Soseki and England
Like Okubo Toshimichi and others, Soseki Natsume was sent overseas. Literature was key to understanding the Colonial Powers. If the Meiji regime could figure out their thought, they could replicate their progress. So, while fond of Chinese classics, Soseki studied English at Tokyo Imperial University.
Soseki spent two years living in Clapham, London, where he was miserable and ended his stay close to nervous collapse. When he returned, he assumed a teaching post at Tokyo Imperial University and began to write novels. He had gained first-hand, contextual practice with English language and culture. What lesson did he learn?
Two Perspectives in One
Soseki Natsume wrote modernist novels, not autobiographical fiction. You pick a major Soseki work: Kokoro (Heart) (1914). You bring the bare, green hardback to a cushioned chair near a window and begin reading. You are lost in it right away.
Soseki structures Kokoro around the relationship between an older man and a college student. The older man is about the age of Soseki at the time of its writing (age 46 in 1914) with a similar education in the Chinese classics. The older man and Soseki lived in a time of rapid change that they struggle to relate to.
The unnamed young narrator seeks out the older man, who he calls Sensei or teacher, and feels that the older man has wisdom yet to impart. Educated in the Taisho period, the young man looks down on his earnest, countryside dwelling father and frames his future in terms of individual achievement and city life outside of obligation and even much of an inner life.
Emotional Disclosure
Sensei is annoyed at the presence of the young student, but eventually accepts his friendship–the only meaningful relationship he now has other than his wife. After graduation, the student returns home after hearing that his father is ill. After the student tries to maintain correspondence, he receives nothing from Sensei until a long letter: a confession.
When the novel leaves the young narrator and reads from the letter, this novel kicks it to another level. Soseki had conceived of this letter as the whole novel. The central relationship of the novel is merely a framing device for this letter that reads like a Japanese autobiographical novel with its sincerity, unburdening of guilt, and a clue into the life of the author. A Western novel with a Japanese center. Yes: Soseki himself.