The Heredity of Taste

by Natsume Sōseki, Sammy I. Tsunematsu (Translator), Stephen W. Kohl (Introduction)

Still timely after nearly half a century, The Heredity of Taste is Soseki Natsume's only antiwar work. The heartbreaking story of love shattered by the realities of battle reveals Soseki's attitude toward the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5.

With an introduction by Steven W. Kohl, University of Oregon.

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature, Fiction, Literature

105 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note. In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.

Reviews

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtle glimpses of the Russo-Japanese War(1904-05) tiptoed through the melodious passages of Kusamakura(one of Sōseki’s finest works) illuminating Sōseki’s ambivalent outlook towards the war:-
"Civilization, having given individuals their freedom and turned them into wild beasts thereby, then maintains the peace by throwing these unfortunates behind bars. This isn't real peace; it’s the peace of the zoo, where the tiger lies in his cage glaring out at the gaping sightseers. Should one bar of that cage come loose, the world would fall apart(Kusamakura)".

The condescending civilization crushing the moral fiber of individualism, the very belief system it nurtures to hail victorious wars. The steam train serpentines its way through civilization shipping thousands of men, the roar of the train thundering the roar of a far distant war generating two worlds, the distance between increasing with the travelers and the consolation of those left behind. As if sketched in a book of incongruity, the chugging train, belching black smoke diminishes the incalculable nothingness between faces, amalgamating the two war-shaped worlds into one frenetic exploration for mislaid faces. The train at Shimbashi Station reveling in the exultant return of the soldiers, descending into madness and celebrations, the cries of “Banzai!” haunting the tears of buoyant eyes. The “serpent of civilization” transporting the fated victim of civilization, circumventing the peculiarity of human nature with circuitous agonistic construal. The idea of ‘pitying love’ nestled in the nascent individualism withstanding the authoritarian ethos of country plunged in war carefully played out in the discourse of socio-political and economic lives of Japanese populace categorizes Sōseki’s anti-war literature into the spiritual disposition of misplaced individuality amid the atrocities of war convalescing in meditative reflection and self-analysis of crucial aspects of human relationships exploring the psychological state of the manufactured circumstances. Sōseki’s prose is subtle, unruffled and yet when the written words conscientiously flow through the picturesque alleys of enlightening imagery, it emits sheer profundity. War, when it does not kill people, ages them. Sōseki questions the grand notion of patriotism dwelling in the legitimacy of human sacrifice? The worth and the magnitude of sacrifice made during war- futile or fruitful? Can honesty be compatible with daily life? Can the threads of sincerity of those few in socio-political power be compatible with thousands of life sacrifices in the name of the country? To die for nation, is it an earnest patriotic gesture or a mockery of individualism thriving in the folly of war and the psychosis of supremacy?


The enchanted gingko tree utterly bare, segregating the ethereal space between the living and the dead, silently watches the last of its golden leaves quivering through the air. The fallen leaves, never to be reattached to the radiant tree swirl beneath it. The profound calm of the stone graves entwined with lotus petals stretched into the quietude of the red pines at the temple entrance. Lost faces, wavering souls, no more hear the beleaguered voices consoling in sorrow and solitude. The feeble ray of foolish hope squirming the vision of “climb out of the ditch and return to your beloved ones”, muted by the chronic anguish “Kō-san wa agatte konai (Kō-san could not climb out of the ditch)” . A mother’s love, a lover’s conviction and bleak lives toppled in loneliness seep through the delicate fragrance of the chrysanthemums colliding against the harshness of a grave. The furrowed pages of a dusty diary exploring the phenomenon of hereditary, the forgotten path of ancestry tracing the mysteries of love and war in the tranquil gift of white chrysanthemums, the purity of beauty commemorating the fragile inheritance of love.

It is wrong to think that absolute tranquility demands a total absence of movement. It is when a single thing moves in a vast expanse of calm that we can perceive the tranquility that stretches beyond it.

Disconcerted by his friend’s death at Port Arthur, the narrator, a researcher of hereditary transmissions, chronicles the mourning process and explores the fragments of a binding love formulating quasi-scientific evolutionary psychosomatic theories tracing the genetic path of unfulfilled love in the Kawakami lineage.

Soldiers are part of war, and they are also the pure product of "the soul of Japan."....Businessmen are useless to the nation, as are journalists and geishas—and, of course, people like me who spend their lives with their noses in books! Only these living monuments, who have let their beards grow long and who might almost be mistaken for tramps, are absolutely necessary. Not only do they represent the spirit of Japan, but, more than that, they embody a spirit common to all humanity.

Sōseki reminds the reader of the chief fatality of war-'the soldier'. Sōseki explicates the indispensable represented sprit of a country, the spirit of humanity , the “pure product of the war” and the prime bearer of the horrendous after-math war consequences emphasizing the value of a soldier bestowing utmost respect to those who bravely fight on and off the battlefield. Why shouldn't we honor the soldiers more than the victories of the land? Why shouldn't we honor the bereaved family left behind to endure a life-long torment? Koichi’s mother yearning for the impossibility of a possible daughter-in-law to shed a speck of her painful memories. A loving friend searching for a tanned face among the crowd. The numerous hopeful hearts anxiously waiting for the arrival of their loved ones. The worth of soldiers regardless of whether the triumphant flag was waved or they make it to the train station or find an eternal solace in a pitiless ditch ascends the scale of nobility admiring the mental discipline amid a war-zone, the inconceivable limits of their endurance and the magnitude of their sacrifice.

....there is not the slightest crumb of humanity in a war cry. The war cry is "Aaah!" In a war cry there is no sarcasm or common sense. It contains no good or evil. It is as devoid of falsehood as it is of any attempt to manipulate. It is, from beginning to end, only "Aaah!" The emotion that it crystalizes, explodes and sends out shock waves in all directions; that is what causes this "Aaah!" to resonate. It has not that sense of sinister augury conveyed in expressions like "Banzai!," "Help!," or even "I am going to kill you!" In other words, "Aaah!" is mind; "Aaah!" is soul; "Aaah!" is humanity; "Aaah!" is truth.

The exuberance of “Banzai!” floats beyond the victorious headlines of a newspaper, the joyous emotion spilling on to the overwhelmed heart of a mother being caressed in the warmth of her son’s tearful eyes. The frantic loneliness and anguish of death drowned in the singular emotion of “May you live a thousand years!”. The calmness of such extreme declaration is distilled in the deadness of a war cry. The unfathomable and illimitable dimensions of a simple utterance simultaneously expressed by tens of thousands soldiers explodes the sense of ominous presage crystallizing the truth of staggered institution of life and death between the free world and war hell. The Heredity of Taste being the single anti-war text penned by Sōseki, confirms Japan’s maturity of a modern nation and yet, it juvenile egotistical hunger for sovereign supremacy at the cost of individualism. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) established Japan as a victorious nation enabling its entry into the world power domain. The singularity of a war cry resonating natural sincerity of shackled civilization raised numerous anti-war voices dominant in the Japanese literary scene. The loudest decibel resonated in the anti-war poem penned by one of Japan’s celebrated poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942). Akiko’s motivation for writing came solely from a personal anguish, dedicated to her younger brother Soichi who was then in the Japanese army battling at Port Arthur. The overpowering heartfelt verses depict Sōseki’s own anti-war deliberations.

Beloved, You Must Not Die (Kimi Shinitamou koto nakare,1905)

Ah, my brother, I weep for you.
Beloved, you must not die
You, the last born,
And so most cherished-
did our parents teach you to grasp a sword,
to kill another man?
Did they bring you up to twenty-four
To murder, and then die?

You, proud master of an old store
in the merchant city of Sakai,
heir to your father’s name –
beloved, you must not die.
What is it to you whether
the walls of Port Arthur tumble or they stand?
Why should you care?
Such things are not in the laws of a merchant family.

Beloved, you , must not die,
How could our great Emperor,
whose wondrous heart is so deep,
not to battle himself
but still ask others top spill their blood,
to die like beasts,
and to think those deaths a glory?

Ah, my brother, you must not
die in a war.

Father dead last fall,
Mother in her grief had to face
the pain of your being drafted,
of being left alone to watch our home,
In this great and peaceful reign
her white hairs have increased.

Your new wife, young and lovely, lies
and weeps behind the shop curtains.
Have you forgotten her? Do you think of her?
Let alone after being wed less than ten months,
Think of her maiden heart!
Besides you, ah, who, in all the world can she rely on?
Beloved, you must not die!

** (the poem is translated by Dr. Janine Beichman and the excerpt is taken from ‘The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present (Modern Asian Literature Series) (vol. 2)')


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☺☺☺ A big shout out to Eadweard! For it had not been for his precious gift (this book), there would have been a substantial time elapse in reading this book and once again soaking in the brilliance of Sōseki Natsume.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of Natsume's weaker works and that because it feels like the beginnings of something bigger and better than it is. It isn't bad, it feels woefully short, though.
Written in something like a week, "Taste" is a quick, slapdash story of the narrator's musings on the Russo-Japanese war and his memories of his friend killed during that war. It is very much an anti-war novel, which is laudable. Natsume rhythmically beats that into your head in various ways and it has a nice punchy feel. The second half of the novel (really a novella, given its brevity) is about the narrator trying to track down the beautiful girl he sees putting flowers on his dead friend's grave. This is where Natsume really could have shone stronger by lengthening that part of the story, a love story decapitated by stupid, stupid war.
All told, you can't really go wrong with Natsume as far as style and muted beauty, but this is best for the maniacal completist only.

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Perhaps the general had a swarthy face from birth? But most people who have endured the winds from the Liatong peninsula, or experienced the Mukden rains or been burned by the sun at Shu-he,come back darker skinned than they left. Someone whose complexion is naturally pale will become browner. It is the same with a beard. A few white strands will probably appear in a black beard once its owner has left for the front. Those of us who were looking at the general for the first time, had no way of drawing a comparison between what he had been before and what he was now. Presumably his wife and daughters, who had anxiously counted the days and nights, would be surprised by what they saw. War, when it does not kill people, ages them. The general was extremely thin, but perhaps his thinness was attributable to the cares he had endured. The only aspect of his physique that could not have changed from what it was before he left for the front was his height. People like me who live with their noses in books are like hermits, withdrawn from the world, and we know nothing of what is happening beyond our places of work. This is not to say that I do not ordinarily read newspapers or express my views on the war poetically. However, the imagination is limited to fantasy, and the newspapers, however intently we read them every day from front to back, end up as waste paper. Thus, when there is a war, we do not genuinely feel as if it is really taking place. For a carefree person like me, fortuitously engulfed in the crowd that invaded the station, what most struck me was that face burned by the sun and that beard tinted with frost. I have never seen war with my own eyes, but when the consequences had furtively passed in front of me, or, more precisely, a fragment of the consequences, and moreover a living fragment, under the influence of that fragment I could see very clearly in my mind's eye the post-combat scenes on the plain of Manchuria."

"So, what could I do?" I asked myself, reflecting on the problem in front of the grave. Kō-san had jumped into the trench last November and he had never come out of it. However much I might strike my stick on the Kawakami family grave, however much I might shake it with my bare hands, Kō-san would continue to sleep at the bottom of his trench. He would continue to sleep without knowing that such a beautiful woman had come to his grave to bring him such beautiful flowers."

Wonder if this was rediscovered during WWII.

[Kishan Katira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I've read Soseki's fiction so far I've thought that the protagonist is crazy, as though they're all episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I think that Soseki pulls of the pace change really well, so that even though it would be superficially obvious to have this be a long story with lots of detail, the style with which he begins, Soseki demonstrates a more interesting character in the narrator through having him bored and frustrated with his own interest in gossip and love (this book has a lot in common with The Three-Cornered World, where both narrators have the same opinions against militarism and detectives, and their dislike for investigation is related to their wishes to be detached from women and stories of desire, if not desire itself). Soseki's control over the pace of this story reminds me Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, which in turn reminds me of one line in the film adaptation of the play 'The Six Degrees of Separation': a primary school teacher says about her art class that "I just know when to take the art away from them". What I'm getting at is that Soseki has a very good sense of pace, but also, I think that the change in pace is comparable to the narrator's thoughts on dissonance of people in incongruous settings, that they can either enhance the mood or subvert it, or even present a divine one-ness free from material formalism: cf. the Heart Sutra: "no shape".

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book that really grabbed my attention and would lose my attention simply because I couldn't quite decipher what was going on. I do wish that I had spent more time trying to understand it, perhaps not my favorite but it is beautifully written.

[Annelie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this one, but Sōseki clearly got tired of writing this! The opening scene at the train station is brilliant and moving, as are the narrator’s reflections on his friend. However, the narrator’s motivations about pursuing his dead friend’s “lover” are never fully explored. I wish there had been some indication that his obsession with the mystery springs from grief at his friend’s passing, seeing that he never delves into his memories with Ko-san and frequently frowns upon other’s more overt displays of emotion. In the last ten pages, the narrator literally admits that the book should be 100-150 pages longer but he’s tired and therefore will just summarize it. Oh my god. This book has so much potential, but literally none of it is realized. (Also I wish the introduction had been more thoughtfully written since it was really weak in my opinion.)

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the first and second chapter was beautifully written, especially that scene where Sōseki described in minute detail how the "enchanted gingko" leaves falling created a sense of calmness in the temple (I'm a sucker for an entire page or more of beautiful descriptions, sorry na), the last chapter ended abruptly, as if written in a hurry. (Well, this was written by Sōseki in just 8 days.) The author made it clear that he is not going to launch into a lengthy tale of "naunsiyaming pag-ibig" because of the annoying war, but I just felt disappointed while thinking of the many possibilities the war love story could have had in making the novella a more satisfying read. In short, nakakabitin.

March 18, 2020. 8:50 pm. Study table. Will sleep early tonight heart eyes emoji

[Brašna · Rating 3 out of 5]

What at first seems like a very different approach to narration and theme of Soseki's literary work, an antiwar critic of Japanese society centred around a single death, dissolved into rambling about a theory of hereditary/karmic human relationships and how a possible romantic endeavour could tie the deceased romantic interest to his grieving mother as a caretaker. Few points about the war are developed and only hints or double meanings, as Soseki explains, are present within the work. Watch the narrator indulge himself in following his hunch about someone's romance and self-centredly complain about people as always. Stalkish much?

[Irika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my third time of reading Natsume Soseki's work. And I say I have grown pretty accustomed to his writing style. Boy, I say that his writing style and the way he tell the story to his readers is just like a calm, flowing river. Once I read it, I couldn't help but to flow along the story inside.

[Kyle D · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to believe this was written in the same year as Kusamakura and Botchan. It's very wordy, repetitive, and lacks the elegance of Soseki's other works. There's not much to it other than to get a better understanding of the great author.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Natsume, read in the hope that he plot would involve a son or grandson's inheritance of an attraction to a certain type of woman from his ancestors. Or, failing that, another version of Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes," the tale of the agreeable experience of falling in ove with a woman, her daugher and and her granddaugher (agreeable in imagination only, I hasten to say - remember Leviticus 18:17). Well, not it's closer to the former - except that what is inherited is not a taste, but an actual attraction between ancestor of X to ancestor of Y repeaated vis a vis descendent X and descendent Y - narrated by a man with an interest in modern scientific theories, and concerned with being up-to-date -- while realistic and somewhat embarrassed about the fact that social relationships between men and women in 1905 Japan had not made "progress" - his term- as they had in the West. Far more subtle than what I was looking for, and therefore I must return to it. The narrator is not Netsume - Netsume treats the narrator's aspiration to be modern and scientific, and also his self-consicousness about his lack of enthusiasm for the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 - with a certain degree of irony. NB This is not the simplistic "antiwar novel" that reviewers want it to be.

[Andres Eguiguren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not one of Soseki's better known works, The Heredity of Taste was written in December 1905 shortly after the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and published in a magazine in January 1906. The novella is considered his only anti-war work, and it is part detective-novel, part romance story. I found it more accessible than "I Am a Cat," which is the only other work I've read by Soseki so far.

[Leng Fs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title should change from " The Heredity of taste " to " Natsume futile thought with great details " .The Shimbashi station scene is impressive ,make me shouted Banzai for the pride of Japan imperial army when I read it and follow up brought me to exact opposite feeling . Lazy ending , feel like the author want to end it quick . Good reading .

[Novia · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I can say once I finished reading this book was ‘wow this book is beautiful’. It started slow for me but ended beautifully

full review is here>> http://bokunosekai.wordpress.com/2009...

[Ismadi]

bagud..bisa belajar banyak

[Nini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it in Periplus, only 5000 rupiahs :)

[Henrikhus · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a interesting theme in the story that taste (likeness) or especially characteristic of person who we love can be pass on to next generation.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

896 - 2012

Buku ini terlantar hampir empat tahun, beli di stand Periplus dengan harga 5000 rupiah saja.