#soseki: a tragic father

[plinko-mori]

Rintarou had a good relationship with his children, you will not find anything about them speaking bad about his father or being afraid of him... Rintarou Mori never gave them traumas, he was an admirable dad

For what I know, his ex couple's didn't hate him at all... But I can't confirm this information since I don't remember where I may be read that

On the other hand, Soseki Natsume's children were traumatized, afraid of him... He had most horrible memories than good memories with their dad, some of them completely feared him, others had still respect for their dad

The "special case" being one of Soseki's grandchildren who was extremely empathetic towards him

His ex-wife ended up bad psychologically speaking because oh Natsume's behavior, which is extremely depressing

Isn't it curious how in BSD we see the opposite?

Mori is remembered mostly for bad things, both fandom and characters

Natsume is remembered for more good things, both fandom and characters

[cathy-plus-e]

While she was still alive, I did not think Hinako was more precious than the other children. But now that she's gone, she looks the best, and now I feel I don't need the remaining 6 children

—Natsume Sōseki

Extract from Sōseki: A Tragic Father, Article written by Yoko McClain, Sōseki Natsume's grandson

[biggie-chcese]

top 5 dgs

RYUNOSUKE NARUHODO <333333333 (he's everything he's the love of my life he has an incredible arc he's such a good character he seems normal and Is Not That he fundamentally toppled the top of Britain's legal system, didn't elaborate, and left. what a guy)

Barok van Zieks (what can i say, i'm a sucker for characters with arcs like this. he's tortured and tragic and awful and sexy while doing it)

Susato Mikotoba (literally the best assistant character in all of ace attorney. her struggle with her role as a woman in her time period as well as her incredible dynamic with ryu is just everything. i could go on about what family is to her, how her father left at birth and her brother always kept her at a distance and her imposter syndrome and aughhhh. also her design fucks supremely, the mix of eastern kimono with western style boots is so perfect)

Iris Watson (im not saying wilson sorry. anyway i thought the genius inventor child would annoy me but no, she's incredible. she's an absolute delight whenever on screen her theme is so silly and she's oddly grounded for her archetype. also, the way she is basically SURROUNDED by tragedy yet is just a beam of sunshine is incredible

Soseki Natsume. He's funny <3

[anthonysjapaneselitblog]

Non-Fiction Japanese Books

The Silent Cry 1Q84

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 

by Haruki Murakami is a tour de force—and one of Haruki Murakami’s most acclaimed and beloved novels.

In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is an astonishingly imaginative detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets from Japan’s forgotten campaign in Manchuria during World War II.

A Personal Matter

by Kenzaburo OE is a novel by Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe. Written in 1964, the novel is semi-autobiographical and dark in tone. It tells the story of Bird, a man who must come to terms with the birth of his mentally disabled son

The Silent Cry

by Kenzaburō Ōe,  John Bester (translator)

Two brothers, Takashi and Mitsu, return from Tokyo to the village of their childhood. The selling of their family home leads them to an inescapable confrontation with their family history. Their attempt to escape the influence of the city ends in failure as they realize that its tentacles extend to everything in the countryside, including their own relationship.

1Q84

by Haruki Murakami,  Jay Rubin (Translator),  Philip Gabriel (Translator)

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.”

The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu is a classic work of Japanese literature written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The original manuscript, created around the peak of the Heian period, no longer exists.

Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and burgeoning sexuality. It is told from the first-person perspective of Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo.

Coin Locker Babies

Novel by Ryū Murakami

A surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today.

Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Kokoro

Novel by Natsume Sōseki

No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro—meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei." Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century.

Kitchen

Novel by Banana Yoshimoto

Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Novel by Yukio Mishima

Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone until he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto. He quickly becomes obsessed with the beauty of the temple. Even when tempted by a friend into exploring the geisha district, he cannot escape its image. In the novel's soaring climax, he tries desperately to free himself from his fixation.

[shawnsjapaneselitblog]

Ten Interesting Japanese Novels

Purple Haze Feedback by Kohei Kadono Purple Haze Feedback is a novelized continuation of the story of GioGio's Bizarre Adventure, the 5th iteration of an ongoing manga series by Hirohiko Araki. It was written by Kohei Kadono, but approved by, and considered part of the main story by Araki himself. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. (Amazon) Battle Royale by Koushun Takami Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller envisions a nightmare scenario: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan—where it became a runaway best seller—Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. (Amazon) The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. (Amazon) In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami It is just before New Year's. Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's sleazy nightlife on three successive evenings. But Frank's behavior is so strange that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: that his new client is in fact the serial killer currently terrorizing the city. (Goodreads) Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart. (Amazon) Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami Almost Transparent Blue is a brutal tale of lost youth in a Japanese port town close to an American military base. Murakami?s image-intensive narrative paints a portrait of a group of friends locked in a destructive cycle of sex, drugs and rock?n?roll. The novel is all but plotless, but the raw and often violent prose takes us on a rollercoaster ride through reality and hallucination, highs and lows, in which the characters and their experiences come vividly to life. Trapped in passivity, they gain neither passion nor pleasure from their adventures. Yet out of the alienation, boredom and underlying rage and grief emerges a strangely quiet and almost equally shocking beauty. (Amazon) Out by Natsuo Kirino This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot's ringleader but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society. (Amazon) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. (Barnes and Noble) I Am a Cat by Soseki NatsumeWritten from 1904 through 1906, Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him. (Amazon)