To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (Tuttle Classics) by Natsume Soseki (EPUB)

Description

This classic Japanese story by Soseki Netsume—the foremost novelist of the Meiji Period–is a masterpiece of Japanese literature.This book demonstrates Soseki Natsume’s ability to dissect and elucidate the human personality in all its complexity. Here, his facile blending of narrative, extended monologue and sharp dialog leaves the reader with an almost personal knowledge of the characters. We are introduced to Keitaro, a recent college graduate hunting for his first job; he is the hero through whose eyes the other characters are seen. There is also Morimoto, the young adventurer with his tall tales; Sunaga, a troubled young man whose moving story forms the center of the novel; Taguchi, Sunaga’s fun–loving yet practical uncle; Matsumoto, another uncle–a high–class “idler,” but wise in his own way; and Chiyoko, Sunaga’s cousin and apparently the cause of much of his distress.Keitaro does not merely tell us the story of the others, however. Their lives are a part of his elucidation beyond that of the world of academia, and his knowing them enables him eventually to experience, however directly or indirectly, the romantic, the practical, the philosophical, and the existential.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Spring Equinox and Beyond it’s a faithful portray of the urban Japanese society in the early twenty century. Japan society of status is presented at Keitaro’s search for a job, and the price he is willing to pay for Taguchi’s help. This author is one of Japan’s finest. I recommend it.

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⭐Unusual novel where a young man gains experience through listening to others’ stories rather than going through extreme adventures

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⭐Keitaro is a university graduate wrestling with his next steps in life. In Natsume Soseki’s To The Spring Equinox And Beyond (1912), we come to know the close circle of friends and family who influence his meditations. His roommate, Morimoto, a train station clerk, is in one way the most ephemeral of his acquaintances, his wandering spirit the most extremely rootless, quite soon skipping out on the rent and writing letters advising Keitaro to join him on his adventures in China. But Morimoto bequeaths Keitaro with a most important talisman, a serpent-headed walking stick left behind after his flight. This magic wand accompanies Keitaro on his first professional foray: another friend, and the one most central to the narrative, Sunaga, introduces him to his businessman uncle, Taguchi, who sets upon Keitaro a curious mission: wait at a tramstop til 4.30 and follow a disembarking passenger, a man with a salt-and-pepper cloak, a broad mustache, and a mole prominent between his brows. Before he goes out on his job, feeling in need of guidance, he consults an oracle, a fortune-teller of the neighborhood, who implies that his bringing along an important object, the walking stick he intuits, is essential to the successful completion of his task. The ensuing phenomenon of apprentice spying, of gaining knowledge from observation and intuition rather than experience is a cornerstone of the work of another favorite of mine, Javier Marias. While he waits, long past the appointed hour, there seems to be an alluring woman standing at the same spot, a woman who caught his eye briefly at Sunaga’s house, and who turns out to be the romantic focus of the novel, Chiyoko. The mole-browed man finally arrives and is greeted in his tardy assignation by Chiyoko. Keitaro follows them down the rabbit hole to their meal, curious as to the nature of their relationship. As it happens, the man is revealed as Matsumoto a self-described ‘high-class idler’, brother to Taguchi, uncle to Chiyoko.The main body of Equinox is Sunaga’s narrative of his complicated and mostly repressed feelings for the forthright Chiyoko, who was promised to him at the time of her birth (this coloured by Keitaro’s obvious crush on her), and Matsumoto’s own narrative account of philosophical musings and advice to the troubled Sunaga.Detachment, then, is variously invoked: growth and knowledge gained from the experience of others; engagement with society as opposed to a hermetic life of meditation and solitude (a through-line in much of Soseki’s life and work).

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