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Ten Nights Dreaming and The Cat's Grave
A murderer discovers his true nature from a talking infant, a samurai is frustrated in his attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories. The dream-like, open-ended tales by the father of Japanese modernist literature offer thought-provoking reflections on fear, death, and loneliness. Their settings range from the Meiji period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era in which the tales were written, to the prehistoric Age of the Gods; the twelfth-century Kamakura period, in which the samurai class emerged; and the remote future.
A scholar of British literature, author Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of Ten Nights Dreaming, which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like Sōseki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This edition features an expert new English translation by Matt Treyvaud, who has translated the story "The Cat's Grave" for this work as well.
A scholar of British literature, author Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of Ten Nights Dreaming, which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like Sōseki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This edition features an expert new English translation by Matt Treyvaud, who has translated the story "The Cat's Grave" for this work as well.
65 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1908
About the author
Natsume Sōseki
681 books2,759 followersNatsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note. In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 16, 2019
Translator's Note
Foreword, by Michael Emmerich
Introduction, by Susan Napier
--Ten Nights Dreaming
--The Cat's Grave
Foreword, by Michael Emmerich
Introduction, by Susan Napier
--Ten Nights Dreaming
--The Cat's Grave
February 22, 2019
Introduction by Susan Napier, April 2015
“Reading the Ten Nights Dreaming we gain access to the many-layered mind and imagination of Soseki, one of modern Japan’s greatest- and most anguished-writers...
His life contained a number of traumatic events, beginning in his infancy. Soseki was born in 1867 to aged parents who, embarrassed to have a child at an advanced age, farmed him out to another couple. When he later returned to his parents, they pretended for a while that they were his grandparents, and he only learned the truth through a late-night whisper from a kindly maid. Fortunately for Soseki, he escaped his unhappy household though his brilliance as a student, first mastering Chinese and then going on to become one of a handful of Japanese students to become truly literate in English literature.
Soseki’s success in English, however, led to one of the most traumatic periods in his life, a two-year stint in London arranged by the Japanese government. Although he arrived boasting that he would out-master the English in their own language, he soon realized that his spoken English would never achieve fluency. As all his biographers chronicles, these two years were the most miserable in Soseki’s life. By his own account he lived “like a stray dog among wolves”, lonely and fearful, ashamed of his own failure and resentful of English. The dream of “The Seventh Night”, with its vision of an alienated Japanese man on a ship full of Westerns steadily moving towards the setting sun, undoubtedly express the disturbing, even despairing, emotions that Soseki felt towards his own encounter with the West.
But it is also true that that his time in England provided Soseki with some of his most memorable and beautiful material for his early fantastic literature. Visits to the Tower of London not only gave him the inspiration to write the ghostly tale The Tower of London, but also may have inspired the themes of claustrophobia or outright entrapment evident in the dreams of the second, fifth, and tenth nights. “Tower” also deals with the inescapable power of a dark past that still shadows the present, a theme that appears as the climax of the dream of “The Third Night”, widely acknowledged to be the most gripping and haunting of all the dreams.....
...the image of a pure and dying woman etched in the “The first Night” may have larger cultural references as well suggesting a general need among modernizing nations for an image of organic purity removed, at least momentarily, from the taint of industrialization. Across cultures this image is often embodied in the vision of a dying woman, and it is perhaps not surprising that Soseki return to this image in his later realistic novel And Then, and in his last, unfinished novel, Light and Dark.”
“Reading the Ten Nights Dreaming we gain access to the many-layered mind and imagination of Soseki, one of modern Japan’s greatest- and most anguished-writers...
His life contained a number of traumatic events, beginning in his infancy. Soseki was born in 1867 to aged parents who, embarrassed to have a child at an advanced age, farmed him out to another couple. When he later returned to his parents, they pretended for a while that they were his grandparents, and he only learned the truth through a late-night whisper from a kindly maid. Fortunately for Soseki, he escaped his unhappy household though his brilliance as a student, first mastering Chinese and then going on to become one of a handful of Japanese students to become truly literate in English literature.
Soseki’s success in English, however, led to one of the most traumatic periods in his life, a two-year stint in London arranged by the Japanese government. Although he arrived boasting that he would out-master the English in their own language, he soon realized that his spoken English would never achieve fluency. As all his biographers chronicles, these two years were the most miserable in Soseki’s life. By his own account he lived “like a stray dog among wolves”, lonely and fearful, ashamed of his own failure and resentful of English. The dream of “The Seventh Night”, with its vision of an alienated Japanese man on a ship full of Westerns steadily moving towards the setting sun, undoubtedly express the disturbing, even despairing, emotions that Soseki felt towards his own encounter with the West.
But it is also true that that his time in England provided Soseki with some of his most memorable and beautiful material for his early fantastic literature. Visits to the Tower of London not only gave him the inspiration to write the ghostly tale The Tower of London, but also may have inspired the themes of claustrophobia or outright entrapment evident in the dreams of the second, fifth, and tenth nights. “Tower” also deals with the inescapable power of a dark past that still shadows the present, a theme that appears as the climax of the dream of “The Third Night”, widely acknowledged to be the most gripping and haunting of all the dreams.....
...the image of a pure and dying woman etched in the “The first Night” may have larger cultural references as well suggesting a general need among modernizing nations for an image of organic purity removed, at least momentarily, from the taint of industrialization. Across cultures this image is often embodied in the vision of a dying woman, and it is perhaps not surprising that Soseki return to this image in his later realistic novel And Then, and in his last, unfinished novel, Light and Dark.”
January 27, 2019
First, Seventh, Ninth and Tenth Night dreams are really good, but my favourites are First and Ninth Night dreams. It's marvellous story. And Cat's Grave is nice story too.
I really like Natsume Sôseki's style, he's great story teller.
I really like Natsume Sôseki's style, he's great story teller.
February 16, 2021
'Ten Nights Dreaming (and The Cat's Grave)' is my first Natsume Sōseki book and I was so excited to read it. This book has ten stories, each of which is around three to four pages long. Each of the stories is a dream recounted by the narrator, and so there are ten dreams. Most of these dreams have a fantasy element to them. There is also a eleventh story 'The Cat's Grave' which is a standalone story and different from the other ten. It is about a cat and it is sad and heartbreaking.
I liked all the dream stories. But my favourites were the first, third and the sixth. The first is a beautiful, poignant love story with a beautiful ending. The third one is about a father and his blind child whom he is carrying on his back and walking into a forest. That blind child – he is extraordinary, he is cool. You will know why when you read the story. The sixth story is about a famous sculptor. It has this legendary conversation :
Narrator : "Amazing that he can just throw the chisel around like that and still get the eyebrows and noses to come out the way he wants."
Young man : "Oh, it isn't the chisel that makes those eyebrows and noses. Those exact eyebrows and noses are buried in the wood, and he just uses the hammer and chisel to dig them out. It is just like digging a rock out of the ground – there's no way to get it wrong."
I have read this thought in so many places. It was so nice to read the original version in Natsume Sōseki's story.
I loved 'Ten Nights Dreaming'. It is beautiful, dreamy, fascinating. And look at that cover? Isn't that exquisitely beautiful? Like a classic Japanese painting? I can't stop looking at it! The book has a beautiful foreword by Michael Emmerich, which is such a pleasure to read.
I can't wait to read more Natsume Sōseki stories. I should do a Natsume Sōseki month later this year and read all his works together.
Have you read 'Ten Nights Dreaming'? What do you think about it?
I liked all the dream stories. But my favourites were the first, third and the sixth. The first is a beautiful, poignant love story with a beautiful ending. The third one is about a father and his blind child whom he is carrying on his back and walking into a forest. That blind child – he is extraordinary, he is cool. You will know why when you read the story. The sixth story is about a famous sculptor. It has this legendary conversation :
Narrator : "Amazing that he can just throw the chisel around like that and still get the eyebrows and noses to come out the way he wants."
Young man : "Oh, it isn't the chisel that makes those eyebrows and noses. Those exact eyebrows and noses are buried in the wood, and he just uses the hammer and chisel to dig them out. It is just like digging a rock out of the ground – there's no way to get it wrong."
I have read this thought in so many places. It was so nice to read the original version in Natsume Sōseki's story.
I loved 'Ten Nights Dreaming'. It is beautiful, dreamy, fascinating. And look at that cover? Isn't that exquisitely beautiful? Like a classic Japanese painting? I can't stop looking at it! The book has a beautiful foreword by Michael Emmerich, which is such a pleasure to read.
I can't wait to read more Natsume Sōseki stories. I should do a Natsume Sōseki month later this year and read all his works together.
Have you read 'Ten Nights Dreaming'? What do you think about it?
October 15, 2017
Ostensibly, this is a book of ten dreams -- but what dreams! The life of author Natsume Soseki pretty much spanned the years of the Meiji Restoration in Japan, a period in which much of the traditional Japanese culture was subject to rapid change.
Ten Nights Dreaming and The Cat's Grave is a delightful book with short dreams that will haunt you. In one of them (the seventh), the narrator is on a ship with foreigners headed West. But he becomes disoriented and jumps ship in the middle of the ocean. In real life, Natsume sailed to England where he spent two years studying English literature and trying to cope with a radically different culture.
Although Natsume dies over a century ago, I think he still speaks to us today. This is the third of his books I have read (the others were The Gate and Botchan); and I can see myself returning to him again.
Ten Nights Dreaming and The Cat's Grave is a delightful book with short dreams that will haunt you. In one of them (the seventh), the narrator is on a ship with foreigners headed West. But he becomes disoriented and jumps ship in the middle of the ocean. In real life, Natsume sailed to England where he spent two years studying English literature and trying to cope with a radically different culture.
Although Natsume dies over a century ago, I think he still speaks to us today. This is the third of his books I have read (the others were The Gate and Botchan); and I can see myself returning to him again.
November 30, 2020
ESP
4, aunque no es un libro que recomendaría.
Diez noches que se convierten en viajes surreales, que cuentan una historia ordinaria con matices oníricos y fantasiosos acompañado de la hermosa escritura de Sōseki. Es una lectura corta e interesante para explorar el estilo de unos de los escritores más prominentes de Japón.
Se dice que algunas de estas noches están marcadas por la infancia traumática de Sōseki, y que se refleja sobre todo en los protagonistas que son padres o hijos (ya que este tuvo una relación complicada y extraña con sus padres).
En lo personal me quedo con la 9na noche y la tumba del gato. Pero le saqué algo positivo a todas.
*ENG*
4, even tho I wouldn't recommend it.
Ten nights that turn into surreal trips, telling an ordinary story with dreamlike and fantasy elements accompanied by the beautiful writing of Sōseki. It's a short and interesting read to explore the style of some of Japan's most prominent writers.
It is said that some of these nights are marked by Sōseki's traumatic childhood, and that it is reflected especially in the protagonists who are parents or children (since he had a complicated and strange relationship with his parents).
Personally, I loved the 9th night and the cat's grave. But I got something positive out of all of them.
4, aunque no es un libro que recomendaría.
Diez noches que se convierten en viajes surreales, que cuentan una historia ordinaria con matices oníricos y fantasiosos acompañado de la hermosa escritura de Sōseki. Es una lectura corta e interesante para explorar el estilo de unos de los escritores más prominentes de Japón.
Se dice que algunas de estas noches están marcadas por la infancia traumática de Sōseki, y que se refleja sobre todo en los protagonistas que son padres o hijos (ya que este tuvo una relación complicada y extraña con sus padres).
En lo personal me quedo con la 9na noche y la tumba del gato. Pero le saqué algo positivo a todas.
*ENG*
4, even tho I wouldn't recommend it.
Ten nights that turn into surreal trips, telling an ordinary story with dreamlike and fantasy elements accompanied by the beautiful writing of Sōseki. It's a short and interesting read to explore the style of some of Japan's most prominent writers.
It is said that some of these nights are marked by Sōseki's traumatic childhood, and that it is reflected especially in the protagonists who are parents or children (since he had a complicated and strange relationship with his parents).
Personally, I loved the 9th night and the cat's grave. But I got something positive out of all of them.
October 11, 2022
seventh night was the best! i read up on soseki’s life going into some of these palm-of-the-hand stories and that certainly added another dimension to the overarching allegory. also, this reminded me to read kokoro again.
Read
January 28, 2021The children, too, suddenly found a new fondness for the cat. They adorned his grave marker with glass bottles on either side, stuffed with bush clover. They also filled a small rice bowl with water to place before the grave. Both flowers and water were changed daily. On the evening of the third day, I watched from the window of my study as one of our girls, almost in her fourth year, approached the grave alone. After staring at the plain wooden marker for a while, she dipped a toy ladle she was carrying into the water that had been offered to the cat, scooping up some to drink. Nor was this the only time she did this. That little splash of water strewn with clover blossom petals quenched Aiko’s thirst any number of times in the quiet of the evening. [64-5]
September 7, 2021
The stories are good, and I assume the prose in the original (and likely other translations) is great, but the Treyvaud translation in this edition is one of the very worst I've ever encountered; flat, clumsy, and full of obvious typos.
July 14, 2023
Ten short dreams and a short story. A quick read as the stories are around five pages each. The stories are very dreamlike, filled with symbolism and both curious and everyday scenes. I was getting drowsy reading this novella and like actual dreams, these ones also escaped the conscious mind soon after waking. (I don't mean that as a bad thing.) The translation was good, but I think I'll read the original text too. Ten Nights Dreaming isn't a must-read, but I'd recommend it for readers interested in Japanese literature and/or Natsume.
November 14, 2020
3.5
"Certain literary masterpieces have this effect: the impression they create is so intense, so unique, that it overloads our senses, preventing us from registering the context within which we encounter them."
"Certain literary masterpieces have this effect: the impression they create is so intense, so unique, that it overloads our senses, preventing us from registering the context within which we encounter them."
June 7, 2022
Interesting. Surreal. This was a random library choice, not something I planned to read, and it’s not really my genre of choice. But I liked it, though I have the feeling I’m lacking knowledge of Japanese culture and history that would make the dreams more meaningful.
But even taken without considering what deeper phenomenon they might represent, I like the weirdness. I think it’s cool that these are presented as a person just relating their dreams, without contextualizing if what it could mean or explaining outright. It leaves it open to interpretation. My favorites were the dream of the man and his blind child and the dream of the mother and her baby praying at the temple. I usually am not really into surrealism (not a judgement on its merits, just not my preference) but this felt like folklore, rather than something absurd for the sake of absurdity.
Another reviewer referred to the dreams as paintings, and I think that’s really apt. These short stories feel like descriptions of the story behind a work of art, and I’d love to see an artist’s rendering.
“The Cat’s Grave” was OK, just sad. It’s not really in the same vein as the dreams; it’s more realistic. I love cats, and I had a similar experience of a pet cat dying painfully and slowly, and I don’t really like to read about it, so I don’t have much to say on that one. Perhaps this could be interpreted as a commentary on the loneliness of dying, but again I feel I’m lacking context to interpret this story.
But even taken without considering what deeper phenomenon they might represent, I like the weirdness. I think it’s cool that these are presented as a person just relating their dreams, without contextualizing if what it could mean or explaining outright. It leaves it open to interpretation. My favorites were the dream of the man and his blind child and the dream of the mother and her baby praying at the temple. I usually am not really into surrealism (not a judgement on its merits, just not my preference) but this felt like folklore, rather than something absurd for the sake of absurdity.
Another reviewer referred to the dreams as paintings, and I think that’s really apt. These short stories feel like descriptions of the story behind a work of art, and I’d love to see an artist’s rendering.
“The Cat’s Grave” was OK, just sad. It’s not really in the same vein as the dreams; it’s more realistic. I love cats, and I had a similar experience of a pet cat dying painfully and slowly, and I don’t really like to read about it, so I don’t have much to say on that one. Perhaps this could be interpreted as a commentary on the loneliness of dying, but again I feel I’m lacking context to interpret this story.
February 22, 2019
The whole book was like a collection of salvador dali paintings with the exception of the nineth dream and the cat’s grave - which are full of deeo reality that I read in “kokoro” before
I was all afraid of reading I am a cat by soseki , altho I have the book already, yet the story “cat’s grave” known as the plot of the book I am a cat, showed me how right I am.
There are two things to be noted
1. The stories reminded me edgar allan poe - whom I am not very fond of thus I sometimes was drowned by the feeling of adolescent darkness of what I read - tho I am highly impressed by the feeling of observing more than one dali paintings in each dream
2. This is the first time that I read this book and to me, it s a book that should be read within certain time lapses in order to dig and find out the very fine and naive tastes hidden behind the era jumps or words and narratives of Sōseki.
I am pretty sure that the more you read it the more you ll find interesting details and riddles and puzzles between the dreams of Sōseki
After all, to me it is “must read” book.
I was all afraid of reading I am a cat by soseki , altho I have the book already, yet the story “cat’s grave” known as the plot of the book I am a cat, showed me how right I am.
There are two things to be noted
1. The stories reminded me edgar allan poe - whom I am not very fond of thus I sometimes was drowned by the feeling of adolescent darkness of what I read - tho I am highly impressed by the feeling of observing more than one dali paintings in each dream
2. This is the first time that I read this book and to me, it s a book that should be read within certain time lapses in order to dig and find out the very fine and naive tastes hidden behind the era jumps or words and narratives of Sōseki.
I am pretty sure that the more you read it the more you ll find interesting details and riddles and puzzles between the dreams of Sōseki
After all, to me it is “must read” book.
May 18, 2022
“Aku merasa amat kesepian. Aku tidak tahu apakah aku akan sampai ke daratan. Aku juga tidak tahu ke mana aku akan pergi.”
“… bergerak akan membuatnya lebih kesepian, meninggalkannya tanpa pilihan apa pun selain tetap berada di tempatnya, menanggung berbagai hal sebaik mungkin”
Ternyata penerjemahnya cukup menuliskan banyak budaya Jepang tanpa secara literal mengartikannya. Tetap menaruh namanya dan dituliskan di catatan kaki. Penyusunan kalimatnya pun tidak berasa aneh dan cukup nyaman untuk dibaca.
Walaupun suram, tetap ada pesan moral yang tersirat di balik cerpen ini. Budaya Jepang yang ingin disampaikan dan sastranya Natsume Souseki pun sangat bisa dilihat dengan jelas di sini.
October 31, 2017
Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Night dreams are superior. I found them really well-written.
Most of the dreams are melancholic or disturbing. But they are dreams/dreamlike, so the surrealism should be disturbing.
Many of these "stories" have a twist on the passage of time. Time and how we experience it seems one of several key components to these dreams.
All of these are super short, two pages on average. So, there isn't a lot of development or background - just a few paragraphs that glimpse some aspect of human experience that Soskei found of interest.
Most of the dreams are melancholic or disturbing. But they are dreams/dreamlike, so the surrealism should be disturbing.
Many of these "stories" have a twist on the passage of time. Time and how we experience it seems one of several key components to these dreams.
All of these are super short, two pages on average. So, there isn't a lot of development or background - just a few paragraphs that glimpse some aspect of human experience that Soskei found of interest.
April 15, 2018
Ten fluid, at times surreal and bizarre haunting dreams from one of the most celebrated Japanese author that covers the topics like fear, loneliness, and war wrapped by sincere elements of love and melancholy.
May 10, 2020
Dalam hal terjemahan, selain karena jauh lebih tipis dan terdiri dari beberapa bab dengan kalimat yang cenderung pendek-pendek, buku ini lebih mudah dibaca daripada karya Soseki-sensei yang lainnya. Tapi pesannya jauh lebih dalam dan butuh 'terjemahan' pribadi dari masing-masing pembacanya.
March 30, 2022
Kumcer pendek ini berisi pesan-pesan subliminal yang mecuat dalam bentuk mimpi-mimpi yang tak berujung tak berpangkal. Hanya sketsa-sketsa pendek. Tapi bikin kesan panjang.
Kubur kucing ini yang kelak diperpanjang jadi novel satire I'm a Cat.
Kubur kucing ini yang kelak diperpanjang jadi novel satire I'm a Cat.
November 1, 2018
These are interesting stories that I'd like to read a few times.
November 11, 2019
A bit peculiar but the gripping eloquence of melancholia in his stories are a bit in here.
April 9, 2020
Strange and certainly dream-like. These stories by Soseki have left me feeling disoriented.
January 4, 2021
I really enjoyed "Ten Nights Dreaming," but "The Cat's Grave" was a bit emotional for me.
May 31, 2021
These visions, whether dreamlike or realistic like the cat story, are sparse, vivid, and unsettling in the best ways.
June 8, 2021
I especially enjoyed The Fifth night utilizing Amanojaku. So tragic.
The Cat's Grave seems emblematic of having pets.
Soseki's tales really resonate with me.
The Cat's Grave seems emblematic of having pets.
Soseki's tales really resonate with me.
March 2, 2022
Surreal, trippy, phantasmagoric. As dream-like as promised, Sōseki brings the inexplicable to life on the page.
July 1, 2022
Not my cup of tea.
Read
February 9, 2023I will revisit this again after I go through his other works so for now I won't rate it
August 3, 2023
9/10 Owned; Paperback
June 16, 2021
The book is great! Ten short stories about dreams- the writer wrote them in such a way that it’s up to the reader to interpret them. It can be interpreted as how you’ve read them or it can be in allegorical format :) such vivid descriptions—- no wonder it’s a classic.
Actually, Ive heard of this book in passing while I was watching an anime- card captor sakura clear arc. The characters were reading this “book” in school. So I got curious and researched and lo and behold- I discovered the book :)
Actually, Ive heard of this book in passing while I was watching an anime- card captor sakura clear arc. The characters were reading this “book” in school. So I got curious and researched and lo and behold- I discovered the book :)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews