Kokoro - [short] Book Review
As my first Sōseki reading experience, Kokoro managed to capture my attention with its beautiful imagery of nature in Japan, the portrayal of loneliness and human suffering, and the significance of relationships. The novel begins with an introduction of Sensei’s character by the protagonist. While Sensei is one of the main characters in Kokoro, we don’t know anything about him until the last half of the book, whose “testament” of his past not only takes us by surprise but shakes us to the core, which is effectively applied here by Sōseki, who is aware of how loneliness paired with tragedy could result in emotional response by the reader.
The narrator encounters Sensei during his summer holidays, where he is intrigued by him after he sees him with a Westerner. Very soon, the narrative voice comes to befriend Sensei, but he notes that he knows nothing about Sensei’s life. What I particularly found infuriating was how persistent the narrator was in pushing Sensei to reveal everything about himself, like a journalist who would not leave until you tell them what they want to hear. Just like Sensei, I grow patient with the narrator as well, seeing that he is simply curious to know about his friend, so that he could be able to help him overcome his loneliness and his disgust towards society.
The narrator, along with the readers, comes to know of Sensei’s past after his long confessional letter towards the end. Sōseki reveals Sensei’s history steadily, so that we come to understand the reasons behind his loneliness, his disgust, his guilt. A teenaged Sensei is deceived by his blood relations after the passing of his parents, leaving him to doubt the intentions of not just the people in his life but of the entire humanity. He finds himself rivaling his good friend, ‘K’, over the same girl the two of them love. He holds himself accountable for his friend’s tragedy. In the end, Sensei, who detested his uncle for deceiving him, turns into a figure that betrays his friend by going behind his back and humiliating him; he turns into the same figure he hates the most. Thus, when he expresses his distaste for the society, he indirectly means himself out of guilt.
Sensei’s friend, K, whose ambitions were different from what his family had expected of him, is someone who finds himself suspended in life. Sōseki does not just display his loneliness by being abandoned or being betrayed, but also by showing the uncertainty that he feels for his future. As an anxious person who wishes to know everything that surrounds me, the future terrifies me of its unknown as well. We constantly question if things will work out in the end and this constant questioning eats at us, making us forget to see everything through the eyes of the present.
Sōseki captures the true nature of human agony and loneliness effectively in Kokoro not with the silent walks taken with a companion, but with the change of an era. The end of the Meiji era is marked after the death of Emperor Meiji, leaving the people from that era finding themselves lost. A whole generation of people find it suddenly difficult to adjust to a new period. Although titled Kokoro, meaning heart or the matters of the heart, Sōseki also shows Sensei urging practicality, for instance in inheritance matters. I absolutely loved this book (despite disliking the narrator’s chauvinistic thoughts), and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I highly recommend everyone to read this to gain an insight into oneself. Sensei’s letter is not simply a confession, but a lesson to its reader: To open up one’s vulnerable heart, and for others to not take advantage of it.
