![]() ![]() Perhaps as a result, there is also no overt or sustained system of imagery. So why then, when I first read it, was I so disappointed? In short, I couldn’t help thinking, “Is this it?” Kokoro contains few lyrical passages, few descriptions of landscape, season, architecture, interior, or dress. In short, this novel is kind of a big deal. A quick search on Google will turn up numerous syllabi for courses in Japanese literature that all begin with Kokoro. His early novel Botchan (坊っちゃん, 1905, recently translated by Joel Cohn) has been required reading for generations of Japanese schoolchildren, and his portrait used to grace the one thousand yen bill. ![]() Sōseki is one of the major figures in the Japanese literary canon, if not in fact the major figure. I remember being disappointed and a bit confused by it, however. When I first started studying Japanese literature in college, Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro was one of the first modern novels I read. Publication Year: 1957 (America) 1914 (Japan) ![]()
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