![]() ![]() ![]() Sōseki: Modern Japan’s Greatest Novelist provides a literary biography of the finest sort: an engaging, reasonably paced narrative of Sōseki ‘s life punctuated by just enough literary analysis to render the book intellectually important as well. It’s also less well-known to his English-speaking fans that Sōseki was an accomplished poet, especially of haiku he wrote over 2,000 verses.Īll the varied accomplishments of this man who’s often considered Japan’s greatest writer, together with his many shortcomings, are put in perspective and context by literary scholar John Nathan. While the sardonic style of the narrator is unmistakably Sōseki, the tone of this work is much lighter than his later novels, which grapple in various ways with the existential angst induced by Japan’s rapid modernization and engagement with the West in the late 19th century. The first novel he wrote, it was originally serialized in a literary journal in 1905-06, and offers the wry first-hand observations of a cat musing judgmentally on the affairs of the human beings around him. While his later novels are considered the better works, I – like many others – first came to know Natsume Sōseki through his whimsical satire I Am a Cat. ![]()
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