More Natsume

After reading Kokoro (1912), one of Natsume Soseki's later novels, I wanted to read something else as a basis for comparison and found that a Kindle edition of Botchan (1906) was available as a free download. It's a fairly short book, and very different in style (perhaps partly owing to the difference in translators, but not entirely I think). There is no denying that the earlier book is lighter in just about every sense than later one, and I found I was really drawn to the main character and narrator, who is likely a comical version of or projection of Natsume himself.

Like Natsume, the narrator of Botchan (Master Darling) spends time as a teacher in a country school, where, feeling himself exiled from Tokyo, he clearly has great difficulty fitting in. But unlike Natsume (one presumes) the narrator is a very unintellectual young man, a math teacher with a large chip on his shoulder who takes offense easily and manages to get into a number of physical altercations with fellow teachers as well as students. And yet he is also an appealing character, whose honesty and directness offer a clear and telling contrast to the sly and calculating director of the school and the manipulative and quite unethical head teacher.

Botchan, like Kokoro, offers a commentary on the difficulties some men (at least in Japan at that time) seem to have expressing themselves, and maneuvering among the rituals of masculine society, especially when it comes to matters of personal honor and pride. Friendship also is fraught with difficulties, and women are mysteries almost beyond fathoming. It was fortunate that I decided to read Botchan, since it helped me to reassess my understanding of Kokoro, and brought home to me why Natsume was so highly regarded as a writer of novels as well as haiku. Both of these novels explore the consequences of placing emphasis on personal honor and reveal the misunderstandings that result from an inability to communicate among friends and colleagues. Much that seems dark and hidden comes in reality from deliberate obfuscation or prevarication. But at the same time, truth is difficult and sometimes hard, nor is it always welcomed or appreciated.