Kusamakura
Natsume Sōseki
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Walking along a mountain path towards a remote hot springs hotel, our unnamed protagonist muses on his theory of “unhumanity” and his hopes that it will break him out of his creative block. On arrival, the town itself has plenty of unhumanity on display, but while poems on those subjects spring easily to mind, painting still eludes him. Will the mysterious Nami-san, the daughter of the hotel owner, be the catalyst that unlocks that frustratingly out-of-reach art?
Natsume Sōseki was already a household name in Japan after his previous novels I Am a Cat and Botchan, but it was the success of Kusamakura that allowed him to give up his role as a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University to focus on writing. Kusamakura translates to English directly as “grass pillow,” which for the Japanese reader has a connotation of a poetic wandering; for this edition Takahashi Kazutomo added the subtitle “Unhuman Tour” to bring the same feeling to the translation.
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Walking along a mountain path towards a remote hot springs hotel, our unnamed protagonist muses on his theory of “unhumanity” and his hopes that it will break him out of his creative block. On arrival, the town itself has plenty of unhumanity on display, but while poems on those subjects spring e...
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1 review
William Pyles
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August 24, 2024
Of the translations I've read this is by far the best one. But the book itself is rather dull, with a plot that goes nowhere and characters that never develop enough to make you care. There is certainly beauty in this book though, with the dialogue sometimes making you think on how you view art and the artist, and the world as a whole in the lense of art. 4 stars is too much, 3 too little. 7/10
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