Classics Considered

During the pandemic I stumbled across an online Japanese literature class, taught by an interpreter and language instructor named Ikuya Takahashi. I like to mention it every so often, because it was well organized, affordable, and fun. We read many short stories, and I learned a lot of history that was new to me.

From my memories of this class, I was able to recall the Meiji Restoration and modernization efforts that Japan underwent in the late 1800s. This is when Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro takes place. Still, you don’t really need to know much about the Meiji era to enjoy the book—it is an intimate novel in the sense that it centers around a few characters, around their loneliness and loss. The social changes and the great historical events loom overhead, stooping down now and then to touch the characters’ lives, sometimes with shocking outcomes. But the bulk of the novel is simply about human beings.

The title translated literally means “heart”, but also translates as “affection”, “spirit”, “resolve”, “courage”, “sentiment”, or “the heart of things”.

Kokoro (Wikipedia)

Our anonymous narrator meets an older man in the locker room at the beach and becomes obsessed with him. While this might sound like the beginning of a shady romance, there is a deeper cause of his stalkerish limerence which is eventually revealed. In the first part of the novel, all we know is that this young student is desperate for the friendship of this man he calls Sensei (teacher). Sensei, for his part, warns his admirer he is not all he seems—that, in fact, he hides a dark secret which would change others’ opinion of him. The narrator’s feelings for Sensei are thrown into further complexity when the student is summoned away for a family emergency. There, at a distance, he contemplates his future prospects and the person he misses.

The novel is divided into three parts: “Sensei and I,” “My Parents and I,” and “Sensei’s Testament.” Each of these parts, while intersecting each other, could almost be read as standalone novellas. I felt that each story was its own experience and journey, in which I surveyed the characters under a slightly different light. They feel like chapters of a life, not exactly tidy but having their own sense of completeness. The elegant and unassuming 2010 translation by Meredith McKinney added to the sense of confident simplicity that I love about Japanese literature.

As with The Gate, herein lie very few dramatic plot twists. Kokoro is a slow burn, a gripping psychological drama. It left me a lot of space to think about my own life, my own relationships, and the power of love or alienation to pull us in different directions. I was especially touched by the narrator’s affection for Sensei contrasted with that for his father—this yearning for a close father figure that feels uniquely Asian (though it is really a universal longing). From these two novels, I readily understand now why Sōseki is so highly revered in Japanese literature. It’s not just that he captures a particular zeitgeist so well, or that his characters feel like real people, but he peels back the layers of the onion with a fine nuance that doesn’t lose its heart.

Kokoro is the quintessential Japanese novel, as well as a product of its time in many ways. I can’t say that its depictions of misogyny or seppuku (ritual suicide) sit easily with me. But what I found to be hard in the novel was also what made it important for me to reflect on. I was captivated by the way characters viewed morality and justice, even when it pained me to watch the outcome.

It’s eerie to have read Kokoro in 2024, on the verge of another contentious US election… I’m reminded of Osamu Dazai’s The Setting Sun, which I read at a similar time in 2020. In response to Dazai, I had written a reflection on how Christianity resolves the problems he posed. Kokoro has brought me back to the same place from a different angle.

Sensei’s friend “K” has a copy of the Bible which he reads because he is curious about a religious text that brings some people comfort. It’s a passing reference which Sōseki never comes back to. Later on, Sensei perceives the need to atone for cruelty, but he does not know of Christ’s substitution, nor forgiveness. Beauty and love in Kokoro are lost in this lingering desire for restitution.

Out of the many tragedies of the novel, the one which grieves me most is the spiritual death it portrays. It leads to what Dazai’s protagonist called “natural” ends, since there is nothing to hold one back. This destruction goes on to perpetuate itself in other characters’ lives—Kokoro is, after all, a story of inheritance. Anyone who has lived through this in their own family knows what power this can hold, over generations even.

I rarely feel like I have my life put together. Hope is something I wrestle for, more often than rest in. But being loved by Christ is what anchors my being against my ongoing depression, mistakes I’ve made, and changing times. It is He who tells me to get up in the morning and keep going, if just to add a little to the world instead of taking away. No matter what crosses the path, I will never leave it.