Unhuman Tour: Kusamakura

KINNOSUKE NATSUME, better known by his pen-name “Soseki,” was one of, if not, greatest fiction writers, modern Japan has produced. A man of solid university education unlike many another of the fraternity, he established a school of his own, in point of originality in style, and what is more important, in the angle from which he observed human affairs. More points of difference about him from others were the complete absence in his case of romantic elements and adversities, almost always inseparable from the early life of literary geniuses, and the sudden blazing into fame from obscurity, except as a popular school teacher and then a university professor, with some partiality for the “hokku” school of poetry.

Soseki Natsume was born in January, 1867, a third son of an old family in Kikui-cho, Tokyo. His education after a primary school course took a deviation, for some years, into the old-fashioned study of Chinese classics. It was probably then that he laid foundation, perhaps unknown to himself, of the development of his literary talent, that later blossomed out so picturesquely; and he was different, also, in this respect from the later Meiji era writers, who went, many of them, through a Christian mission school, and were all under the influence of Western literature.

In 1884, our future novelist entered the Yobimon College, intending to become an architect; but later changing his mind he took a course in the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University, from which he graduated in 1892. While in the university, Soseki formed a close friendship with Shiki Masaoka, which lasted until the latter’s death separated them in 1904. Shiki Masaoka was the greatest figure in the revival of hokku poetry in rejuvenated Japan, and Soseki’s association with him accounts for the novelist’s mastery of that branch of literature.

After finishing his post-graduate course in the university in 1895, Kinnosuke Natsume taught successively in Matsuyama Middle School in Iyo, and the Fifth High School in Kumamoto, making no name particularly for himself except as a bright, promising scholar. He took a wife unto himself in 1896, and was four years later sent by the Government to England to study English literature. In three years he returned home to be appointed Lecturer in Tokyo Imperial University. About this time his “London Letters” in Shiki Masaoka’s Hokku magazine, the Hototogisu, began to attract attention; but it was not till the publication of the first book of maiden work “I Am A Cat”, that he suddenly entered the temple of fame. That was in 1905.

The “Cat” with its perfect novelty of conception, style, study of human nature, etc., made him, at once, a star of first magnitude in the literary firmament, and from that time on, for the next five years, his productions, long and short, followed in a constant stream, including “Botchan” (Innocent in Life); “Kusamakura” (Unhuman Tour); “Sanshiro”; “Kofu” (The Miner); “Hinageshi” (The Corn-poppy) and many others, some, perhaps many, of which are assured an immortal life.