Top 10 Amazing Facts about Natsume Soseki

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Natsume Soseki

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Natsume Soseki was born on February 9, 1867, in the town of Babashita Ushigome, Edo. He was a Japanese novelist and a scholar of British literature, and his portrait appeared on the front of a Japanese 1,00 yen note from 1984 until 2004.

Soseki grew up during a period of significant changes in Japans culture and society. Due to these changes, his family lost its former position due to the Meji restoration.

He attended schools in Tokyo. His early literary career was marked by relative uncertainty towards English. He also met Masaoka Shiki, who encouraged him to write.

He was married to Natsume Kyoko, and they had two children. Soseki had started writing a novel a year before his death. Stomach ulcers caused his death on December 9, 1916.

Soseki’s novels are still widely read, and his significant works of fiction have been translated into English and published in serialized form in “Asahi.”

Here are the top 10 amazing facts about Natsume Soseki.

1. Natsume Soseki’s father was wealthy and powerful

Natsume was born on 9 February 1867 in Babashita Ushigome, Edo as the fifth son of Matsume Kohe Naokatsu.

His father was the head of Nunishi village. He owned all land from Ushigome to Takadanobaba in Edo and handled most civil lawsuits at his doorstep.

He was a descendant of Natsume Yoshinobu, a Sergoku period Samurai and retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasa.

2. Soseki was an unwanted child

He was born to his father when he was fifty-three and his mother at forty.

When he was born, he already had five siblings. Having five siblings and a toddler created family insecurity and, in some way, a disgrace to the Natsume family.

In 1868 he was adopted by a childless couple Shiobara Masanosuke and his wife up to nine years when the couple divorced.

He later returned to his family, and his father viewed him as a nuisance, but his mother welcomed him.

Soseki’s sense of insecurity increased when he was fourteen years after his mother died and his two eldest brothers in 1887.

3. Soseki education life

He attended his first Tokyo middle school, where he became deeply captivated by Chinese literature.

Soseki wished that someday he would become a writer. He was interested in becoming a writer when he was fifteen. Soseki told his older brother of his interest, and his family strongly disapproved of this action.

In September, Soseki joined Tokyo Imperial University to pursue architecture even though he preferred Chinese classics.

While at Tokyo Imperial University, he started studying English, hoping it would be helpful to him in his future career as English was necessary for a Japanese college.

In 1887, he met Masaoka Shiki, a friend who tutored him in the art of composing Haiku(short form poetry). From this point, Soseki started signing his poems with the epithet Soseki graduated in 1893.

In 1990 he joined the university college London (UCL). He had a miserable time in London. He preferred spending most time indoors, buried in books.

4. Soseki as an English teacher

In 1893 soseki was a part-time teacher at the Tokyo Normal School. In 1895 he began teaching at Matsuyama middle school in shikoku. The school later became the setting of his novel Botchan.

Soseki ensured he fulfilled his teaching duties and also publishing haiku and Chinese poetry in several newspapers and periodicals.

In 1896 he resigned from Matsuyama middle school and began teaching at the fifth high school in Kumamoto.

In 1903 he became a professor of English literature at the Tokyo Imperial University, where he taught literary theory and literary criticism.

5. His literary career

Soseki began his career in 1903 when he began to contribute to the words’ haiku and haitashi.

His literary sketches were published in literary magazines such as Hototogisu, edited by his former metro Masaoka Shiku and later by Takahama Kyashi.

His career followed success with short stories such as Rondon and the novel Botchan. In 1906 the novel kusamakara gave him a good reputation, and he resigned from his university post in 1907; he began writing full-time.

6. Soseki London’s unhappy stay

In 1990 Japanese government sent him to study in Great Britain as the first Japanese English literary scholar.

He visited Cambridge and stayed for a night there but gave up the idea of studying at the university because he couldn’t affect it on his government scholarship.

He joined a university college in London instead. He had an unhappy time in London and spent most time indoors reading books to an extent his friend was worried he would lose his mind.

Soseki used to lodge places to live. He lived in four different lodgings, 76 Gower Street, 85 Priory Road, West Hampstead, 6 Floden road Camberwell and 8 the chase Clapham.

Despite all this mental torture, loneliness, and poverty, he consolidated his knowledge of English literature. He returned to the empire of Japan in January 1903.

7. His first Mar work was “ I Am a Cat”

I Am a Cat (Wahahai Wa Nekode Ara) is a satirical novel written in 1905- 1906. The novel narrates Japanese society during the Meji period.

The novel particularly portrays the uneasy mix of western culture and Japanese tradition.

I Am a Cat story first appeared in the literary magazine Hotoguisu and later into a novel and gained much success.

The style of the novel remains well-known long after its publication and is frequently assigned to Japanese school children.

8. Soseki’s brilliant psychological portrayal

Soseki found means of evoking his protagonist’s loneliness, alienation, and confusion.

In most of his essays and fiction, Soseki was keen to display psychological insight into the personality of a man undergoing the transition from the traditional to the modern era.

He shows concerns about people trying to endure modern life’s ethical and moral tenor.

It is evident in his novel Kojin. The novel portrays a hero of the wayfarer who is driven to a state of near madness by realizing his loneliness.

9. Soseki was a Japanese novelist

Soseki is the best know for his novels Kokoro, Botach, I Am a Cat, and his unfinished work, light, and darkness.

He was a great novelist of the Meji era. Meji era was characterized by an intensive westernization and the merging of western culture with traditional Japanese culture.

It was important for professionals to communicate in English. He enrolled at the Tokyo imperial university to study the English language and literature.

Through his study, he was able to achieve a mastery of the modern psychological novel and succeed in capturing the flow of moods, confusion, and conflict emotions.

Soseki novels have earned a privileged place in Japanese literature and are featured in various anime, films, dramas, and television.

10. Robotic android version of Soseki

In 2016, the centennial of the Soseki death, Nishogukusha university in Tokyo collaborated with Hiroshi Ishiguro, a robotics researcher at Osaka University, to create a robotic android version of soseki.

His grandson, Fusanosuke Natsume, voiced the 130 cm figure, which depicted soseki at age 45.

The robot was used to engage students interested in literature by giving lectures and reciting Soseki’s work at the university.