Kokoro

Kokoro is a novel from Natsume Sōseki's late period. Serialized in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun and Osaka Asahi Shimbun from April to August 1914, it was published in book form by Iwanami Shoten in September of the same year and is regarded as one of the summits of Sōseki's literature. The book consists of three parts—"Sensei and I," "My Parents and I," and "Sensei's Testament": the first three parts are formally independent yet echo one another in content. The story begins with "I" meeting a proud and aloof "Sensei" on the beach at Kamakura. Drawn to Sensei's learning and detachment, "I" visits him often but can never touch the hidden wound deep in his heart; meanwhile, "I" shuttles between my hometown and Tokyo for study, work, and my parents' illness. Before long, "I" receives a long letter from Sensei—his testament to the world. In it, Sensei recounts his youth, when he lived with his close friend K and both loved the daughter of their landlady: out of selfish calculation, he proposed to the landlady first, and K, learning the truth, chose to kill himself. In the years that follow, Sensei carries his guilt toward K and his concealment from his wife, growing ever more isolated amid the tug-of-war between morality and the self, until at last he dies for his principles. With a slow, calm, and deeply moving touch, the novel lays bare the conflict between the selfish heart and the moral heart, and portrays the contradictory, wistful, helpless inner world of intellectuals during the Meiji era's social transformation. Sōseki called it "a book that probes the human heart" and recommended it to anyone who longs to probe their own.