JAPANESE LITERATURE AND CULTURE [CONTINUED FROM FRONT FLAP] REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DOOR Marcus identifies memory and melancholy as key themes in Sōseki’s Much has been written about Natsume personal writings and highlights their Sōseki (1867–1916), one of Japan’s most relevance in his fiction. He balances celebrated writers. Known primarily for Sōseki’s account of his Tokyo household his novels, he also published a large and with that of his wife, Natsume Kyōko, who diverse body of short personal writings left a straightforward record of life with (shōhin) that have long lived in the shadow her celebrated husband. Sōseki crafted of his fictional works. The essays, which a moving and convincing voice in his appeared in the Asahi shinbun between shōhin, which can now be pondered and 1907 and 1917, comprise a fascinating enjoyed for their penetrating observation autobiographical mosaic, while capturing and honesty, as well as the fresh the spirit of the Meiji era and the birth of perspective they offer on one of Japan’s modern Japan. literary giants. “Author of a marvelously readable study of Mori Ōgai, modern In Reflections in a Glass Door, Marvin Japan’s other immovable mountain, Marcus here combines Marcus introduces readers to a rich translation, biography, history, criticism, and analysis to guide the sampling of Sōseki’s shōhin. The writer reader gracefully through the best of Sōseki’s non-fictional (and revisits his Tokyo childhood, recalling semi-fictional) writing, illuminating both the major novels and the family, friends, and colleagues and musing idiosyncratic mind that created them. An impressive work.” wistfully on the transformation of his city and its old neighborhoods. He painfully —Jay Rubin, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies recounts his two years in London, where he immersed himself in literary research even as he struggled with severe depression. A chronic stomach ailment MARCUS causes Sōseki to reflect on his own mortality and what he saw as the spiritual afflictions of modern Japanese: rampant egocentrism and materialism. Throughout he adopts a number of narrative voices ISBN 978-0-8248-3306-0 and poses: the peevish husband, the 9 0 0 0 0 UNIVERSITY of REFLECTIONS harried novelist, the convalescent, the Marvin Marcus is associate professor seeker of wisdom. of Japanese language and literature and HAWAI‘I PRESS 9 780824 833060 comparative literature at Washington [CONTINUED ON BACK FLAP] www.uhpress.hawaii.edu University in St. Louis. HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I 96822-1888 IN A GLASS DOOR Jacket illustrations: (Front) Studio photograph of Natsume Sōseki, taken on September 19, 1912. The armband is a symbol of national mourning for the recently interred Meiji emperor. (Iwanami shoten); (Back) Sōseki in his study. MEMORY AND MELANCHOLY IN THE PERSONAL Photograph taken in December 1914, shortly before he embarked on his Garasudo serialization. (Iwanami shoten) WRITINGS OF NATSUME SO¯ SEKI MARVIN MARCUS Jacket design: Julie Matsuo-Chun Reflections in a Glass Door marcus textcs3.indd 1 6/1/09 11:11:05 AM marcus textcs3.indd 2 6/1/09 11:11:05 AM Reflections in a Glass Door Memory and Melancholy in the Personal Writings of Natsume Sōseki Marvin Marcus University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu marcus textcs3.indd 3 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM © 2009 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Natsume, Soseki, 1867–1916. [Essays. Selections] Reflections in a glass door : memory and melancholy in the personal writings of Natsume Soseki / Marvin Marcus. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3306-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) I. Marcus, Marvin. II. Title. PL812.A8A6 2010 895.6'442—dc22 2009010035 Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the Japan Studies Endowment Fund, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Paul Herr Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group marcus textcs3.indd 4 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM For Ginger, Danny, and Steve, with much love, and in memory of my parents, Michael and Fruma Marcus marcus textcs3.indd 5 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM marcus textcs3.indd 6 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Glass Doors of Natsume Sōseki 1 Chapter 1 London Underground: A Rhetoric of Melancholy 17 Chapter 2 Babashita Traces: Memories and the City 38 Chapter 3 Shōhin Episodes: In Search of a Meiji Upbringing 67 Chapter 4 Burdens of Domesticity: The Writer and His Family 93 Chapter 5 Inside Glass Doors: The Writer at His Desk 117 Chapter 6 Literary Portraits: Mentors, Protégés, and Eccentrics 156 Chapter 7 Zōshigaya and Beyond: Re-membering Sōseki 188 Afterword 195 Sōseki Chronology 199 Notes 205 Selected Bibliography 255 Index 261 vii marcus textcs3.indd 7 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM marcus textcs3.indd 8 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM Acknowledgments Even for those like myself who work alone in small book-lined rooms, the study of literature is inevitably a collaborative effort. As a community of readers and scholars, we are beholden to those who hear us out, share their thoughts and ideas, and help expand our horizons and enrich the way we read and understand the world. I owe debts large and small to those who have taught me, encouraged me, and provided intellectual and emotional sustenance over the years spent on this project. First, to my mentors at the University of Michigan—Robert Hopkins Brower and Robert Lyons Danly—who early on instilled in me an appreciation of literary art and a commitment to high academic standards. Their passing, many years ago, is still deeply felt, and their example has long remained an inspiration. Among the many inhabitants of the Sōseki scholarly community, I owe a great deal to those whose work has been exemplary. Edwin McClellan and Jay Rubin, among a handful of others, have written about Natsume Sōseki and modern Japanese literature in ways that neither exclude nor intimidate the nonspecialist and that delight and instruct in equal measure. I have greatly benefitted from the sheer intelligence and integrity of their work. Moreover, their beautifully crafted renderings of Sōseki’s novels have stood as models of the translator’s art. I’ve benefitted as well from discussions and correspondence with many col- leagues and friends on various aspects of this project. Here I wish to acknowl- edge Puck Brecher, Rebecca Copeland, Mike Finke, Bob Hegel, Matthew Königsberg, Joel Marcus, Sharalyn Orbaugh, Elizabeth Oyler, Henry Smith, and Jonathan Zwicker. I owe so much to those at Washington University with whom I’ve worked for nearly a quarter of a century. First and foremost, a collective word of thanks to my students—undergraduate and graduate—who have studied Sōseki as a captive audience in many courses taught over the years and on whom I ix marcus textcs3.indd 9 6/1/09 11:11:06 AM acknowledgments tested my ideas and assorted manuscript drafts. To my colleagues in Japanese literature, past and present, my gratitude for sharing their expertise, and for their friendship and support. I am indebted as well to the larger community of colleagues in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, for their literary insights, encouragement, and good fellowship. I am especially grateful to the two anonymous readers of my manuscript, whose comments and corrections benefitted me immeasurably. Here I wish to acknowledge a departed colleague and dear friend, Bill Matheson—a peerless teacher, a good and wise man with a beautiful and generous spirit—with whom I experienced the classroom as a magical place, and literature as a gift to be savored and shared. My heartfelt thanks go to our departmental office staff—to Debra Jones, who for decades has devoted herself to administering a large and diverse faculty, and to JoAnn Achelpohl and her predecessor, Shaaron Ben- jamin, for all they’ve done on my behalf and for my colleagues and students. I am also indebted to Asako Shiba of our East Asia Library, for her Japanese bibliographic expertise and for being instrumental in locating the images used in this book. The Iwanami shoten images are taken from a booklet, published by Iwanami shoten, entitled Natsume Sōseki shashinchō—a collec- tion of photographs used as frontispieces in the individual volumes of Sōseki zenshū. A word of thanks to Yōko McClain, professor emerita of Japanese at the University of Oregon, for sharing her thoughts (and her published reminis- cence) on her famous grandfather. Thanks as well to Sammy Tsunematsu, director of the Sōseki Museum in London (and translator of many of Sōseki’s works), for his insights on the author’s experiences in London, and to Damian Flanagan, award-winning author of books on Sōseki—in English and Japa- nese—for his help and encouragement. I owe a special debt to the International Exchange Center at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, under the directorship of Nobukatsu Shimoyama, for making the center’s facilities—and the university library—available to me during summer research visits. And thanks as well to the International Cen- ter at Kyoto University, with which I was affiliated in 2008, for inviting me to speak on my Sōseki project to the Kyōdai community. This was a most rewarding experience. I wish to acknowledge dear friends of long standing, Tetsuya and Chizuko Takei—our Tokyo family—for everything they have done for me and my family over nearly thirty years.