Sōseki Natsume

*The 210th Day* reveals another facet of Soseki's skills. Written almost entirely in dialogue form, it demonstrates Soseki'svivid imagination and his gift for striking images. It follows two friend's attempt to climb the rumbling Mount Aso as it threatens to erupt- recording their banter abouth their backgrounds, behaviors, and reactions to the things they see along the way. *The 210th Day* combines Eastern and Western genres-The western autobiography and the traditional Japanese literary diary-into a work with a unified theme and atmosphere. Author Biography: *Natsume Soseki* (1867-1916), novelist and scholar of English literature, is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji period (1868-1914). Among his works, *I Am a Cat* and *Master Darling* are especially well-known in Japan. The 210th Day reveals another facet of Soseki's skills. Written almost entirely in dialogue form, it demonstrates Soseki's vivid imagination and his gift for striking images. It follows two friend's attempt to climb the rumbling Mount Aso as it threatens to erupt -- recording their banter about their backgrounds, behaviors, and reactions to the things they see along the way. The 210th Day combines Eastern and Western genres -- the Western autobiography and the traditional Japanese literary diary -- into a work with a unified theme and atmosphere.

*The 210th Day* reveals another facet of Soseki's skills. Written almost entirely in dialogue form, it demonstrates Soseki'svivid imagination and his gift for striking images. It follows two friend's attempt to climb the rumbling Mount Aso as it threatens to erupt- recording their banter abouth their backgrounds, behaviors, and reactions to the things they see along the way. *The 210th Day* combines Eastern and Western genres-The western autobiography and the traditional Japanese literary diary-into a work with a unified theme and atmosphere. Author Biography: *Natsume Soseki* (1867-1916), novelist and scholar of English literature, is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji period (1868-1914). Among his works, *I Am a Cat* and *Master Darling* are especially well-known in Japan. The 210th Day reveals another facet of Soseki's skills. Written almost entirely in dialogue form, it demonstrates Soseki's vivid imagination and his gift for striking images. It follows two friend's attempt to climb the rumbling Mount Aso as it threatens to erupt -- recording their banter about their backgrounds, behaviors, and reactions to the things they see along the way. The 210th Day combines Eastern and Western genres -- the Western autobiography and the traditional Japanese literary diary -- into a work with a unified theme and atmosphere.

A stirring and insightful novel from an author Japan Quarterly calls "a Japanese writer of genius. "From beloved author Soseki Natsume, And Then tells the story of Daisuke, a man in his twenties who is struggling with his personal purpose and identity as well as the changing social landscape of Meiji-era Japan. As Japan enters the 20th Century, ancient customs give way to Western ideals, and Daisuke works to resolve his feelings of disconnection and abandonment during this time of change. Thanks to his father's wealth, Daisuke has the luxury of having time to develop his philosophies and ruminate on their meaning while remaining intellectually aloof from traditional Japanese culture and the demands of growing industrialization. Daisuke's life takes an unexpected turn when he is reunited with his college friend and his sickly wife. At first, Daisuke's stoicism allows him to act according to his intellect, but his intellectual fortress begins to show its vulnerabilities as his emotions start to hold greater sway over his inner life. Daisuke must now weigh his choices in a culture that has always operated on the razor's edge of societal obligation and personal freedom. And Then is a powerful novel of an individual swept up in the floods of change.

<p><strong>The great Japanese author’s most famous novel, in its first new English translation in half a century</strong> </p> <p>No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's <em>Kokoro</em> , his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, <em>Kokoro</em> —meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei." Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century.</p> SUMMARY: "Kokoro" is one of the classics of Japanese literature. Soseki introduces readers to the Japanese modern culture and its effect on the young generation of that time. Author narrates the events, when in 1857 Western imperialism invaded Japan. In order to protect Japan and it's culture, the Japanese Emporer Meiji planned and ordered an industrial revolution in the country. Must Read!

<p>Spring Miscellany is a series of 25 personal vignettes (referred to as shohin - little items) that are clearly autobiographical, and reveal Natsume Soseki's kaleidoscopic view of his private world - and his interest in authentic, unadorned self-expression. The stories range from episodes in his youth to his adult musings.</p> <div> <p>Spring Miscellany is a series of 25 personal vignettes (referred to as shohin - little items) that are clearly autobiographical, and reveal Natsume Soseki's kaleidoscopic view of his private world - and his interest in authentic, unadorned self-expression. The stories range from episodes in his youth to his adult musings.</p></div>

<p>A murderer discovers his true nature from a talking infant, a samurai is frustrated in his attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories. The dream-like, open-ended tales by the father of Japanese modernist literature offer thought-provoking reflections on fear, death, and loneliness. Their settings range from the Meiji period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era in which the tales were written, to the prehistoric Age of the Gods; the twelfth-century Kamakura period, in which the samurai class emerged; and the remote future.</p> <p>A scholar of British literature, author Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of Ten Nights Dreaming, which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like Sōseki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This edition features an expert new English translation by Matt Treyvaud, who has translated the story "The Cat's Grave" for this work as well.</p> A murderer discovers his true nature from a talking infant, a samurai is frustrated in his attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories. The dream-like, open-ended tales by the father of Japanese modernist literature offer thought-provoking reflections on fear, death, and loneliness. Their settings range from the Meiji period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era in which the tales were written, to the prehistoric Age of the Gods; the twelfth-century Kamakura period, in which the samurai class emerged; and the remote future.<BR>A scholar of British literature, author Natsume S&#333;seki (1867&#8211;1916) was also a composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. The stories of <I>Ten Nights Dreaming, </I>which were originally published as a newspaper serial, constitute milestones of Japanese fantasy. Like S&#333;seki's other writings, they have had a profound effect on readers, writers, and filmmakers. This...

<div> <p>An NYRB Classics OriginalA humble clerk and his loving wife scrape out a quiet existence on the margins of Tokyo. Resigned, following years of exile and misfortune, to the bitter consequences of having married without their families’ consent, and unable to have children of their own, Sōsuke and Oyone find the delicate equilibrium of their household upset by a new obligation to meet the educational expenses of Sōsuke’s brash younger brother. While an unlikely new friendship appears to offer a way out of this bind, it also soon threatens to dredge up a past that could once again force them to flee the capital. Desperate and torn, Sōsuke finally resolves to travel to a remote Zen mountain monastery to see if perhaps there, through meditation, he can find a way out of his predicament.        This moving and deceptively simple story, a melancholy tale shot through with glimmers of joy, beauty, and gentle wit, is an understated masterpiece by one of Japan’s greatest writers. At the end of his life, Natsume Sōseki declared The Gate, originally published in 1910, to be his favorite among all his novels. This new translation captures the oblique grace of the original while correcting numerous errors and omissions that marred the first English version.</p></div> <p>A humble clerk and his loving wife scrape out a quiet existence on the margins of late-Meiji Tokyo. Resigned, following years of exile and misfortune, to the bitter consequences of having married without their families' consent, and unable to have children of their own, S&#333;suke and Oyone find the delicate equilibrium of their household upset by a new obligation to meet the educational expenses of S&#333;suke's brash younger brother. While an unlikely new friendship appears to offer a way out of this bind, it also soon threatens to dredge up a past that could once again force them to flee the capital. Desperate and torn, S&#333;suke finally resolves to travel to a remote Zen mountain monastery to see if perhaps there, through meditation, he can find a way out of his predicament.<br> <br> This moving and deceptively simple story, a melancholy tale shot through with glimmers of joy, beauty, and gentle wit, is an understated masterpiece by the first great writer of modern...

Heredity of Taste is Soseki Natsume's only anti-war work. Chronicling the mourning process of a narrator haunted by his friend's death, the story reveals Soseki's attitude to the atrocity of war, specifically to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, and to the personal tragedies and loss of individuality of young men like his hero Kosan, and the sacrifices made by both the living and the dead.

The Miner is the most daringly experimental and least well-known novel of the great Meiji writer Natsume Soseki. An absurdist tale about the indeterminate nature of human personality, written in 1908, it was in many ways a precursor to the work of Joyce and Beckett. The result is a novel that is both absurd and comical, and a true modernist classic.

Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was the foremost Japanese novelist of the twentieth century, known for such highly acclaimed works as Kokoro, Sanshiro, and I Am a Cat. Yet he began his career as a literary theorist and scholar of English literature. In 1907, he published Theory of Literature, a remarkably forward-thinking attempt to understand how and why we read. The text anticipates by decades the ideas and concepts of formalism, structuralism, reader-response theory, and postcolonialism, as well as cognitive approaches to literature that are only now gaining traction. Employing the cutting-edge approaches of contemporary psychology and sociology, Soseki created a model for studying the conscious experience of reading literature as well as a theory for how the process changes over time and across cultures. Along with Theory of Literature, this volume reproduces a later series of lectures and essays in which Soseki continued to develop his theories. By insisting that literary taste is socially and historically determined, Soseki was able to challenge the superiority of the Western canon, and by grounding his theory in scientific knowledge, he was able to claim a universal validity.

"This book demonstrates Sōseki Natsume's ability to dissect and elucidate the human personality in all its complexity. Here, his facile blending of narrative, extended monologue, and sharp dialog leaves the reader with an almost personal knowledge of the characters. We are introduced to Keitaro, a recent college graduate hunting for his first job; he is the hero through whose eyes the other characters are seen. There is also Morimoto, the young adventurer with his tall tales; Sunaga, a troubled young man whose moving story forms the center the novel; Taguchi, Sunaga's fun-loving yet practical uncle; Matsumoto, another uncle -- a high-class 'idler,' but wise in his own way; and Chiyoko, Sunaga's cousin and apparently the cause of much of his distress. Keitaro does not merely tell us the story of the others, however. Their lives are a part of his elucidation beyond that of the world of academia, and his knowing them enables him eventually to experience, however directly or indirectly, the romantic, the practical, the philosophical, and the existential. This is the sort of detailed analysis of the world that enables Keitaro -- and Sōseki himself -- to come closer to the very core of life itself. " -From publisher.