Search results for ""author natsume soseki""

Kokoro, meaning 'heart', is a tantalising novel about the friendship between a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls Sensei. Set in the early twentieth century, when the death of the emperor Meiji gave way to a new era in Japanese politicial and cultural life, the novel enacts the transition from one generation to the next in the dynamic between Sensei, who is haunted by mysterious events in his past, and the unnamed young man, one of the new generation's elite who will inherit the coming era.

Read more less

'Exactly what you would ask a novel to be' SpectatorIn the seaside city of Kamakura, a student is drawn to an enigmatic older man who swims at the same beach. The man becomes his Sensei. Against a backdrop of the rapid modernisation of Japan, their relationship endures - until one day, the young man receives a letter that divulges the full story of his Sensei's past.One of Japan's most admired and bestselling modern classics, Kokoro is a psychologically rich, delicately drawn meditation on loneliness, desire and duty.Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.Translated by Edwin McClellan.Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was one of Japan's most prominent novelists of the Meiji Era. After studying in England on a government scholarship, Soseki began a career at Tokyo University as a scholar of English literature before later devoting himself

Read more less

Kokoro (1914) is a novel by Natsume Sōseki. Set during a period of modernization in Japan, Kokoro is a story of family, faith, and tragedy that explores timeless themes of isolation and identity. Spanning generations, Kokoro is a classic novel from one of Japan’s most successful twentieth century writers. Tradition and change, life and death—such are the subjects of Sōseki’s masterful, understated tale of unassuaged guilt. On vacation with a friend, the narrator meets an older man who becomes a patient mentor for the young student. Soon, he begins visiting Sensei and his wife at their home in Tokyo, where they live an affluent, simple life. As the years go by, the narrator becomes aware of a secret from Sensei’s past, which his mentor promises to reveal when the time is right. When his father falls ill—around the time of the end of Meiji society—the narrator returns home to be closer to his family. As he tries to remain positive around so much sorrow, he begins to miss his Sensei, who is now getting old himself. As his father prepares to leave the mortal world, the narrator receives a lengthy letter from Tokyo, containing his Sensei’s story within. As one era merges into the next, he reads of the suffering and mistakes his Sensei experienced and incurred on his path through life, drawing them closer and leaving the narrator with some wisdom to remember him by. Eminently human, Kokoro is a beloved story of isolation, morality, and conflict from a master of Japanese fiction. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro is a classic work of Japanese literature reimagined for modern readers.

Read more less

Light and Dark, Natsume Soseki's longest novel and masterpiece, although unfinished, is a minutely observed study of haute-bourgeois manners on the eve of World War I. It is also a psychological portrait of a new marriage that achieves a depth and exactitude of character revelation that had no precedent in Japan at the time of its publication and has not been equaled since. With Light and Dark, Soseki invented the modern Japanese novel. Recovering in a clinic following surgery, thirty-year-old Tsuda Yoshio receives visits from a procession of intimates: his coquettish young wife, O-Nobu; his unsparing younger sister, O-Hide, who blames O-Nobu's extravagance for her brother's financial difficulties; his self-deprecating friend, Kobayashi, a ne'er-do-well and troublemaker who might have stepped from the pages of a Dostoevsky novel; and his employer's wife, Madam Yoshikawa, a conniving meddler with a connection to Tsuda that is unknown to the others. Divergent interests create friction among this closely interrelated cast of characters that explodes into scenes of jealousy, rancor, and recrimination that will astonish Western readers conditioned to expect Japanese reticence. Released from the clinic, Tsuda leaves Tokyo to continue his convalescence at a hot-springs resort. For reasons of her own, Madam Yoshikawa informs him that a woman who inhabits his dreams, Kiyoko, is staying alone at the same inn, recovering from a miscarriage. Dissuading O-Nobu from accompanying him, Tsuda travels to the spa, a lengthy journey fraught with real and symbolic obstacles that feels like a passage from one world to another. He encounters Kiyoko, who attempts to avoid him, but finally manages a meeting alone with her in her room. Soseki's final scene is a sublime exercise in indirection that leaves Tsuda to "explain the meaning of her smile."

Read more less

Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after his the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils - prone to playing tricks on their new, naïve teacher; the staff - vain, immoral, and in danger of becoming a bad influence on Botchan; and from his own as-yet-unformed nature, as he finds his place in the world. One of the most popular novels in Japan where it is considered a classic of adolescence, as seminal as The Catcher in the Rye, Botchan is as funny, poignant and memorable as it was when first published, over 100 years ago.Translated by J. Cohn

Read more less

Light and Dark, Natsume Soseki's longest novel and masterpiece, although unfinished, is a minutely observed study of haute-bourgeois manners on the eve of World War I. It is also a psychological portrait of a new marriage that achieves a depth and exactitude of character revelation that had no precedent in Japan at the time of its publication and has not been equaled since. With Light and Dark, Soseki invented the modern Japanese novel. Recovering in a clinic following surgery, thirty-year-old Tsuda Yoshio receives visits from a procession of intimates: his coquettish young wife, O-Nobu; his unsparing younger sister, O-Hide, who blames O-Nobu's extravagance for her brother's financial difficulties; his self-deprecating friend, Kobayashi, a ne'er-do-well and troublemaker who might have stepped from the pages of a Dostoevsky novel; and his employer's wife, Madam Yoshikawa, a conniving meddler with a connection to Tsuda that is unknown to the others. Divergent interests create friction among this closely interrelated cast of characters that explodes into scenes of jealousy, rancor, and recrimination that will astonish Western readers conditioned to expect Japanese reticence. Released from the clinic, Tsuda leaves Tokyo to continue his convalescence at a hot-springs resort. For reasons of her own, Madam Yoshikawa informs him that a woman who inhabits his dreams, Kiyoko, is staying alone at the same inn, recovering from a miscarriage. Dissuading O-Nobu from accompanying him, Tsuda travels to the spa, a lengthy journey fraught with real and symbolic obstacles that feels like a passage from one world to another. He encounters Kiyoko, who attempts to avoid him, but finally manages a meeting alone with her in her room. Soseki's final scene is a sublime exercise in indirection that leaves Tsuda to "explain the meaning of her smile."

Read more less

Botchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after his the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils - prone to playing tricks on their new, naïve teacher; the staff - vain, immoral, and in danger of becoming a bad influence on Botchan; and from his own as-yet-unformed nature, as he finds his place in the world. One of the most popular novels in Japan where it is considered a classic of adolescence, as seminal as The Catcher in the Rye, Botchan is as funny, poignant and memorable as it was when first published, over 100 years ago.In J. Cohn's introduction to his colourful translation, he discusses Botchan's success, the book's clash between Western intellectualism and traditional Japanese values, and the importance of names and nicknames in the novel.

Read more less

Literally meaning 'Pillow of Grass', Kusamakura is Soseki's portrayal of an artist who opposes convention and logic, and shuns emotional involvement. Soseki's artist attempts to live as a hermit using other people as his stimuli for his sensations and reflections. The artist fluently and prolifically composes poetry, but finds himself unable to paint - despite befriending a beautiful young divorcee. He remains emotionally distanced from her for a long time and it is only one day when he sees compassion in her eyes that he finds himself able to paint her, but also reconnected with the emotional undercurrents he had hitherto tried to avoid, thereby ending his retreat from the world. Siseko's beautiful and haikuesque novel is infused with his own musings on art and nature, and helped to establish the novel as a major literary form in Japan.

Read more less

One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.

Read more less

From the great Meiji writer Natsume Soseki, The Miner is an absurdist tale about the indeterminate nature of human personality. 'It makes me very happy that I can read this novel written over a hundred years ago as if it were contemporary and be deeply affected by it. It cannot and should not be overlooked. It is one of my favorites' Haruki Murakami The Miner is the most daringly experimental and least well-known novel of Japanese writer Natsume Soseki. An absurdist tale written in 1908, it was in many ways a precursor to the work of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Translated by Jay Rubin, and with an introduction from Haruki Murakami, this is bound to appeal to fans of Japanese literature.

Read more less