Natsume SōsekiRezensionen

Couldn't really get into it

First published in 1914 and set during the end of the Meiji Restoration, the novel explores how changing Japanese society profoundly effects an older and a younger man as they strike up an unlikely friendship. The novel was initially serialized in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper over the course of five months. The serialized novel was titled Kokoro: Sensei no Isho, though this was shortened for the print run of the novel to simply Kokoro, which translates variously as heart, mind, affection, courage, and resolve. Kokoro is one of the best-selling novels in Japan and has been hailed as one of the country’s most important works of 20th-century literature.
Perhaps my favorite Soseki novel, Kokoro is a reflective, quiet book. At times poignant and touching and as with all his work, beautifully written.

For further reading on Natsume Soseki's life and work here is an article I put together recently
https://quizlit.org/natsume-soseki-and-modern-japanese-literature

Very interesting. Told in the first person by our young narrator, then transitioning to a letter told in the first person by the other central character, Sensei. Written in the early part of the 20th century and describing the struggle to find meaning in the new open Japan. Also an odd seeking for a father figure that I didn't quite understand, as our narrator's father was still alive, though very provincial, and I guess he was seeking a father figure more in tune with how our narrator saw himself. He didn't find it. The section describing his father's terminal illness was moving and realistic, though as you will see generated a major plot element that I won't describe. The transition to the letter from Sensei was a bit of a weak section but picked up and became powerful towards its conclusion.
Overall a fascinating read, a solid 4.0

I felt like reading Kokoro because the characters in The Great Passage talked about it. Yes, I will take book recommendations from fictional characters now, thank you very much ;)

The writing is like looking at the sea, seeing the waves come and go. The rhythm lulls you and you follow along, almost despite yourself. It feels both light and heavy, simple and very intricate.

This short novel has 110 chapters. The reader can take a breath in between, reading slower, reflecting, letting thoughts settle for a moment. I liked that.

There are three stories here:

📖 The unnamed young narrator who meets and comes to admire an older man he calls Sensei. “Admire” is the wrong word, though, it is more of an intellectual obsession born out of loneliness and an undefined youthful longing for “something else”. A very strange, yet compelling, friendship dance follows, with the narrator always wanting more, and with Sensei always drawing back.

“...whenever some unexpected terseness of his shook me, my impulse was to press forward with the friendship. It seemed to me that if I did so, my yearning for the possibilities of all he had to offer would someday be fulfilled.”

There are hints of tragedy and dark secrets in Sensei’s past, and his marriage is a melancholy thing. Sensei seems to fear the young man’s admiration.

“The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I am trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to avoid your future contempt.”

📖 The narrator coming to his parents’ home to be with his dying father. These are harrowing chapters. Young man’s time with Sensei has corrupted him somehow, I feel, made him less of who he should be. The decision he makes at the end of Part 2 is impulsive and rash. We never see its aftermath, making it all the more tragic.

📖 The third story is Sensei’s letter, his confession. The love story has a lovely beginning. “Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful.” I found the portrayal of romantic love in a misogynic society interesting. How does a clever, sensitive man reconcile romantic love with his contempt for women in general? (He tries. He doesn’t, not really.)
With the love triangle in place, the story turns ugly. It is about people unable to express their feelings and talk to each other about them. This evolves into an emotional impotence and an inability to act when you need to (it gets tedious for the reader, though).Words said and words unsaid destroy everyone involved.

“Words are not just vibrations in the air, they work more powerfully than that, on more powerful objects.”

Sensei does a vile, dishonourable thing. After that, his life is but an imitation of one.

It’s interesting how things authors don’t show you can still be powerful – we never see the young man’s reaction to the letter, but just thinking about it hits you hard.

I feel melancholy after finishing, but I liked the experience of reading this classic.½

A complicated book that sits in the bottom of your stomach for time after reading it. The hearts of the characters remain separate even if driven by each ofher. And we are left not knowing how deep this loss is.

While it is a symbolic story, it is also a historical document of Japanese society 19th century. One can recognise the traces of this confucius imbued social sense even today.

For me this was a particularly unpleasant novel that I am glad i read but that has left me depressed… buyer beware!

Maravilloso, ligero, profundo

The Three-Cornered World was written in 1906, but it's "action" if one can use that term with regard to so static a work is set two years earlier, at the time of the Russo-Japanese war. The war plays no direct part in the novel, at least in not the last few pages but, at that point, its rather jarring denouement has an uncanny similarity to the World War 1 motif which brings to a close another great, alpine novel: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. The Three-Cornered World, is among other things, about meditation versus action, detachment versus duty, about Western versus Eastern value systems, about the perceived perils of modernism. In my opinion, it's one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

Story: 3 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 6
Prose: 5

Certainly feels like the "Catcher in the Rye" of Japan. Luckily this was markedly better than Salinger's. Hopefully will someday meet a fan that can explain why this book is so famous (other than its brevity).

Story: 7.0 / 10
Characters: 8
Setting: 8.5
Prose: 8

Japan begin twintigste eeuw. Een liefdesverhaal. Het boek geeft de indruk dagboeknotities te zijn die verwerkt zijn tot een roman.

Het lijkt een banaal verhaal dat soms wat langdradig is. Dat het nooit vervalt in drama's en sentimentaliteit is positief.

De vertaling kon hier en daar beter. 'Afzien' is bijvoorbeeld geen Standaardnederlands voor lijden.½

While I was very impressed with this work in the first twenty or thirty pages, I became the less enthusiastic the more I read. The plot is minimal: an artist retreats to the mountains and stays in a remote, almost empty inn where he becomes infatuated by the divorced daughter of the inn’s owner. The book begins promisingly, is often beautifully written, and the artist’s initial musings are clever and well worth considering. Sadly—for me, anyway—these musings soon become the essence of the book. Soon the artist’s thoughts on art, aesthetics, the place of the artist in society, and a comparison of art and poetry take over the book. Soseki’s artist frequently refers to Western art, beginning with his comparison of the owner’s daughter to Millais’s painting of Ophelia. In the course of the (short) book, he mentions not only classical Chinese poets (and occasional Japanese writers) but Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, and even Laurence Sterne. By the end, the reader has to choose between being intrigued or increasingly bored by what I found to be self-important, posturing, and increasingly tiresome thoughts. I have no doubt that this may well be a book others will adore. Just not me.½

Apparently this book is read by students in Japanese high schools, so a lot of people here remember it with that strange mixture of fondness and annoyance that I'm familiar with from reading the equivalents in English. For me, it marks the first time I finally dragged myself to the public libraries near me. The English selection isn't huge, but it's reasonably-sized, and I'll have to keep going.

The style of the novel, at least in this translation (I found a worse one on Project Gutenberg...), is quite chipper, and thus it reads fast-paced and excitingly. I enjoyed it - I identified somewhat with the fish-out-of-water feeling of the main character, and I found it funny to hear prices having wildly different meanings to what they have now (the yen did a bit of hyper-inflation after the war). I think one yen was roughly equivalent to 1,000 of today's yen - the one that Natsume Soseki used to adorn the front of, although he's been replaced by some philosopher dude for about 15 years. It was like hearing about shillings in old British novels.

Seguendo il sentiero, nell’ora del crepuscolo, che conduce alla morte degli dei ‘il cuore delle cose’ (kokoro) illustra l’intramontabile domanda: cosa resta?

Il mio dubbio andava oltre. Da dove veniva la rassegnazione del maestro nei confronti del genere umano? Era forse solo il risultato di una fredda osservazione del mondo attuale, e una riflessione su se stesso? E se una persona era riflessiva, intelligente e lontana dal mondo come il maestro, era inevitabile arrivare alle sue conclusioni? (64)

Scomparsi il cane e i bambini, il vasto giardino dalle giovani foglie era tornato tranquillo. Noi rimanemmo per un po’, senza muoverci, come sospesi in quel silenzio. Il bel colore del cielo comincio’ allora a prendere luminosita’. Gli alberi che avevamo davanti, quasi tutti aceri, e le leggere foglie verdi che spuntavano come gocce dai rami sembravano diventare via via piu’ scuri. Si sentiva in lontananza il rotolio delle ruote dei carri, e io immaginavo che fosse l’andirivieni della gente di campagna che portava a qualche mercato piante e verdure. A quel suono, il maestro si alzo’, quasi ritornasse alla vita dopo una profonda meditazione. (95)

Il fatto e’ che, per K, il passato era una cosa tanto sacra che non poteva venire gettato via come un vestito smesso. Si puo’ dire che il passato fosse stata la sua vita, e negarlo avrebbe significato togliere qualsiasi scopo agli anni che aveva vissuto. (248)

Una nuvola alta nel cielo non si muove liberamente, ma neppure puo’ stare ferma; il suo movimento e’ come un lento dissolversi. lo sguardo della ragazza dava la stessa impressione. A Sanshiro parve di leggervi una malinconia profonda e allo stesso tempo una insopprimibile vitalita’; un insieme che rappresentava per lui un prezioso frammento della vita umana e una straordinaria scoperta. (84)

Poco per volta Yojiro si calmo’ e sembro’ piu’ disposto alla serenita’; arrivo’ persino a citare una poesia cinese: “In autunno, e’ bello leggere sotto la luce della lampada…” (101)

…, Sanshiro leggeva poco. Amava invece, quando avveniva qualcosa di gradevole, richiamare piu’ volte alla mente l’accaduto, per assaporarne il piacere. Gli sembrava che cio’ desse un significato piu’ profondo alla sua vita. (104)

(Sanshiro) “Cosa stai guardando?”.
(Mineko) “Prova a indovinare”.
“Le galline?”.
“No”.
“Quell’albero?”.
“No”.
“Cosa allora? Non capisco”.
“Stavo guardando quelle nuvole bianche”. In effetti, nuvole candide attraversavano la distesa del cielo. Il cielo era tutto sereno e sulla superficie limpida e azzurra passavano nuvole soffici, come bioccoli di cotone luminoso. Il vento doveva essere forte perche’ i bordi delle nuvole, sfilacciati, erano cosi’ evanescenti da lasciar trasparire l’azzurro. Altrove, si ricomponevano in minuti frammenti, simili a morbidi aghi bianchi. Mineko indico’ con il dito. (115)

Pity’s akin to love
(Compassione e’ gia’ dir che t’amo) (124)

“Sotto questo cielo, il cuore e’ malinconico, ma lo spirito e’ leggero”, disse Sanshiro dopo poco.
“Come sarebbe a dire?” Lui stesso non avrebbe saputo spiegarsi. Non rispose, ma aggiunse: “E’ un cielo che rende tranquilli, come in un sogno”. Mineko volse di nuovo lo sguardo verso le nuvole. (143)

Il professore (Hirota) riprese a parlare: “Dovresti dare ascolto a tua madre. I giovani d’oggi rispetto a quelli dei miei tempi, sono troppo consapevoli di se’, troppo individualisti. Quando ero studente, tutto cio’ che facevo, ogni cosa, era in funzione degli altri, era per l’imperatore, per i genitori, per il paese, per la societa’. A loro spettava il primo posto. In altre parole, coloro che possedevano un’istruzione si comportavano da ipocriti. Quando la societa’ e’ cambiata e l’ipocrisia non ha piu’ avuto via libera, il risultato e’ stato che l’egoismo si e’ gradualmente introdotto nel pensiero e nel comportamento, e la coscienza di se’ si e’ sviluppata in modo straordinario. Al posto dell’ipocrisia di un tempo, oggi ci troviamo di fronte, per cosi’ dire, all’ostentazione del proprio egoismo. Ne hai sentito parlare?”.
“No”. (184)

Notes: Soseki and Mishima were both concerned with the erosion of Japanese traditions. After World War II the gap between the young and the old was made more apparent and traditions were lost. Mishima felt that Japan had succumbed to western ideas and cultures and was diluted of its own cultural heritage. Soseki also felt that the gap between old and young people was widening and that this was causing misunderstandings between generations. (from DirectEssays.com)

Se, per la propria serenita’, gli era necessario un chiarimento, l’unica via percorribile era quella di incontrare la donna e attendere che, con il suo comportamento, Mineko gli offrisse una risposta conclusiva. L’incontro del giorno dopo avrebbe fornito elementi indispensabili a tale risposta e percio’ Sanshiro si sforzava di immaginare le reazioni di Mineko, ma ne ricavava solo ipotesi a lui favorevoli. La cosa era sospetta. Era come guardare una bella fotografia di un brutto posto: non c’e’ dubbio che la fotografia, in quanto tale, riproduce la realta’, ma, dal momento che e’ altrettanto innegabile la bruttezza dell’oggetto ritratto, i due elementi - realta’ e fotografia - che pure dovrebbero essere identici, non possono coincidere. (205)
Senza quasi rendersene conto rivolse lo sguardo allo specchio e, questa volta, vide riflessa la figura di Mineko. La porta, che gli sembrava la cameriera avesse chiuso, era ora aperta, e la ragazza reggeva con una mano la cortina sospesa al di la’ del battente. Anche Mineko vide Sanshiro attraverso lo specchio e gli sorrise.
“Ciao” disse, alle sue spalle. Fu costretto a voltarsi verso di lei e i due si fissarono. La donna si inchino’ appena, abbassando solo un poco la testa dai capelli raccolti sulla nuca alla moda occidentale; il gesto aveva in se’ una qualche intimita’ che rendeva inutile un saluto formale, ma Sanshiro, alzandosi dalla poltrona, si inchino’ compitamente. Mineko non sembro’ accorgersene e ando’ a sedersi di fronte a lui, volgendo le spalle allo specchio. (208-9)
(L’immagine e l’immaginazione che racchiudono di piu’ e oltre di quello che l’oggetto in se’ puo’ dire.
Vedere e toccare.)

“Senza tregua si disperdono i petali dei papaveri, senza domandare se valga la pena di consegnare il ricordo eterno alla memoria degli uomini” (Hydriotaphia) (246)

Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim (by Tibullus) - Thus I wanted to compose poetry on bones.

- Darknesse and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest stroaks of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past, is a mercifull provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil dayes, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions. A great part of Antiquity contented their hopes of subsistency with a transmigration of their souls. A good way to continue their memories, while having the advantage of plurall successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of beings, and enjoying the fame of their passed selves, make accumulations of glory unto their last durations. Others rather then be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of the publick soul of all things, which was no more then to return unto their unknown and divine Originall again. Ægyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet consistences, to attend the return of their souls. But all was vanity, feeding the winde,24 and folly. The Ægyptian Mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummie is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsoms.

In vain do individuals hope for Immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the Moon: Men have been deceived even in their flatteries above the Sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate their names in heaven. The various Cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations; Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dogge-starre. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we finde they are but like the Earth; Durable in their main bodies, alterable in their parts: whereof beside Comets and new Stars, perspectives begin to tell tales. And the spots that wander about the Sun, with Phaetons favour, would make clear conviction.

There is nothing strictly immortall, but immortality...

(Hydriotaphia by Sir Thomas Browne)

Mineko, immobile, avvolta nel silenzio, il ventaglio fra le mani, faceva gia’ parte del quadro. Agli occhi di Sanshiro, Haraguchi non stava facendole un ritratto, ma, partendo da un quadro ricco di una misteriosa profondita’, impegnava la sua energia per ottenere una mediocre immagine di Mineko, che mancava proprio di quella profondita’. Eppure, nonostante cio’, la seconda Mineko, nella quiete della stanza, prendeva pian piano forma accanto alla prima. Fra le due era racchiuso il tempo che scorreva tranquillo, non sfiorato neppure dal ticchettio dell’orologio. E mentre il tempo passava, cosi’ impercettibile che neppure il pittore se ne rendeva conto, la seconda Mineko si faceva avanti, e nel momento in cui si fosse incontrata e fusa con la prima, lo scorrere del tempo avrebbe cambiato direzione, sprofondando nell’eternita’. (251)

(Il sogno di Hirota)
Le ho detto che non era cambiata affatto e lei mi ha risposto: “Perche’ l’anno in cui avevo quel viso, il mese in cui avevo quei vestiti e il giorno in cui ero pettinata in quelo modo, mi sono cari piu’ di ogni cosa”. “Ma quando e’ stato?”, ho chiesto. “Venti anni fa, quando ti ho incontrato”, ha detto. Mi sono domandato, meravigliato, come mai ero invece diventato vecchio, e la ragazza mi ha risposto: “Perche’ tu sei sempre andato in cerca di qualcosa piu’ bello di quel momento”. “Tu sei un quadro”, le ho detto. “E tu una poesia”, ha risposto”. (280)

Kororo is a Japanese novel published in 1914 depicting the friendship the of an unnamed narrator and his older friend Sensei. Thought I could gain some understanding of Japanese history and culture by reading it. But sadly, the book was a total disappointment. Nothing but two men whining about how sad and lonley they are. Boring with a capital B.

[exhales]

DNF but I actually didn’t hate it. It’s tragically not really about a cat, which was what I signed up for. It is more about the cats owners and the sort of idiotic nature of being human which is fine. It just takes way too long to repeat essentially the same interaction over and over. I eventually got bored of this and couldn’t continue

Stray sheep stray sheep stray sheep

Cosa
stai
facendo?

Sto
contando
i grani
del rosario.

Se si contano
uno per volta
i grani
di un oggetto
circolare...

...non
si giungerà
mai alla fine!

Ossia, giungere al cuore delle cose è impossibile e a chi ci riesce poi non resta nulla.

This lacked the fluency and magnetism of Kokoro. Perhaps expects or requires a more refined level of receptivity from the reader. This first attempt failed; I may try again later.

It was amazing to find a novel written before the First World War that could sound so fresh and modern today. Kokoro is a stylistic tour de force. Soseki's interweaving of colorfully detailed exteriors and darker, psychologically twisted interiors seems effortless. The plotting maintains a deliberate tension as the reader comes to grasp what drives and ultimately torments and/or tortures the two main characters. Everything about this book is complex but all of a piece. It stays within itself and there is never a false note. One imagines Murakami having taken it to model his prose. If so, it was a good choice. I plan to read many of Soseki's other works, and Murakami's too.

Así comienza la primera y más hilarante novela de Natsume Sōseki, una auténtica obra maestra de la literatura japonesa, que narra las aventuras de un desdeñoso felino que cohabita, de modo accidental, con un grupo de grotescos personajes, miembros todos ellos de la bienpensante clase media tokiota: el dispéptico profesor Kushami y su familia, teóricos dueños de la casa donde vive el gato; el mejor amigo del profesor, el charlatán e irritante Meitei; o el joven estudioso Kangetsu, que día sí, día no, intenta arreglárselas para conquistar a la hija de los vecinos. Escrita justo antes de su aclamada novela Botchan, Soy un gato es una sátira descarnada de la burguesía Meiji. Dotada de un ingenio a prueba de bombas y de un humor sardónico, recorre las peripecias de un voluble filósofo gatuno que no se cansa de hacer los comentarios más incisivos sobre la disparatada tropa de seres humanos con la que le ha tocado convivir.

El caminante, obra de madurez de Sōseki, narra la historia de un peculiar y sutil triángulo cuyos vértices conforman Jiro, su hermano Ichiro y la esposa de éste, Nao. Atrapados entre tradición y modernidad, los personajes deambulan por un Japón hambriento de cambio y de progreso que se enfrenta a una metamorfósis demasiado rápida. La angustia vital que atormenta al protagonista, Ichiro, es la de la soledad del hombre inmerso en una sociedad que avanza sin tregua, sin otorgar nunca un respiro. Su mujer, Nao, escoge el camino de la pasividad y del desafío silencioso y frío. Finalmente Jiro, cuyos gestos son imperceptibles susurros de amor velado hacia su cuñada, es testigo del desplome del frágil estado mental de su hermano: «Parecía un pez varado en la arena dando coletazos en su fútil lucha por la vida». El caminante trasciende fronteras y refleja la angustia del hombre moderno aislado irremediablemente de su familia y de una sociedad cuyos valores se desmoronan.

The themes of this book, loneliness and guilt, were interesting, but the way the story was related was not. Not sure if this was an issue with translation because I often like economical prose, but it felt like too much was left for the reader to read between the lines. I saw the ending coming from a mile away and yet it felt like it took ages to get there. I appreciated the plotline, but I think it could have been more powerful if the reader was allowed to know the character, K, better and the relationship between K and Sensei was elaborated on significantly more.

The story starts off with the narrator meeting Sensei at a beach. He is totally drawn to the guy for reasons unknown. Sensei is mysterious and seems misanthropic so perhaps that was the draw. Regardless, the crux of the book is a letter from Sensei to the narrator where his secrets are revealed. The ending has a dark, quiet power, but mostly I was bored.

Sebbene Soseki ammetta l'inevitabilità dell'occidentalizzazione del Giappone, pensa e scrive che la tradizione sia legata all'ordine delle cose e, nonostante l'inevitabile, quello che verrà conduce al disordine.

A suo parere, infatti, gli esseri umani non nascevano per realizzare un obiettivo. Al contrario, un obiettivo si formava soltanto quando una persona veniva al mondo. Creare a priori un obiettivo, fin dall’inizio, e applicarlo a una persona, equivaleva a rubarle la libertà di movimento fin dalla nascita. Un obiettivo era qualcosa che l’essere umano doveva costruirsi da solo. Peccato che nessuno, di sua spontanea volontà, fosse capace di farlo. Questo perché lo scopo di una vita si compiva affermandosi nel mondo, nella concretizzazione dell’esistenza stessa.

(149-50)