless, unloved one, cannot afford to be like any of those cats that are privileged enough to live in affluent homes. He cannot be choosy, unlike the arrogant cat called Rickshaw Blacky, who hangs around shop kitchens awaiting a sliver of fish. This astute cat is always thinking about his station in life with respect to the other cats.

“Further, my social status is such that I cannot expect the luxury enjoyed by Tortoiseshell whose mistress teaches the idle rich to play on the two stringed harp. Therefore I don’t, as others can, indulge myself in likes and dislikes. I eat small bits of bread left over by the children, and I lick the jam from bean jam cakes. Pickles taste awful, but to broaden my experience I once tried a couple of slices of pickled radish. It’s a strange thing but once I’ve tried it, almost anything turns out edible.”

Professor thus lives by scavenging. That’s how on one fateful day he found himself longing for the leftover bit of rice cake sitting in the bowl of the teacher’s obnoxious kid. The cat bites down hard and the rice cake will not dislodge itself from his teeth: “It looked to me that however much I continued biting, nothing would ever result: the process could go on and on eternally like the division of ten by three.”

In the middle of all that agony, however, the cat learns one more truth about his existence, that all animals instinctively know, after all, what is or is not good for them.

If I am to eat this New Year specialty, now’s the moment. If I miss this chance, I shall have to spend a whole, long year not knowing how a rice-cake tastes. At this point, though a mere cat, I perceived a truth: that golden opportunity makes all animals venture to do even those things they do not want to do.

The point of view of an animal can be illuminating for a human. If a rice cake were stuck between our teeth, for instance, we’d simply use our hands to pry it out. In the case of this stray cat, his curiosity almost kills him. He becomes the laughing stock of the family.

On that eventful morning, however, he learns of the seminal lessons of his young life. Over the course of his experiences in the teacher’s home, the cat becomes wiser, not just about life in the world of felines, but also about the fragile world of humans. Thanks to our prowler, we are privy to all sorts of conversations between the neighbors, the teacher and his swollen-headed friends. By and by, we begin to note, thanks to his laser-sharp observations, that humans are as puerile as they are narcissistic.

From the lap of his old teacher, his “oyster like Master” in whose home he begins to live (albeit on scraps), this four-legged Professor also acquires mind-boggling swathes of knowledge—of English grammar, mathematics, literature, logic and art. As the first volume of the book closes, one thing is crystal clear, that Professor is no common or garden cat like Rickshaw Blacky. He is, in fact, more human than he’s feline.

“Feeling that I am now closer to humans than to cats, the idea of rallying my own race in an effort to wrest supremacy for the bipeds no longer has the least appeal. Moreover, I have developed, indeed evolved, to such an extent that there are now times when I think of myself as just another human in the human world; which I find very encouraging. It is not that I look down on my own race, but it is no more than natural to feel most at ease among those whose attitudes are similar to one’s own.”

I close my first post on this raucous book by saying, dear fellow humans, that I AM A CAT is available for free for your reading pleasure now that it’s past copyright. Meow. Be kind to a cat, won’t ya?