欧宝娱乐

Not finished with it yet, but this is a really fun book. The vocabulary alone is worth it, translated in early 20th century British English. How often do you read the word "enire" [no spelling error, this is the word] or "usufruct"? Holy crap.

If you own a dictionary (or simply a decent sense of context) the verbiage isn't so difficult to get through, and it's really necessary: the narrator is a cat, describing his master, a turn-of-the-century Japanese teacher, and the follies of being a human being. From the perspective of an arrogant, self-righteous, if not altogether pitiless feline. There is enough acerbic wit in the book to make the most cynical bastard feel like a saint, but there is enough heart and self-effacing commentary to make one realize that the cat, for all his spite, truly loves his master's family. It is exactly what I imagine a cat would be like - aloof but not monstrous.

I give it a three: it's not exactly epic, nor is the plot spectacular - it was written as a serialized novel, and collected in four parts later - but it is a book I can pick up and pay as much attention to as I like. It doesn't offer the total absorption of, say, "Brothers Karamazov," but it's a humorous enough account. And I can only brood for so long.

The ending is really pretty good. I'd almost bump it up one star, except that the whole ending sequence feels a little forced, like Soseki's serialization contract ran out and he had a certain amount of pages to fill. It all ties together well, since the stories are essentially vignettes, but the last few pages is great; a firestorm of death fantasy and philosophy, it is like two pages of everything good about life and death. Nothing new, but well done, nonetheless.