WAGAHAI WA NEKO DE ARU

   Wagahai wa neko de aru (1905–6; tr. I Am a Cat, 1961) is a novel by Natsume Soseki that first appeared in installments in Hototogisu (The Cuckoo), a literary journal. The satirical novel comically touches on current issues, such as the intermingling of traditional Japanese customs and new, imported Western ideas. The novel documents, from the point of view of a haughty house cat, the lives of several middle-class Japanese, including the cat’s master, his family, and a young couple. The cat continually asserts the superiority of the feline race, judging the humans foolish for their mistakes, though, in the end, the drunken cat drowns in a water barrel.