Can we have a Natsume Soseki thread? I'm reading Sanshiro

japs are degenerate perverts who deny christ

I've only read Kokoro but I enjoyed it greatly, also because of the characters so I suspect you might like it as well if you haven't read it already. I like the episodic look into the life of the narrator and Sensei, how each chapter is a small story builds up to the finale. I'll have to read Sanshiro next. What translation are you reading that you feel is wonky?

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>>9821220

*steps on your fumi-e*

>>9821235
I'll have to check Kokoro out.

The translator of my copy is someone called Jay Rubin, the copy is part of the penguin pocket classics line they released recently.

Sanshirou is an excellent coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising Japan, yet manages to tell a story that most adults would be able to relate to. It's funny how Japanese some chapters are, yet in certain scenes where the characters are conversing I'd forget that it took place more than a hundred years ago; the way the characters interacted and the things they talked about are still so relatable that they could very well have been in a cafe or something and it wouldn't have been out of place at all. I think that that's the beauty of Souseki's writing. Not so much on the prose, but how his stories are very relatable.

Of the other novels I've read, Botchan was what got me into Japanese literature. Maintains a lighthearted theme and pokes fun at literary-type people like Souseki himself, but there were hard hitting moments and explosive ones too. God bless my primary school English teacher for recommending it to me.

As mentioned by another poster Kokoro is an excellent read -- it's not the all-time bestselling novel in Japan for no reason. Just note that it's deeply misanthropic, I daresay even more than No Longer Human, and hence not easy reading like his other novels.

I'm currently on Kawabata's House of the Sleeping Beauties. Extremely fucked up, but all the more interesting because of it. Exciting, avant-garde stuff.

>>9821220
That's funny because the novel mentioned by OP and Osamu Dazai quote from the Bible a lot.

>>9821246
/thread