Preface
Kinnosuke Natsume, better known by his pen-name “Sōseki,” 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.
Sōseki Natsume was born in , 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 , 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 . While in the university, Sōseki formed a close friendship with Shiki Masaoka, which lasted until the latter’s death separated them in . Shiki Masaoka was the greatest figure in the revival of hokku poetry in rejuvenated Japan, and Sōseki’s association with him accounts for the novelist’s mastery of that branch of literature.
After finishing his postgraduate course in the university in , 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 , 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 .
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.
Soon after his debut as a fiction writer with meteoric brilliance, Sōseki resigned his post at Tokyo Imperial University and also First High School, and accepted a position in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun (newspaper) Office as its literary editor. Five years later he was seized with ulceration of the stomach, from which he never really recovered, and he died in December, .
If Sōseki’s rise to fame was meteoric, his retention of it was also meteoric, it lasting only five years, before he bowed to an illness that sent him to the grave in another five years.
All of Sōseki’s writings have a ring distinctly his own and are pervaded by a vein of thought, which is the happiest combination of humour born of poetical acumen and well meaning cynicism of the human heart. Especially is this true of Kusamakura or “The Pillow of Grass,” which is a poetical way in Japanese of speaking of a journey or tour, and is rendered into “Unhuman Tour” in the present translation, from its contents rather than its literal meaning.
In Kusamakura, Sōseki is at his best in giving free play to his artistic fancies and contempt for conventional worldliness, to visualise a refined Bohemianism, if there be such a thing, by summoning all his literary skill. How his dissertations on his own dreamy fancies, occurring frequently in the story, will take with the Western readers is problematical; but they most fascinatingly appeal to the Japanese mind, which always takes the highest delight in things that are presented with philoso-poetical humour. Kusamakura was the most successful of Sōseki’s work, second only to I Am a Cat.
It should be added that the present translator is not conceited enough to think that his English version, which nearly covers the whole original text of Kusamakura, is doing anything like justice to the master strokes of its creator. He considers himself well repaid for his labor, if he succeeds in giving an idea of the trend of thought and atmosphere which Sōseki loved to produce and for which he is so ardently liked by his countrymen.
It is to be added that no attempt has been made at versification in translating poems of all kind, but to barely transliterate the original.