Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki and Edwin McClellan

No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he complete before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro--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.

I think i'm starting to warm up to Japanese literature, most of the novels are short and powerful.

In “Kokoro,” Soseki has written a beautiful, introspective novel that examines the weight of one's past upon their spirit. The first half of the book outlines the relationship between a young narrator and “Sensei,” his mentor whose troubling past has embittered him toward the rest of humanity. These chapters are deliberately unsatisfying to the reader, as Sensei's past remains untold and the narrator's search for worldly guidance is never quite fulfilled. (I won't treat this next part as a spoiler as it is in the Narrator's Introduction...) This section culminates in Sensei's eventual suicide, and all is finally revealed in his farewell letter to our narrator, which occupies the rest of the novel. Here, “Kokoro” deftly becomes a letter not to the narrator but to the reader, as we feel the grasp of humanity's darkest traits. “Kokoro” is a heavy book, dealing with such issues as death, deception, and loneliness, but it treads emotional ground that feels uncanny in its familiarity. Despite being written in the early 1900s, the characters' struggles with family, unemployment and academic accomplishment also appear as relevant today as ever before. The book's curious structure may alienate some readers, but the whirlwind of emotions give the narrative a quick pace. The book's ending may seem abrupt, but the story will follow you long beyond the final page.

Creo que las primeras dos partes podían haber sido mucho más cortas. El libro de verdad me enganchó mucho en el tercer acto. Entiendo como fungió de inspiración para Murakami et al. Creo que me sirvió que por casualidad he estado viendo otros medios japoneses(shogun, lol) que me hizo considerar más las normas culturales del país y así tmb entender mejor por qué todos los personajes se niegan a ser directos y me cagan. Bellísima edición como siempre de Impedimenta.

(spoiler)
por cierto: qué chingados tienen los japoneses con triángulos amorosos suicidas?