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Kokoro

by Sōseki Natsume, Edwin McClellan (Translator)

3.99 · Rating details · 11,229 Ratings · 866 Reviews

Hailed by The New Yorker as "rich in understanding and insight," Kokoro — "the heart of things" — is the work of one of Japan's most popular authors. This thought-provoking trilogy of stories explores the very essence of loneliness and stands as a stirring introduction to modern Japanese literature.

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Paperback, 248 pages

Published July 1st 1996 by Gateway Editions (first published 1914)

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Nov 08, 2012 Samadrita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: timeless-classics, cherished, bygones-are-never-bygones, melancholia, human-drama, asian-literature, 1001-and-more, nihon-ga-suki, existentialism-absurdism, my-god-is-better-than-yours

A languid, melancholic dream of a novel which pierces the heart of the reader with its quiet intensity.

Cautious in its narrative tread on the ground of contentious issues, delicate in its broaching of subjects like the indignity of death, sin and redemption, existentialist ennui, self-recrimination and misanthropy, 'Kokoro' is a masterful recounting of a tragedy which unfolds against the backdrop of the dying years of the Meiji era. As Emperor Meiji breathes his last taking along with him the an ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 Marita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-literary-and-classics, japan-japanese, 2017, favourites-2017

The Meiji period in Japan during the second half of the twentieth century ushered in major changes. After the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, Japan would be irrevocably changed. This melancholic novel reflects various aspects of this change.

The unnamed protagonist, a university student, strikes up a friendship with someone he admires and refers to as ‘Sensei’ throughout the novel, which translates as ‘teacher’ or ‘master’. It is (let’s call him X for the purpose of this review) X who actively pu The Meiji period in Japan during the second half of the twentieth century ushered in major changes. After the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912, Japan would be irrevocably changed. This melancholic novel reflects various aspects of this change.

The unnamed protagonist, a university student, strikes up a friendship with someone he admires and refers to as ‘Sensei’ throughout the novel, which translates as ‘teacher’ or ‘master’. It is (let’s call him X for the purpose of this review) X who actively pursues the friendship, as Sensei is rather aloof. X finds himself compelled to seek out Sensei. On one occasion X invites Sensei to go for a walk, and he didn’t care where they went: “All I wanted was to take him out beyond the city limits.” And in his own enthusiastic manner he tries to get Sensei to open up and to move beyond the limits he appears to have set for himself. At the start of his narration X tells us that in retrospect he now understands that Sensei felt himself unworthy and in fact despised himself. Our narrator says: “Sensei was a man who could, indeed must love, yet he was unable to open his arms and accept into his heart another who sought to enter.” Later in the novel the reason for Sensei’s behaviour is revealed, as well as the reason why he pays a solitary visit to a particular grave each month.

In the middle section of the novel X is called home for family reasons. He cannot help but compare his family with Sensei and feel embarrassed about them, and ironically it is X who behaves boorishly. ”Sensei, I thought, was more cultured and admirable than my father, with his unashamed delight. In the final analysis, what I felt was displeasure at the reek of country boorishness in my father’s innocence.”

The latter part of the novel is narrated by Sensei in a letter addressed to X. He tells X of his friendship with K and slowly Sensei the man is revealed to us. We see how K embodies the old era and old world Japan. The young, unnamed narrator represents the new Japan, and Sensei… well, Sensei is pretty much smack in the middle of the change and doesn’t really fit into either mold. In his letter Sensei explains to the young man: “My morality is probably very different from that of young people today. But different though it may be, it is my own. It is not some rented clothing I have borrowed to suit the moment.” In telling his story Sensei ruminates on love, happiness and morality, and he offers his young friend advice, but…

The prose is languid and beautiful. ...more

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Jun 28, 2015 [P] rated it really liked it

A few years ago I had arranged to meet up with a girl I was loosely dating. I liked her a lot, but as she is a DJ, who works late nights, seeing each other was not easy. I had agreed to go to the club she was playing at that night and wait for her to finish, which would be something like 3am. As I didn’t want to spend the entire night stood at the side of the DJ booth waiting for her I asked my brother if he wanted to join me. I explained why I wanted to go out, I assured him that I would be fre ...more

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Mar 25, 2015 Edward rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, fiction, 5-star, translated, japan

Introduction
About the Title
Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Reading

--Kokoro

Notes

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Nov 21, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, japanese-lit, japanese-20th-c, read-in-french, novels

I have mentioned elsewhere that the later Soseki books tend to be darker and more melancholic not to say extremely pessimistic and Kokoro definitely fits this mold. I am NOT taking anything away from the gorgeous language and descriptions here nor the intimate conversations primarily by writing between the protagonist and his Sensei, but it is not something to read if you are down in the dumps. The narrative devices are original even for Soseki and his mastery of character and betrayal of emotio ...more

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Oct 07, 2013 Camille Stein rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

El camino a la verdad es solitario, remoto, escondido.
Pero con un corazón limpio, por él recorro pasados y presentes.
¿Hay un yo en las aguas azuladas, en las azuladas colinas?
Todo es cielo, todo es tierra: artificio no hay en ellos.
En la luz mortecina del crepúsculo, la luna se aparta de la hierba;
y la voz sorda del viento de otoño se queda entre los árboles.
Olvidaré mis ojos y mis oídos; perderé el cuerpo.
Solo en el vacío entonaré de la nube el blanco cántico.

(Natsume Sōseki, 20 de noviembre de ...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Mariel rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: when it dies

Recommended to Mariel by: when it lives

Kokoro translates to "the heart of things". I only know this because the translator's forward said it was so. I need a translator, from my heart's mind to yours (anyone?)... I am afraid that I will wander around in the dark mental spaces again. Gray shades of life experiences and emotional (not necessarily reality) experiences. Who could pick up on the undertones and relevances? I'm truly afraid that worse than making no sense, I'll be sitting at the feet (Muppet babies feet? Peanuts gang feet? Kokoro translates to "the heart of things". I only know this because the translator's forward said it was so. I need a translator, from my heart's mind to yours (anyone?)... I am afraid that I will wander around in the dark mental spaces again. Gray shades of life experiences and emotional (not necessarily reality) experiences. Who could pick up on the undertones and relevances? I'm truly afraid that worse than making no sense, I'll be sitting at the feet (Muppet babies feet? Peanuts gang feet? Warbled voices of unknowable adult world? Something like that) in my open mouthed admiration again. In affection? Most definitely. This affection kept my heart in my mouth when reading Kokoro. That is mine! (Does anyone in my life ever understand that about me? I only hope... It feels wretched when I don't make sense. It is hopeless when I reflect cold.) It's a lonely and reserved affection. I AM going to make no sense again. I related tight rope walking style once again to the great divide in humanity and loneliness. The young student who sees in his Sensei a value of life experiences (damn it it is much, much more than that to him. A lifeline? A tugged line across various life shit. The best part is not holding it alone). Sensei who has willfully lived as dead for a long time from a past betrayal to himself and his friend (he deliberately severed another tugged line, in a sense. Over a girl. Try to make real book sense for a change, Mariel!). Willfully, not willingly. The resolve earlier made would have spared (not saved) him from a lifetime of suspended mental hell. Loneliness. The worst kind because company couldn't change the fact that your own company is unendurable. Not his student's (well, of a sort) affection in loneliness. Kokoro hit me hard because, well, I'm in both of those times all of my time. I believe in this "heart of things" because it is that watching and reaching out affection of lonely connections of the student to the sensei... The not being pushed away, no matter the pushing, future and life shit that could just at the wrong twist of fate and time break the tenous hold. Lines are so damned hard to keep up. I really didn't expect to read this love behind all of this. (I needed it. It'd have been a MUST read if I'd known.) Now I wish I could ever be as sure as the student that these feelings and experiences give the good kind of heavy weight on the balance of that damned tight rope of depression and doubts... I have the affection... I don't have the surety. Sensei? Anyone?

Here are some passages that I marked off for myself.

"The memory that you once sat at my feet will begin to haunt you and, in bitterness and shame, you will want to degrade me. I do not want your admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves."
But the fire behind the cold heart walls! Even I've got 'em...

"I was once deceived," Sensei said. "Moreover, I was deceived by own blood relations. I shall never forget this. When my father was alive, they behaved like decent people. But as soon as he died they turned into scroundrels. The effect of the injury that they did me in my youth is with me still. It will be with me, I suppose, until I die. What they did to me I shall remember so long as I live. But I have never taken my revenge on them. When I think about it, I have done something much worse than that. I have come to hate not only them, but the human race in general. That is quite enough, I think."
Not even words of consolation came to my lips.
I didn't think what his Uncle and family did stealing his inheritance was as shocking as all that. It was his own betrayal that killed. I don't care what Sensei says.

"It would appear that you are unable to distinguish between my ideas at present and the events of my past. I am not much of a thinker, but the few ideas that I do have, I have no wish to hide from others. I have no reason to. But if you are suggesting that I should tell you all about my past- well, that's another matter entirely."
"I do not agree with you. I value your opinions because they are the results of your experience. Your opinions would be worthless otherwise. They would be like soulless dolls."
I saved this for myself because I have long felt such remorse (close to shame) the times I've opened up about stuff. Like I had no right to. (Why am I admitting this? Because this book is more urgent to me than I was led to believe on amazon.com reviews. It's not a predecessor of No Longer Human. It's behind loneliness built up walls affection. Like weeds!)

"It is possible that, in a sense, I deserved his contempt. His point of view of everything was much loftier than mine. I do not deny this. But when the loftiness is merely in one's point of view, then one is hopelessly handicapped as a human being. I decided that what he needed, above all else, was humanizing. No matter how full one's head might be with the image of greatness, one was useless, I found out, unless one was a worthy man first."
Sensei may not have believed it but... Loftiness? What the hell is that good for? I get nosebleeds from looking up at that...

"Time and time again, I wondered what had caused K to commit suicide. At first, I was inclined to think that it was disappointment in love. I could think of nothing but love then, and quite naturally I accepted without question the first simple and straightforward explanation that came to my mind. Later, however, when I could think more objectively, I began to wonder whether my explanation had not been too simple. I asked myself, "Was it perhaps because his ideals clashed with reality that he killed himself?" But I could not convince myself that K had chosen death for such a reason. Finally, I became aware of the possibility that K had experienced loneliness as terrible as mine, and wishing to escape quickly from it, had killed himself. Once more, fear gripped my heart. From then on, like a gust of winter wind, the premonition that I was treading the same path as K had done would rush at me from time to time, and chill me to the bone."
I don't want to be Sensei. Whatever happened with K, that doesn't twist up his other lines. I would want to burn fires for him too.

"Then, at the height of the summer, Emperor Meiji passed away. I felt as though the spirit of the Meiji era had begun with the Emperor and had ended with him. I was overcome with the feeling that I and the others, who had been brought up in that era, were now left behind to live as anachronisms. I told my wife so. She laughed and refused to take me seriously. Then she said a curious thing, albeit in jest: "Well then, junshi is the solution to your problem." (Junshi means "following one's lord to the grave.")
Oh fuck that. There is no such fucking thing. There is no hope at all if that is true. ...more

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Mar 06, 2017 RK-ique rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, sōseki-natsume

As with many 'classic' Japanese novels, 'Kokoro' is a rumination on changing mores. Japan went through many culture shaking changes between the time in 1853 that U.S. Navy Commander and erstwhile 'diplomat' threatened Tokyo with bombardment if Japan did not enter into diplomatic discussions and the post-WWII period.

I found this book to be both fascinating and frustrating as it carries the reader over various times of change. Indeed, I often found myself to be quite upset at the characters as th ...more

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Mar 20, 2010 Praj rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ns, にほん

"How can I escape,except through faith,madness or death?"

Kokoro is an epic melodrama of isolation and self-inflicted guilt. A beautiful heartfelt experience from the exploring friendship between a young graduate student and his mentor(Sensei).Soseki brilliantly unveils an intricate web of egoism,guilt,temptations and loneliness through various anecdotes on Sensei's reclusive living. No wonder Soseki succeeded Lafacdio Hearn as a lecturer in English Literature in the Imperial University(1903).

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Nov 12, 2016 Carol rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, favorites, around-the-world, japan, classics, 1001-books-challenge

I aspire to compose a review. This book richly deserves it.

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Aug 28, 2010 Hadrian rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, japan

Reread, 4/29/2015.

I was reminded about this book by some of Kate Beaton's lovely comics (here, with some plot spoilers) and I thought to reread it again.

All humor aside, this book has stirring emotional set pieces which seem even more interesting and important on second reading.

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Nov 11, 2016 Nancy Oakes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: japanese-fiction, translated-fiction, page-to-screen

11/30/2016 - update: thanks to my love for foreign films, British comedy and other shows which for some reason we cannot get here, we have multi-region dvd capability & so I was able to watch the movie based on this novel. Scroll to the bottom of this post if at all interested in the film.*

Kokoro is,as I discovered, one of those novels where a second reading and a bit of research can completely change what you thought about it after the first time through. The second read was spurred by 1) d 11/30/2016 - update: thanks to my love for foreign films, British comedy and other shows which for some reason we cannot get here, we have multi-region dvd capability & so I was able to watch the movie based on this novel. Scroll to the bottom of this post if at all interested in the film.*

Kokoro is,as I discovered, one of those novels where a second reading and a bit of research can completely change what you thought about it after the first time through. The second read was spurred by 1) discovering that a scholarly controversy had arisen over this book and 2) deciding to pick up and read another translation along with an introduction that explained said controversy. After much time to focus, think and absorb, well, the second time around actually clarified things I had trouble zooming in on after the first time.

The novel is structured in three parts. In part one, the narrator meets and attaches himself to an elder man he calls Sensei, and is soon "yearning for the possibilities of all he had to offer." However, Sensei, who reveals that he distrusts humanity, is reticent to open up about himself, and our narrator often finds himself frustrated when, as he says, "I failed to gain what I sought from him in matters of the mind." However, Sensei also reveals that while he is "suspicious" of most people, he realizes that the narrator seems "too straightforward and open for that," and that Sensei, before he dies, wants to "have trusted just one person." If the younger man could "be that person, ... sincerely in earnest," from his heart, then he will reveal to him the story of his past and leave nothing out, but not right away, since "It requires a suitable moment." What he wants in return is left unspoken for the moment. Eventually the narrator will learn all, but not before part two, which finds him back home with his parents. While there because his father's health is failing, he abandons his own family at a critical moment due to some disturbing news from Sensei, which sets up part three, where all is revealed. Sadly, since everything sort of turns on the revelations in part three, I have to keep silent, since to tell would be to spoil, but this is actually the part where we come to understand Sensei and where we learn exactly what it is he expects from the narrator -- it isn't expressly stated in so many words, but trust me, it's there.

I wish I could make this post less cryptic, but there's a lot happening in this novel that a reader really needs to experience and sort out on his/her own. Look for thematic elements such as the formation of bonds, relationships, betrayal, individual vs. social responsibility, love, and above all, what it really means to bare one's soul/psyche to another. What I will say is that after the second reading, Kokoro became an even darker book than it was the first time through, which I didn't think was possible.

Highly recommended for readers of Japanese literature; it probably won't take everyone two readings, but I got a lot more out of it by doing it that way.

* the movie:

Big differences between page and screen abound here, many of which are covered in the dvd liner notes. As just one example, it's easy to see just how the movie "simplifies" Soseki's novel, "reorders its plot and eliminates some of its subtext while playing up the homosexual implications that are merely latent in the original." I have to say that since the subject doesn't actually come up labeled as such in the novel, I was quite surprised to see a scene in this movie where Mrs. Sensei starts wondering out loud whether or not there's some sort of attraction between her husband and Hioki (the novel's narrator, given a name here) which Hioki quickly denies with an "it's not what your thinking!" response. On the other hand, there's a lot that's left out as well.

Much of the story is revealed through flashbacks, which I think is the best way to have done it, since so much of the novel turns on what happened in the past, which seems to be the overall point of the film. I've seen people criticize this approach used here, but I really don't see how else it could have been done. To tell it in a linear-narrative, chronological style would have wrecked things (as it would have in the novel as well). While the movie is certainly worth watching, the book is much, much better, and should definitely be read first.

...more

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Dec 08, 2014 Kinga rated it it was ok

My book club buddy made us all read it because he was dating a Japanese girl and wanted to learn more about her culture (I hope one day someone reads Prus for me, that would be real love). Anyway, they've been married for a while now, so that should give you an idea how behind I am with my reviews.

After all the melodrama of the Western literature, reading Kokoro was a refreshing experience of emotional restraint. It's an absolute classic, written in 1914, the end of Meiji era when Japan was goi My book club buddy made us all read it because he was dating a Japanese girl and wanted to learn more about her culture (I hope one day someone reads Prus for me, that would be real love). Anyway, they've been married for a while now, so that should give you an idea how behind I am with my reviews.

After all the melodrama of the Western literature, reading Kokoro was a refreshing experience of emotional restraint. It's an absolute classic, written in 1914, the end of Meiji era when Japan was going through somewhat tumultuous cultural changes after centuries of isolation.

All the reviews will tell you that 'Kokoro' means the metaphorical heart, the feeling, the heart of things. It's an apt title even if all those things remain unsaid, ambiguous and floating. Despite its delicate nature this book is really about a cultural clash of the Zen Buddhist values of calm observation and passionless life and the brave new world of obsessive individualism courtesy of the Western Civilisation. You can find the traces of the Western literature (so beloved by Soseki) in a certain despair and hopelessness that often characterises Victorian novels. However, the drama is missing, the passion if it exists is under a lock and key, so in its heart (see, what I did there?) it is definitely a Japanese novel.

The book opens with the narrator, a young student, observing an older man (henceforth called Sensei) bathing in the sea. I can't be the only one detecting some homoerotic undertones in the obsessive admiration that the narrator develops on spot. I mean, I probably think about sex too much, but come on! All that stuff about wind drying wet naked bodies. Come on!

What follows is a story of a baffling friendship between the two, where nothing of consequence is ever said. Ironically, the most important theme of the book is loneliness, the kind that can never be escaped, the kind that's the price that needs to be paid for the indulgence of choosing self over a group.

Kokoro fixates on the guilt and penance but somehow neglects to mention that the kind of penance chosen by Sensei is the one that punishes unfairly everyone around him too; it's the most self-involved kind of punishment. I fail to see anything noble about it.

So should you read this book? Do you care for occasionally exhausting existential ennui and a reminder that we are all alone inside our own heads, forever? If so, then yes, by all means.
...more

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Apr 19, 2015 Carol Rodríguez rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Este ha sido mi estreno con Sōseki (gracias al Club Pickwick), y he salido muy contenta con la experiencia. Es un libro pausado en la narración pero que me ha resultado muy ágil a la hora de leerlo; típico libro de autor japonés en el que parece que no ocurre nada, pero sí que ocurre. No sé muy bien cómo explicarlo, y puede resultar hasta contradictorio, pero siempre tengo esta sensación con los libros que llegan de Japón.

Lo cierto es que me ha gustado mucho. Se separa en tres partes, muy difer Este ha sido mi estreno con Sōseki (gracias al Club Pickwick), y he salido muy contenta con la experiencia. Es un libro pausado en la narración pero que me ha resultado muy ágil a la hora de leerlo; típico libro de autor japonés en el que parece que no ocurre nada, pero sí que ocurre. No sé muy bien cómo explicarlo, y puede resultar hasta contradictorio, pero siempre tengo esta sensación con los libros que llegan de Japón.

Lo cierto es que me ha gustado mucho. Se separa en tres partes, muy diferentes entre sí, de las cuales me quedo con las dos primeras y los últimos diez u once capítulos de la tercera. Es decir, la tercera tal vez sea la que menos me ha convencido, exceptuando el desenlace.

En la primera parte conocemos al narrador, un joven universitario, y a un hombre al que llama Sensei, con el que se cruza por casualidad y que en seguida le deja fascinado porque irradia sabiduría. En este apartado del libro vemos cómo progresa su relación en el Tokio de finales de Era Meiji, y se deja la intriga abierta sobre ciertos secretos del pasado de Sensei que guarda de forma celosa. El principio, debo confesar, me pareció un poco forzado, porque Sensei es un señor que rechaza todo vínculo social, y el chico se le acopla un poco "porque sí", pero la verdad es que en seguida se le coge el ritmo y todo empieza a tener sentido. Muy muy al principio pensaba que iba a ser una historia homosexual, pero resulta que no. Yo creo que Sensei se ve en cierto modo identificado con el chico y por eso le da acceso a su vida, a la par que le regala consejos útiles para aplicar en el día a día y el futuro.

En la segunda parte acompañamos al narrador a la casa de sus padres, en un entorno rural, ya que él viaja allí por una temporada porque su padre esta enfermo. Este apartado se me hizo especialmente fluido y atractivo y es con el que más he disfrutado, a pesar de que tal vez sea el más triste.

Y en la tercera parte será desvelado por fin el tormentoso secreto de Sensei, que también es un momento bastante triste y melancólico del libro, pero muy esclarecedor y que permite ir atando todos los cabos. Confieso que esperaba algo más violento a lo que acaba ocurriendo, pero ahora mismo la verdad es que no puedo imaginar otro final.

Una de las cosas que más ha llamado mi atención es que jamás llegamos a conocer el verdadero nombre de ninguno de los personajes, solo el mote, calificativo o inicial que el narrador les otorga, y aun así la empatía es máxima, porque están perfectamente dibujados.

El final me ha encantado, porque hay ciertos asuntos que no se ve cómo se cierran, pero se sabe perfectamente lo que va a acabar pasando. Esto es muy típico de los autores japoneses y me gusta, porque son muy de dejar cosas entre líneas, a la imaginación, o de no redundar en aspectos obvios de la trama. Sí, me gusta, porque no tratan al lector como a un tonto y no se lo dan todo mascadito. Aplaudo los finales abiertos y ambiguos de los autores japoneses, que aunque con "Kokoro" no sea del todo el caso, aprovecho para decirlo, ya que pasaba por aquí.

Un saludo,
Carol Rodríguez ...more

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Jun 10, 2016 Mahsa rated it really liked it

Shelves: cultural, stays-with-you, japan

اعتماد داشتن اتفاق قشنگ اما خطرناکیه؛ قشنگ چون با داشتنش آرامش خاطر هست، و خطرناک چون با یکبار از دست دادنض تمام سیستم اعتقادی یک آدم از هم میپاشه و میتونه باعث بشه اعتماد برای یک زندگی از دست بره و هرگز برنگرده. شاید بشه گفت اعتماد یکبار مصرف به حساب میاد؛ اگه یک بار خراب بشه، دیگه نمیشه ازش استفاده کرد.

این کتاب در اولین صفحاتش یک معما رو مطرح میکنه؛ معمای رفتار خاص و روش زندگی عجیب "سِنسی"، مردی که گذشتهش یک علامت سوال بزرگه و میل عجیبِ دونستن این گذشته در تمام صفحات کتاب مثل یک عطش دیوونهکنن اعتماد داشتن اتفاق قشنگ اما خطرناکیه؛ قشنگ چون با داشتنش آرامش خاطر هست، و خطرناک چون با یک‌بار از دست دادنض تمام سیستم اعتقادی یک آدم از هم میپاشه و می‌تونه باعث بشه اعتماد برای یک زندگی از دست بره‌ و‌ هرگز برنگرده. شاید بشه گفت اعتماد یکبار مصرف به حساب میاد؛ اگه یک بار خراب بشه، دیگه نمیشه ازش استفاده کرد.

این کتاب در اولین صفحاتش یک معما رو مطرح می‌کنه؛ معمای رفتار خاص و روش زندگی عجیب "سِنسی"، مردی که گذشته‌ش یک علامت سوال بزرگه و میل عجیبِ دونستن این گذشته در تمام صفحات کتاب مثل یک عطش دیوونه‌کننده خواننده رو همراهی می‌کنه. هر سه فصل داستان فضای داستان تاریک و دلسردکننده‌‌س و شخصیت‌ها جنگ‌ سختی رو درون‌ ذهن و قلب‌شون تجربه میکنن.

He needed kind words, as dry land needs rain.

برای هر انسان توی این دنیا یک جنگ وجود داره. یک جنگ که متعلق به همون آدمه و‌ اون در طول تمام روزهای زندگیش یک حضور مداوم در این جنگ رو تجربه میکنه. جنگی که بین حال و ایده‌آل وجود داره، بین خوب بودن یا بد بودن، اعتماد یا عدم اعتماد و‌ هزاران هزار جنگ دیگه که ما هرروز تجربه می‌کنیم؛ جنگ‌هایی که ما رو به چیزی که هستیم تبدیل میکنن و هدایت‌مون میکنن به شخصیت آینده‌مون.

learned to judge others harshly, but not myself.

شخصیت‌های این داستان رو باید اینطور توصیف کنم؛ آدم‌هایی که در افکار و تصوراتشون زندگی می‌کنن. آدم‌هایی که فکر می‌کنن تمام تصوراتشون درباره ی اطرافیان‌شون درسته و دقایق‌ عمرشون رو بر پایه ی اون تصورات خام سپری می‌کنن.
آدم‌هایی که قبل از انجام هرکار اونقدر فکر می‌کنن و فکر می‌کنن که اهمیت انجامش رو گم میکنن و دیگه به‌نظرشون انجام اون کار لازم نیست. پس ازش عبور می‌کنن و به فکر کردن ادامه میدن، به زندگی‌ای که درون ذهن‌شون ساختن ادامه‌ میدن.
و در آخر تمام صفحات این داستان میخواست جمله ی پایین رو به من بگه...

But who are we to judge the needs of another man’s heart?

درون قلب ما یک ذهن وجود داره و مدام در حال فکر کردنه، در حال فرستادن هزاران هزار پیغام به احساسات ما. و شاید مشکل از اینجا شروع میشه که قلب هرکس زبان خاص خودش رو داره و ما از پسِ ترجمه ی حرف‌های قلب همدیگه برنمیایم. که شاید بارها حس کردیم کارهای طرف مقابلمون رو درک نمی‌کنیم، که به یک مترجم نیاز داریم تا معنی تک‌تک سکوت‌ها و نگاه‌ها و‌ کارهاش رو بفهمیم‌. پس وقتی از پس این کار برنیومدیم، شروع کردیم به حدس زدن، به ساختنِ یه تصویر اشتباه از همدیگه توی ذهن‌هامون. شاید اگه همچین مترجمی وجود داشت دنیا جای خیلی ساده‌تری میشد. اما حالا که اون مترجم وجود نداره، شناخت و تصویر ما از آدم‌ها انعکاسی شد از خودمون و از عشق توی قلب‌هامون. تصویری که باید اعتراف کنیم خیلی وقتا حتی نزدیک به واقعیت هم نیست...
(view spoiler) ...more

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Jun 12, 2016 Pau rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites

4,5/5

*Insertar onomatopeya de sorpresa* Vaya libro. Vaya personajes. Vaya drama.
En serio, leer esto fue una delicia. Hacía tiempo que no disfrutaba tanto con el desarrollo de los personajes. Es que creo que es lo más destacable del libro, la caracterización de los personajes. Cómo se explican todas las razones sentimentales/emocionales que influyen cuando un personaje toma una decisión.

No es un libro fácil de resumir ya que está dividido en tres partes y cada una de ellas tiene un hilo conduct 4,5/5

*Insertar onomatopeya de sorpresa* Vaya libro. Vaya personajes. Vaya drama.
En serio, leer esto fue una delicia. Hacía tiempo que no disfrutaba tanto con el desarrollo de los personajes. Es que creo que es lo más destacable del libro, la caracterización de los personajes. Cómo se explican todas las razones sentimentales/emocionales que influyen cuando un personaje toma una decisión.

No es un libro fácil de resumir ya que está dividido en tres partes y cada una de ellas tiene un hilo conductor. Para mí la mejor sin duda fue la primera, Sensei y yo, en la que se desarrolla la relación entre el que se supone que es el protagonista de esta historia (aunque personalmente creo que es Sensei) y Sensei, un señor enigmático. La segunda es la más floja, nos cuenta la relación del protagonista con sus padres y no sale Sensei. Como digo, Sensei es el alma mater de este libro. Y la tercera no estuvo mal pero se me hizo un poco larga, aunque la historia de Sensei merece ser contada con pelos y señales.

Yo creo que este libro es un manual de vida. La conversaciones entre el protagonista y Sensei no tienen desperdicio, cada una me dejaba pensando en cuál sería mi opinión acerca del tema que estuviesen tratando. Temas muy profundos, desde el amor hasta la soledad.

Y Sensei. Qué decir de Sensei para hacerle justicia...A ver, creo que es de mis personajes literarios favoritos. Me identificaba tanto con él pero a la vez lo sentía tan lejos de mí...Es un personaje muy humano, con sus cualidades y sus defectos, sus convicciones y sus contradicciones.

La puntuación no es la máxima porque me hubiese gustado que el libro se centrase más en la primera (sobre todo) y en la tercera parte y se hubiese reducido la segunda. Pero vamos, que yo soy demasiado exigente, esto es una obra maestra.

En fin, que no me extraña que se trate de una lectura obligatoria en los institutos de Japón. Yo creo que se debiera extender al resto del Mundo. Simplemente porque hace pensar y creo que hoy en día es algo muy importante, ya que a gran parte de la sociedad le da pereza pensar. Y además..."Después de todo, Sensei, que hablaba poco y se guardaba cosas para sí, me parecía un hombre mucho más grande que los grandes hombres que trataban de guiarme desde lo alto de sus atriles". ...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Declan rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a very quiet book, one that whispers its way through the details of a friendship between two men but which brings us to an understanding of how the understated detail can be more intense and painful than one which is expressed loudly and with force. The level of restraint and discipline displayed are admirable in many ways, but they coexist with an a great deal of hypocrisy and an expectation of self-imposed subservience .

However the book was marred ,for me, from the beginning by the fa ...more

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Jul 27, 2007 Anne rated it really liked it

This novel, centered around the friendship of a young student and an elder "Sensei", deals with the transition from Japan's Meiji society to the modern era. The young student develops a strange fascination with the misanthrope Sensei and through vague conversations, and ultimately a tell-all epistle, discovers the truth behind the Sensei's ennui and malaise. The book moves slowly, and the reluctance of the characters to just say what they are thinking is a bit tedious, but it is well written and ...more

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Apr 21, 2009 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: big-red-circle

I was concerned that I was finding it a bit dull, and Sensei felt too dramatic and self-important to care what happens to him. He certainly isn't likeable, but his testament in the last chapter is enthralling and makes the book. It leaves us with a very strange ending.

"loneliness is the price we have to pay for being in the modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves"

"But what affected me most was his last sentence, which had perhaps been written as an afterthoug ...more

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Jul 18, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, japanese-lit, japanese-20th-c, read-in-french, novels

This is a sad, bitter book from the end of Soseki's career. Still powerful and gorgeous writing but heartbreaking in theme. I love Soseki's writing but would recommend this AFTER you have read Botchan and I am a Cat. And if you are not taking anti-depressants...

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Aug 01, 2012 linhtalinhtinh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: other-lit, like-a-lot

I am deeply drawn into the atmosphere in Kokoro. There is something so "Japanese" about the book that I could not describe. Quiet, slow, serene, beautiful and seemingly calm, yet somehow so strong, so unsettling, stirring my heart. I enjoyed this feeling, the deeply unsettled emotions.

The story flows and unfolds so very slowly, still somehow I found myself devouring every single word. The mere 250 pages seem to last a lot longer, as if I have experienced the deep, silent, cautiously guarded sadn I am deeply drawn into the atmosphere in Kokoro. There is something so "Japanese" about the book that I could not describe. Quiet, slow, serene, beautiful and seemingly calm, yet somehow so strong, so unsettling, stirring my heart. I enjoyed this feeling, the deeply unsettled emotions.

The story flows and unfolds so very slowly, still somehow I found myself devouring every single word. The mere 250 pages seem to last a lot longer, as if I have experienced the deep, silent, cautiously guarded sadness for years. No sense of time told and felt, except for the death of Emperor Meiji briefly mentioned and related. Other than that, at times time is so fleeting, and others it's unmoving. No name, either, all characters remain intensely anonymous. Interestingly, unlike other fictions in Western world, or at least in books that I have read where people seem to be happily confined to: "he," "she," "the man," etc., Japanese language can address people in a simple and polite way yet it is able to add a lot of information such as the expected attitudes we are supposed to have towards them. "Sensei," "okusan," "ojousan," just to name a few, are some of such convenient words. In fact, I did not realize that no name is told until well into a third of the book. Just names of places are there for us to grasp that this is still Japan with its culture and transforming society.

(view spoiler)

The book strikes me, further more, with its remarkable honesty. We readers, in contact with these characters, are from time to time forced by Natsume Souseki to encounter the little ugliness of life, which I myself often try to ignore. Or is it because I myself am ugly that I notice that ugliness? ...more

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Jun 19, 2017 PeggyCarter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Creo que este libro va a tenerme asimilando su lectura unos días... ha terminado emocionándome, sentimientos a flor de piel.

Se trata de una obra de la literatura japonesa clásica, de lectura obligatoria en los colegios japoneses y mi primer acercamiento a este país en cuanto a literatura se refiere.
Con capítulos cortos y una pluma sublime, el autor expresa con palabras perfectamente los sentimientos humanos, las pasiones, la fragilidad del alma...
Todo gira entorno a temas tan humanos como la mue ...more

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Sep 10, 2010 Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Modern Japanese writers have this knack of tugging at one’s heartstrings. They express deep and honest sentiments without too much fuss. Their honesty is their own subtlety. They can avoid sentimentalism by hiding under its veil and peeking from it from time to time. Sōseki is one such writer, and in Kokoro he has given us an anatomy of loneliness and mortality. The existential pain is muted, as if dampening the piercing cries of a melodrama, only to produce a howling silence.

The novel is divide ...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Mag rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, asia, japan, literature, ebook

It's a classic revered among the Japanese. Even though it did not disappoint me in any way, I must say that I did not enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed books by Kawabata or Tanizaki. Not to mention Murakami, but he is a different era altogether.
Kokoro means heart in Japanese, and it stands for not only the physical heart but also for the metaphorical heart of the matter and the spiritual center of being. In the book, it can be taken to mean all of the above, and some aspects of it can even be ...more

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Aug 18, 2013 Daniel Clausen rated it it was amazing

私はその人を常に先生と呼んでいた。だからここでもただ先生と書くだけで本名は打ち明けない。

This is the first line of Kokoro, a fantastic line that sets the stage for the story of the relationship between a young man and an older gentleman he refers to as Sensei.

"I usually call the person "sensei." And so, here I will just refer to him as "sensei" without revealing his true name."

Like much of Soseki's books, the tone is gentle with quite a bit of dialogue and not much of what Westerners would call action. Many of the book's themes are univer ...more

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Sep 21, 2015 Ruba AlTurki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

تقع الرواية في ثلاثة اجزاء ... وتتحدث عن علاقة طالب ب"المعلم" ، صدفة اللقاء وانجذاب هذا التلميذ للمعلم لسبب غامض لم يدركه هو نفسه، اكثر ما اعجبني بالرواية انها تتحدث بشخصية الطالب وعمره الساذجين ونظرته غير المكتملة للحياة والناس.
في الجزء الاول يتحدث عن المعلم وعنه وعن احاديثهما وحياتيهما<
ثم في الجزء الثاني ينتقل لوالده وحياته وعائلته في الريف.
ثم واخيرا رسالة المعلم.. حيث تتكشف كثير من الحقائق وكما هي كثير من الاعمال اليابانية تبدآ بهدوء وتتركك بهدوء خارجي ، لكنها تحدث فوضى داخلية عميقة.
الادب ...more

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Oct 26, 2012 umberto rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, japan

I found reading Soseki's "Kokoro" interestingly enjoyable and impressive because at first I didn't think I'd reat it at all due to its plain title. I knew it's Japanese but it meant nothing to me, however, I read somewhere this novel is one of his outstanding works. So I thought reading it should be worth spending my free time.

"Kokoro" meaning "the heart of things" (p. vi) superbly translated by Edwin McClellan whom I've never read before is definitely one of Soseki's masterpieces since we reade ...more

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Apr 25, 2012 AC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: japan, novels-japanese-asian

I found the first two parts of this book compellingly brilliant -- and had decided that the book was an allegory. The narrator of Parts I-II, who speaks in the first person, is not the author (note the ages/dates), but an exemplum of Japanese Modernity -- where Sensei is an exemplum of the Meiji period. But by the end of Part III, this interpretation was untenable, and the sheer neurosis of the story had begun to weigh on me. Hence the 4-stars (instead of 5).

The Emperor Meiji died in 1912; this ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 Josh rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016

"I felt very strongly the sinfulness of man. It was this feeling that sent me to K's grave every month, that made me take care of my mother-in-law in her illness and behave gently towards my wife. It was this sense of sin that led me to feel sometimes that I would welcome a flogging even at the hands of strangers. When this desire for punishment became particularly strong, I would begin to feel that it should come from myself, and not others. Then I would think of death. Killing myself seemed a ...more

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Aug 07, 2017 Jenna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, asian-writers

A story about human fallibility, the universality and inescapability of sin, and the relentlessness of guilt and self-punishment, told with tremendous elegance and many beautiful internal symmetries, as unputdownable as a whodunit, as psychologically penetrating as Henry James, and as simple and stark as a Greek tragedy. Kokoro also happens to be a work of cultural interest, one of the early modern Japanese novels and an elegy for a dying era in Japanese history, but, really, anyone who has ever ...more

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“I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.” — 236 likes

“You seem to be under the impression that there is a special breed of bad humans. There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men.” — 180 likes

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