Kokoro

by Natsume Sōseki

Paperback, 248 pages

English language

Published Jan. 25, 1957 by Gateway Editions.

ISBN:: 978-0-89526-715-3

(13 reviews)

No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he complete 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.

9 editions

struppi reviewed Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki

Review of 'Kokoro' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

“Have you ever been in love?”
I said no.
“Don’t you want to be in love?”
I said nothing in reply.
“It isn’t that you don’t want to fall in love, is it?”
“No.”
“You’ve made fun of that couple, didn’t you? But actually, you sounded to me like a person who is dissatisfied because he has not yet been able to fall in love, though he wants to.”
“Did I sound like that?”
“Yes, you did. A person who has been in love himself would have been more tolerant and would have felt warmer towards the couple. But—but do you know that there is guilt also in loving? I wonder if you understand me?”
I was surprised, and said nothing.

Mark Anderson reviewed Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki

Review of 'Kokoro' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Despite its age and translation, this story still feels surprisingly fresh, perhaps due to a timeless quality of simplicity.

pnutbutterprincess reviewed Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki

Review of 'Kokoro' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

This book was not exactly a light read; really more of a sobering one, but excellent. In Kokoro, the author contrasts two men, and older and a younger, with similar personalities, though the older man has been altered by his past experiences. Kokoro examines the topics of love, guilt, grief, shame, and isolation, which through the narrator's voice come closer and are portrayed both in how the younger man views his older friend, and the older man's own experiences of these feelings.