Kokoro by Soseki Natsume

My second journey into novels of Japan also focused on man’s loneliness in the modern world but with quite a difference.  Soseki was writing in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Kokoro, considered by many to be his best novel, tells the story of a young man who befriends an older man he calls “Sensei” or teacher.  The translator, Edwin McClelland, states in a footnote that although this word translates most closely to teacher, a better translation would be the French word, “maître.”  After consulting a friend in Quebec, I agreed that the use of this word implying a more erudite nature is more appropriate for the character of Sensei.

The novel is divided into three sections:  Sensei and I, My Parents and I, Sensei and His Testament.  The last section is half of the book.  It is all first person point of view, but the last section is from the viewpoint of Sensei.  For the young man, understanding the secret behind Sensei’s monthly visits to a gravesite – always alone – is the story that must be told.  Without offering any spoiler to someone who may read the novel, I cite this passage from Sensei’s Testament:

When I was cheated by my uncle, I felt very strongly the unreliableness of men.  I learned to judge others harshly, but not myself.  I thought that in the midst of a corrupt world I had managed to remain virtuous.  Because of K, however, my self-confidence was shattered.  With a shock, I realized that I was no better than my uncle.  I became as disgusted with myself as I had been with the rest of the world.  Action of any kind became impossible for me. (238)

Sensei’s self-imposed loneliness and experiences shade the knowledge he shares with the narrator.  But the story is mesmerizing, and the style of writing obviously modeled on the novel of the Western tradition.  One website refers to Soseki as the “Dickens of Japan.”  I withhold making a judgment call on that label, but I will look for other books by this author.  One of his other novels is a trilogy entitled I Am a Cat described as the story of a stray cat taken in by some Japanese people and told from the cat’s point of view.  It is still in print and reminds me of “Tobermory” by Saki (H.H. Munro).  I will probably search out that one as it predates the short story.  I am wondering if Munro was influenced by Soseki.

Finally, every thinking reader makes connections between different books.  I love when a line in one novel sends me scurrying through my notes to find that other line it brings to mind.  Near the end of this novel Sensei says, “But who are we to judge the needs of another man’s heart?” (247)  It made me think of this line from The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, “For who in this world can give anyone a character?  Who in this world knows anything of any other heart – or of his own?” (130)  Ford’s novel was published in 1915; Soseki’s in 1914.  It certainly has me thinking of the changing world these two men lived in and how thinking people experience recognition of truths.  Both of these authors, from very different cultures, are still reaching out a century later to the modern reader.

Soseki, Natsume. Kokoro. Translated by Edwin McClellan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc., 1986. Print

Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ns/soseki.html