Hello,

If anyone wants to discover the era in which Soseki lived, and his life, in an attractive way, there’s a manga from Sekikawa, Natsuo and Taniguchi, Jirô, called “Times of Botchan”『坊ちゃん』の時代. Soseki features prominently in the first and second books.

As always with Taniguchi, I find this manga very interesting and I love the way he draws. The first books of the series are available in French and in English on Amazon.

Check out an extract of the English version on the publisher’s site : http://www.ponentmon.com/new_pages/english/botchan/01.html

Sophie-san thanks for the link!

Sure I want to learn all that has to do with Japan! HELL YEAH! I love Japan and Japanese people so much that If they choose me to fight and defend this country in case of a war I will definitive go and even die for this beautiful unique country!

About today’s lesson it’s the first time I heard about Sousekiki-san histories but I keep learning everyday so I can get cultured!

PS: Yesterday was 26th universary of the dead of John Lennon, and we reunited at Central Park in the place Strawberry fields and circle IMAGINE it was great! Also yesterday in my country (Mexico) was 10th universary of TELETON!

Teleton help precious children with disabilities to have a normal life and get independent! They help them by tread it them, giving them terapy and if they are missing any part of the body they replace it!

Its very nice if you want to donated like I did go to www.teleton.com.mx and give help to these precious children that need us! so do it now ok! S_R_C

I too have also started reading Kokoro! I also want to read I am a Cat! I’ve read the few free pages offered on Amazon.com, and it looks very interesting from what I can tell.

Awesome! It’s great seeing Jpod talking about literature! I’m a huge fan of Japanese literature, and think Soseki is pretty great. I’ve read everything I’ve come into contact with, and yes, I Am A Cat is available in English! Kokoro is also his most famous in the states as well.

For anyone that likes Soseki, I HIGHLY recommend Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫), as I think he is the greatest writer of the 20th century. No joke, I think he should be regarded with the same respect as Soseki is for the Meiji era. Sadly, his ritual suicide is discussed more than his literary works. I noticed 春の雪 was made into a movie last year, so hopefully that opened some folks eyes up to his wonderful writing!

Peterさん

Out of interest, will you be reading it in English or Japanese?

I would love to read Natsume Soseki in the original Japanese one day. In the meantime, I think I will try to get hold of some of his books in English. The cat one sounded particularly interesting.

我が輩 is a rather outdated first person pronoun. Like you said, it does carry a pompous connotation. である is the plain, more formal form of the copula だ/です. Except for relative clauses (ex. 学生である私, “I, who am a student”), it usually doesn’t show up much in modern, “normal” Japanese. It seems to be commonplace in the military, though.

I’ve never actually read any of the book, so I have no idea how difficult it is.

お疲れさまジョンさん！

Working on the Save Peter Campaign™ is hard work.