Natsume Sōseki

Kusamakura

Ned Summers 

Interesting style. Probably needs to be read in a relaxed holidaying environment, rather than in a city day to day, to be enjoyed fully.

jess

This is a lyrically compelling and alluringly imagined book. The storyline though minimal is never what this novel is about. It frequently, and at length, enters into philosophical ruminations on the role of beauty, the artist, aesthetics, the nature of objective and subjective experience, and how these help one live a purposeful meaningful life. I found it thoroughly engaging, thought provoking and a joy to read. Soseki always writes with such precision and insight he holds you simply through the eloquence of his sentences, effortlessly seen through his initial paragraphs of this book; 

"As I climb the mountain path, I ponder -

If you work by reason, you grow rough-edged; if you choose to dip your oar into sentiment's stream, it will sweep you away. Demanding your own way only serves to constrain you. However you look at it, the human world is not an easy place to live.

And when its difficulties intensify, you find yourself longing to leave that world and dwell in some easier one - and then, when you understand at last that difficulties will dog you wherever you may live, this is when poetry and art are born."

Jeremy Wang

hm, what to say about this? at the very least, soseki’s depictions of nature are as pure and observant as ever. 

“The rain that had streamed out of that distant sky is still held pooled in every leaf and blossom of the luxuriantly branching cherry tree nearby…”

and of course his character portraits are wonderfully incisive. i loved nami’s enigmatic flitting in and out of the story, both directly and through the retelling of others. shioda and the abbot were well-painted as delightfully quaint residents of a fading traditional japan. 

but then you have to think about the narrator, and what a thoroughly detestable person he is. soseki’s skill at farce and mockery, well-honed in I Am A Cat, is wielded with sharp irony here in depicting a painter who never paints, who works himself into a lather pontificating about the world of the unhuman and the unique soul of the poet but who also seriously thinks in terms of detectives counting farts. what do you do while reading the voice of such a character?

altogether, this is definitely a transitional novel, retaining hints of soseki’s early acidic wit, which comments endlessly on philosophy and society at large, while beginning to devote more time to the serious consideration of small psychological dramas and the simple beauties of nature. i could have done with less philosophical discourse, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Kusamakura

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