Claire B. reviewed on + 29 more book reviews
Told from the point of view of a cat, this book is a satire of intellectual society in Meiji era Japan. It is a slow read, and well worth savoring both for its acute observations of humanity and for the excellent use of language. It's clear from this translation how well the author understood the intellectual culture he mocks, because many of his jabs still ring true to anyone familiar with academia. There were times I laughed out loud while reading it, surprised and entertained.
I would recommend reading this book either if you have a lot of time to devote to it or one chapter at a time (as it was originally published). The elaborate language can be a little much after a while. I also was a little irritated by what seemed like copy-editing errors: "grain" instead of "grin" a couple times, and out-of-place capitalization. In such a word-centered book, and such a beautiful edition of it, these apparent errors were jarring. Of course, maybe they were meant to be that way, and some elaborate point was being made that I missed.
I would recommend reading this book either if you have a lot of time to devote to it or one chapter at a time (as it was originally published). The elaborate language can be a little much after a while. I also was a little irritated by what seemed like copy-editing errors: "grain" instead of "grin" a couple times, and out-of-place capitalization. In such a word-centered book, and such a beautiful edition of it, these apparent errors were jarring. Of course, maybe they were meant to be that way, and some elaborate point was being made that I missed.
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