The Miner

The Miner (Kōfu) was originally serialized in a Tokyo newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, in 1908. In the opening paragraph of The Miner (Kōfu), Sōseki suggests what the reader is in for: "Just pine trees and pine trees and more pine trees that don't add up to anything." Like the trees, which are never seen as constituting a fully comprehended forest, the events of the book are not going to "develop," he hints in an odd locution. Abandoning any hope of forcing either the trees or the events into a preconceived framework, he will play games with them, hoping for some sense of mastery—and perhaps some fun. Experience for the protagonist turns out to be a long, often funny series of discreet thoughts and sense impressions that constitutes neither a conclusive picture of the world nor a finished portrait of himself. Life, for him, is merely "a series of constantly changing colors . . . images in a picture scroll", and a literary work that remains true to life (and, most important, true to the indeterminate nature of human personality) will never "turn into a novel".