I Am a Cat

The title tells you most of what you need to know about  Natsume Sōseki's popular classic.  It's an early (1905) entry in the "narrated by an animal" genre so recently perfected by Henri.  As such, it's a satirical look at humans from the aloof and superior perspective of our domesticators.  

Unfortunately, like a lot of satire, much of the punch is probably lost in translation, both literal and cultural.  Satire is always specific to an era, in this case to the Meiji period, and to be funniest requires an intimate familiarity with the customs and common wisdom of that era.  In this case, on top of the cultural distance, there's the problem of linguistic translation, particularly when a lot of the humor depends on a juxtaposition of literary and everyday language.  Per the translator's introduction, this is an important part of why the novel is a Japanese classic still taught to schoolchildren.  They seem to do a good job of preserving at least some of this in the translation, so I think even an English reader gets some sense of Sōseki's humor and refined literary style.  Most of it is just not that funny though.  With the exception of a few scenes, the comedy is less apparent than the bitter, disgusted, cynical tone that pervades the novel.  Not a single character comes off looking even remotely sympathetic in the story, including, ultimately, the cat.  Even our initial affection for the not so humble narrator evaporates as he is gradually corrupted by his humans.  So in the end, the whole works is just kind of a sneering downer whose interest was lost on me.