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Ten nights of dream, Hearing things, The heredity of taste
Book by Natsume, Soseki
203 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
5 people are currently reading
232 people want to read
About the author
Natsume Sōseki
889 books3,243 followersNatsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note. In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 16, 2024
ათი ღამის სიზმრები ძალიან კარგია თავისი სიმბოლიზმით და იმით, რომ თუ სრულად არა, მეტწილად აღმოსავლური კულტურისა და რელიგიის სახესხვაობებს ეყრდნობა სიუჟეტურო თხრობის ალეგორიულად გადაქცევისას.
დანარჩენებს არა უშავს.
დანარჩენებს არა უშავს.
November 17, 2012
I found reading the first two stories, “Ten Nights of Dream” and “Hearing Things” tedious and vague due to my unfamiliarity with surrealism, especially in the first one. I hoped I would enjoy more in reading the second which is mostly dialog-oriented between two characters, I wondered how I could appreciate it more than what I had thought and decided as a nearly unimpressive story. Possibly I might be more optimistic after rereading them.
However, I preferred the three-part story, that is, “The Heredity of Taste” in which I could feel more comfortable and hopeful through my reading. Part I is a bit somber regarding the plot due to its description on the Russo-Japan war in Manchuria, then a key character leads us to a welcome scene for those soldiers who did not fall in the war. One soldier, a sergeant, reminds the narrator of his friend, Ko-san. Soon the soldier’s mother appears, and I liked this excerpt:
… I consequently could not say either that she clung to the sergeant or that she drew herself close to him. The most accurate word that I can select from my head’s whole range of Japanese and Chinese phrases is “hanging on.” The sergeant looks down on the old woman with the expression on one happy to have found lost and precious property. The old woman looks up at the sergeant with the expression of a mother who has at last discovered her strayed child. … I thought of K0-san, and stood there looking sadly after the two departing figures, their diminuendo of boots and sandals. (p. 137)
Part II reveals us to know more on the fate of Ko-san. In Part III, we soon know how the narrator visits Ko-san's mother and she allows him as a close friend to have his diary to read, and how he happens to see an unknown young woman visit Ko-san's grave at the temple. Therefore, he has done something similar to a semi-detective plan till he has met an old man who reveals the mysteries taking place nearly some 70 years ago from which he knows and understands more.
Finally, the narrator meets the lady who has eventually been suggested to see Ko-san’s mother, they’ve become friendly and “The girl seems more and more like a daughter-in-law.” (p. 202). This excerpt, I think, may denote its readers to keep a tinge of inexplicable sentimentality in mind:
… Ko-san jumped down into a ditch, and he has not come out again. No one went to welcome Ko-san. His mother and that young lady must be the only two in the world who still remember him. Every time I see them together looking so friendly, I shed tears: tears more clean, more fresh than those I shed when I saw the general and the sergeant. … (pp. 202-203)
That's it. The third story proves that Soseki has since been one of the foremost Japanese authors of the Meiji period in this genre.
However, I preferred the three-part story, that is, “The Heredity of Taste” in which I could feel more comfortable and hopeful through my reading. Part I is a bit somber regarding the plot due to its description on the Russo-Japan war in Manchuria, then a key character leads us to a welcome scene for those soldiers who did not fall in the war. One soldier, a sergeant, reminds the narrator of his friend, Ko-san. Soon the soldier’s mother appears, and I liked this excerpt:
… I consequently could not say either that she clung to the sergeant or that she drew herself close to him. The most accurate word that I can select from my head’s whole range of Japanese and Chinese phrases is “hanging on.” The sergeant looks down on the old woman with the expression on one happy to have found lost and precious property. The old woman looks up at the sergeant with the expression of a mother who has at last discovered her strayed child. … I thought of K0-san, and stood there looking sadly after the two departing figures, their diminuendo of boots and sandals. (p. 137)
Part II reveals us to know more on the fate of Ko-san. In Part III, we soon know how the narrator visits Ko-san's mother and she allows him as a close friend to have his diary to read, and how he happens to see an unknown young woman visit Ko-san's grave at the temple. Therefore, he has done something similar to a semi-detective plan till he has met an old man who reveals the mysteries taking place nearly some 70 years ago from which he knows and understands more.
Finally, the narrator meets the lady who has eventually been suggested to see Ko-san’s mother, they’ve become friendly and “The girl seems more and more like a daughter-in-law.” (p. 202). This excerpt, I think, may denote its readers to keep a tinge of inexplicable sentimentality in mind:
… Ko-san jumped down into a ditch, and he has not come out again. No one went to welcome Ko-san. His mother and that young lady must be the only two in the world who still remember him. Every time I see them together looking so friendly, I shed tears: tears more clean, more fresh than those I shed when I saw the general and the sergeant. … (pp. 202-203)
That's it. The third story proves that Soseki has since been one of the foremost Japanese authors of the Meiji period in this genre.
April 6, 2012
These are three novellas written by Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) between 1904-07. What I like about his writing is the fantasy, as in dreams, and the reactions to fact. "The Nights of Dream" are ten dreams, invariably excellent and exceedingly different from each other. The tenth dream in particular has a man, not counting sheep, but dealing with an unending stream of pigs. "Hearing Things" is witty, playing upon the natural human tendency to let one's imagination run wild until reality proves a relief. In "The Heredity of Taste" a soldier's memory lives on in his mother and the young woman who might have become her daughter-in-law.
Something about the author's technique are that these stories would suspend a dialogue between speakers to analyze what's going on and would slow down a leaf's descent from a tree to describe each moment of its fall. He draws out an incident as if he's mulling over not only what's happening but how the narrator and other characters feel and think about it and how the eye sees a thing differently moment to moment. All in all, he is a fine storyteller whose stories are modern, fresh, clever, and captivating.
Something about the author's technique are that these stories would suspend a dialogue between speakers to analyze what's going on and would slow down a leaf's descent from a tree to describe each moment of its fall. He draws out an incident as if he's mulling over not only what's happening but how the narrator and other characters feel and think about it and how the eye sees a thing differently moment to moment. All in all, he is a fine storyteller whose stories are modern, fresh, clever, and captivating.
February 28, 2008
I like the writing style of this book; it has a lot of interesting, well-crafted descriptions and I like the folk-tale-esque mood he creates. I thought the endings of the last two stories could have gone to more interesting places than they did, but there were still enough nice flourishes within the stories to be worth reading.
November 15, 2017
3.5
Fun little collection of novellas from one of my favorite Japanese authors.
Actually, the most fun one, "Ten Nights of Night" is much shorter than a novella. Each dream is 3-5 pages, and it's Soseki at his most absurd/surreal. Apparently there's a Japanese film version, with a different director taking on each dream. I'd be quite curious to see that!
"Hearing Things" is pretty ridiculous, too, and as far as I know is the closest Soseki got to a "ghost" story. It's pretty fun.
"The Heredity of Taste" is Soseki's anti-war story. The first couple pages are shockingly gruesome for Soseki, and for Japanese literature at that time. I could hardly believe it. It soon mellows out into fairly typical Soseki style, though less pointed and poignant. There's a bit of detective work which is pretty interesting, but the end of the story, self-admittedly, just kinda fizzles out.
The translation is spotty at times - not that I've read the Japanese, but the wording gets a bit clunky at moments. Usually it's fine, though.
The introduction is a bit pompous and opinionated at times, but I was reminded of the origin of Soseki's pen name: apparently he took it from an old Chinese text, and "Soseki" means "a man unwilling to admit his own defeat." Pretty strong pen name!
Here's what I consider to be the most powerful passage of the book, taken from the aforementioned less-poignant (as a whole) "Heredity of Taste". It concerns a mother and her soldier who recently died in battle:
"I realized that it was not Ko-san, now safely ditched for ever, but Ko-san's mother who stood in need of pity and consideration. She must still live on in this hard unpitying world, but he, once he had jumped, had jumped beyond such things. The case could well have been different, had he never jumped; but he did jump; and that, as they say, is that. Whether this world's weather turns out fine or cloudy no more worries him; but it matters to his mother. It rains, so she sits alone indoors thinking about Ko-san. And now it's fine, so she potters out and meets a friend of Ko-san's. She hangs out the national flag to welcome the returned soliders, but her joy is made querulous with wishing that Ko-san were alive. At the public bath-house, some young girl of marriageable age helps her to carry a bucket of hot water: but her pleasure from that kindness is soured as she thinks if only I had a daughter-in-law like this girl. To live under such conditions is to live in agonies. Had she lost one out of many children, there would be consolation and comfort in the mere fact of the survivors. But when loss halves a family of just one parent and one child, the damage is as irreparable as when a gourd is broken clean across its middle. There's nothing left to hang on to. Like the sergeant's mother, she too had waited for her son's return, counting on shriveled fingers the passing of the days and nights before that special day when she would be able once more to hang on him. But Ko-san with the flag jumped resolutely down into the ditch and still has not climbed back."
Fun little collection of novellas from one of my favorite Japanese authors.
Actually, the most fun one, "Ten Nights of Night" is much shorter than a novella. Each dream is 3-5 pages, and it's Soseki at his most absurd/surreal. Apparently there's a Japanese film version, with a different director taking on each dream. I'd be quite curious to see that!
"Hearing Things" is pretty ridiculous, too, and as far as I know is the closest Soseki got to a "ghost" story. It's pretty fun.
"The Heredity of Taste" is Soseki's anti-war story. The first couple pages are shockingly gruesome for Soseki, and for Japanese literature at that time. I could hardly believe it. It soon mellows out into fairly typical Soseki style, though less pointed and poignant. There's a bit of detective work which is pretty interesting, but the end of the story, self-admittedly, just kinda fizzles out.
The translation is spotty at times - not that I've read the Japanese, but the wording gets a bit clunky at moments. Usually it's fine, though.
The introduction is a bit pompous and opinionated at times, but I was reminded of the origin of Soseki's pen name: apparently he took it from an old Chinese text, and "Soseki" means "a man unwilling to admit his own defeat." Pretty strong pen name!
Here's what I consider to be the most powerful passage of the book, taken from the aforementioned less-poignant (as a whole) "Heredity of Taste". It concerns a mother and her soldier who recently died in battle:
"I realized that it was not Ko-san, now safely ditched for ever, but Ko-san's mother who stood in need of pity and consideration. She must still live on in this hard unpitying world, but he, once he had jumped, had jumped beyond such things. The case could well have been different, had he never jumped; but he did jump; and that, as they say, is that. Whether this world's weather turns out fine or cloudy no more worries him; but it matters to his mother. It rains, so she sits alone indoors thinking about Ko-san. And now it's fine, so she potters out and meets a friend of Ko-san's. She hangs out the national flag to welcome the returned soliders, but her joy is made querulous with wishing that Ko-san were alive. At the public bath-house, some young girl of marriageable age helps her to carry a bucket of hot water: but her pleasure from that kindness is soured as she thinks if only I had a daughter-in-law like this girl. To live under such conditions is to live in agonies. Had she lost one out of many children, there would be consolation and comfort in the mere fact of the survivors. But when loss halves a family of just one parent and one child, the damage is as irreparable as when a gourd is broken clean across its middle. There's nothing left to hang on to. Like the sergeant's mother, she too had waited for her son's return, counting on shriveled fingers the passing of the days and nights before that special day when she would be able once more to hang on him. But Ko-san with the flag jumped resolutely down into the ditch and still has not climbed back."
December 12, 2018
Having read almost all of Soseki's novels and short stories I came across this title many months ago via my efforts to learn more about this venerated author's work and life. I decided that I would read it as a change of pace from all of the 'serious,' nonfiction reading about the country and its culture I have been doing as part of my auditing a class in recent months.
The three relatively short pieces in this book were written by the author before he had achieved critical and popular success with books like I am a Cat, Botchan, and, probably his most famous, Kokoro. As such in their introduction the translators warn the reader that these are not his 'best work.' They opine, however, that these are still worth reading for those who are interested in gaining some perspective on how Soseki developed the story telling talents which led to his later and still, about one hundred years later, enduring success.
As is the case with most any collection of shorter works these three are of varying quality IMHO. Within two of them one can see and appreciate two of the elements of Soseki's work which made him so acclaimed. First, he demonstrates his highly developed and refined ability to observe and describe the physical, social, and internal psychological world in which the story takes place. Second, sometimes his observations of society, others, and/or the narrator have a tongue in cheek, ironic quality to them.
Hearing Things portrayed the way in which a person might let his imagination lead him into all kinds of fearful distress about a loved one. This is apropos as well as interesting because Soseki struggled with anxiety and depression for much of his adult life.
The Heredity of Taste depicted how a man might solve a mystery about a friend who had died by using his deductive reasoning and careful questioning of others. Soseki lived and studied English literature in London in the early years of the 20th. Perhaps the latter story was influenced by his having read some of the Sherlock Holmes books by Conan Doyle?
Ten Nights of Dreams is a collection of dreams that someone might have had. As dreams can be these are strange, if not bizarre. While the descriptions are rich, it was the least organized of the three. Thankfully, for me at least, it was also the the shortest.
Since I did not care for Ten Nights of Dreams, I gave the book a 3 star rating. Based on just the other two I would probably have given it a 4, if not a 4.5.
I would not recommend this book as a starting place for those who want to read Soseki. For those people any one of the three other well known titles noted above would be a better place to begin partaking of this man's work. But it was instructive and somewhat entertaining for someone like me who is curious if not admittedly a bit complusive when it comes to sampling an author whose work I appreciate and admire.
The three relatively short pieces in this book were written by the author before he had achieved critical and popular success with books like I am a Cat, Botchan, and, probably his most famous, Kokoro. As such in their introduction the translators warn the reader that these are not his 'best work.' They opine, however, that these are still worth reading for those who are interested in gaining some perspective on how Soseki developed the story telling talents which led to his later and still, about one hundred years later, enduring success.
As is the case with most any collection of shorter works these three are of varying quality IMHO. Within two of them one can see and appreciate two of the elements of Soseki's work which made him so acclaimed. First, he demonstrates his highly developed and refined ability to observe and describe the physical, social, and internal psychological world in which the story takes place. Second, sometimes his observations of society, others, and/or the narrator have a tongue in cheek, ironic quality to them.
Hearing Things portrayed the way in which a person might let his imagination lead him into all kinds of fearful distress about a loved one. This is apropos as well as interesting because Soseki struggled with anxiety and depression for much of his adult life.
The Heredity of Taste depicted how a man might solve a mystery about a friend who had died by using his deductive reasoning and careful questioning of others. Soseki lived and studied English literature in London in the early years of the 20th. Perhaps the latter story was influenced by his having read some of the Sherlock Holmes books by Conan Doyle?
Ten Nights of Dreams is a collection of dreams that someone might have had. As dreams can be these are strange, if not bizarre. While the descriptions are rich, it was the least organized of the three. Thankfully, for me at least, it was also the the shortest.
Since I did not care for Ten Nights of Dreams, I gave the book a 3 star rating. Based on just the other two I would probably have given it a 4, if not a 4.5.
I would not recommend this book as a starting place for those who want to read Soseki. For those people any one of the three other well known titles noted above would be a better place to begin partaking of this man's work. But it was instructive and somewhat entertaining for someone like me who is curious if not admittedly a bit complusive when it comes to sampling an author whose work I appreciate and admire.
April 5, 2022
Ten short fantasies, all dreams, and sometimes quite horrific.
Here is an impression of the third dream:
"The dreamer is walking at dusk with a blind, six-year-old child on his back. He believes the child is his own. The child seems to know where they are and where they are going. Its words are mature. The dreamer grows ill at ease, and decides to abandon the child in the forest. When they reach the base of a cedar tree, the child says he was killed by the dreamer, in this very place, on a similar night, a hundred years before. The dreamer remembers the night, and at the same moment the child grows heavy as stone."
Here is an impression of the third dream:
"The dreamer is walking at dusk with a blind, six-year-old child on his back. He believes the child is his own. The child seems to know where they are and where they are going. Its words are mature. The dreamer grows ill at ease, and decides to abandon the child in the forest. When they reach the base of a cedar tree, the child says he was killed by the dreamer, in this very place, on a similar night, a hundred years before. The dreamer remembers the night, and at the same moment the child grows heavy as stone."
January 10, 2023
read for JPN 241. ghost story full of oppositions and contradictions. themes of war, science, logic, superstition, supernatural, and rumors. kinda like The Time Machine (writing style) and Edgar Allen Poe stories had a baby. 2/5.
June 13, 2019
Lovely
April 26, 2012
I read this with the group called The World's Literature, where we devote an entire year to the literature of one country. This year is Japan, and Natsume Soseki was given an entire month because of his prominence during the Meiji period.
I have to admit to skimming a bit because the stories were due back to the library, but I enjoyed the Ten Nights of Dream. In fact, I think everyone should try to make sense of dreams, unless they tell us we've killed someone, yikes.
"Under the influence of the weather, even the gods run mad." (first line of The Heredity of Taste)
I have to admit to skimming a bit because the stories were due back to the library, but I enjoyed the Ten Nights of Dream. In fact, I think everyone should try to make sense of dreams, unless they tell us we've killed someone, yikes.
"Under the influence of the weather, even the gods run mad." (first line of The Heredity of Taste)
August 4, 2008
This is the tenth Soseki book I've read, and that's probably not a bad place to put it in terms of importance. Still, it is Soseki. And "Hearing Things" was an awful lot of fun.
February 16, 2010
I love this translation. I'm not sure how true it is to the originals, but it's gorgeous.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews