Nowaki
Natsume Soseki
Translated and with an Afterword and Chronology
By William N. Ridgeway
vii + 120 pp., Copyright 2011
ISBN 978-1-929280-68-1. Paper only. $15.00
Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, Number 72
Publication Date: 6/13/2011
Published by the Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan
See our website at https://www.cjspubs.lsa.umich.edu/books/list/mono72.php to order
“The irony in the portrayal of characters, even those with whom Soseki seems to sympathize, and the sharpness of the details of life in the Tokyo of 1907, make this work more enjoyable than many of his more accomplished novels.”
—Donald Keene, DAWN TO THE WEST
“Written by an intellectual steeped in the traditions of Chinese learning and English literature, NOWAKI stands apart from the works of the naturalist school in its audacity of moral judgment, its rigorous intellectuality, and its defense of certain literary and moral ideals.”
—Angela Yiu, CHAOS AND ORDER IN THE WORKS OF NATSUME SOSEKI
Shirai Doya is a man of letters, a man of principles. His principles sometimes stand in the way of his teaching career, but his writing allows him to openly address “today’s youth” with stern conviction—although he is still unable to make a comfortable living from his writing. Two youths in particular show interest in his ideas: the tubercular impoverished Takayanagi, an aspiring writer himself (and former student of Doya’s, as it turns out), and his rich friend, the dandy Nakano. The lives and minds of the three men come together in ways that are both commonplace and surprising. The setting—mainly Tokyo of one hundred years ago—and the preoccupations of these characters will appear distinctly familiar, even today.
William Ridgeway holds a B.A. in Japanese from UCLA, an M.A. in Asian Studies from Sophia University (Tokyo), and a Ph.D. in Japanese Literature from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the author of A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE NOVELS OF NATSUME SOSEKI. He resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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