Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I am a Rat ", April 20, 2001
If you aren't familiar with the life of Natsume Soseki (and how many non-Japanese are ?), you could be forgiven for not realizing that this is an autobiographical novel. The introductory notes in my edition told me so, that's how I found out. With this information, you will soon understand that the author was an unsparing critic of himself. Pessimistic, dark and revealing of his most selfish behavior, GRASS ON THE WAYSIDE tunnels through the underground emotions and suppressed angers of the author's penurious life. Soseki's view of marriage and family ties is extremely bleak. "People didn't really change very much, he thought, they only decayed." (p.112) He certainly included himself. Apparently he took no pleasure in any human relationship. The people who inhabit these pages are constantly sick and poor, but receive little to no sympathy or love from those closest to them. Like most of Soseki's novels, this one explores a certain palette of emotional colors, none of them bright. Unlike others, GRASS ON THE WAYSIDE has more activity, more characters described in greater detail, and rather than being smooth like "Sanshiro", "Kokoro" or "The Three-Cornered World", it has a certain uneven rhythm or start-stop quality in its 102 chapters. I feel this originates in the fact that it was serialized in the Tokyo daily `Asahi Shimbun' when it first appeared. "Activity" is a relative word. For most of the novel, Kenzo, the protagonist, wrestles with the dilemma of how to avoid the requests for money of a former foster father and that man's estranged wife. As he struggles to escape the onerous demands of a man he feels he owes nothing, we meet Kenzo's brother and sister, their spouses, and his wife and her relatives. A few other characters also appear. Soseki still prefers introspective analysis to action in the Western sense. Kenzo does not act on his problem until Chapter 90. His decision is nearly coincidental with the birth of his third child. At the end, he muses, "Hardly anything in this life is settled. Things that happened once will go on happening. But they come back in different guises and that's what fools us." If definite endings and complicated plots are your love, better skip this book. GRASS ON THE WAYSIDE is a typically Japanese novel by a Meiji period author, slow, indefinite, psychologically complex, and in this case autobiographical. I happen to admire Natsume Soseki greatly, but I concede that he might not be to everyone's taste.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
michikusa, August 25, 2003
unlike many of his contempoaries, Natsume Soseki did not follow the path of the shishosetsu, or novels about the self. However, there usually is an exception to every rule, and this book is the exception. The "hero" of this book is a prof named Kenzo who spends most of his energy reading english books and preparing lectures. He is a quiet taciturn man who rather now speak to his wife and two daughters. He is not wealthy by any means, but among his relatives he is the most financially secure. It is this bit of financialm security that causes the problems in Kenzo's life. His older brother, older sister, and former adoptive father look upon him as a benefactor, and Kenzo resents this view, but because of society's strictures he does all that he can to support his destitute family members. Not the most exciting book, but a goon glimpse at the man Natsume Soseki
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2 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
this book is so neat!, February 2, 1998
By A Customer
The writer is tubercular and has a hard time making ends meet, especially since he can't say no to family members. He bickers with his wife (poor wife!) and tires himself out writing novels that get spiked.
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by Natsume Soseki
