2026 Thumbnail Review #14 Sanshirō by Natsume Sōseki

Now I know where the modern Japanese authors get their strangeness from. They’ve all read Sanshirō (1908). My edition even has an introduction by Haruki Murakami, which proves it.

In one way, the strangeness is baked in. Sanshirō is about a country boy from Kyushu coming to Tokyo and being overwhelmed by it. ‘What startled him most of all was Tokyo itself, for no matter how far he went, it never ended.’ Completely inexperienced and from a provincial background, he has no idea how to behave, particularly with women. ‘The gesture implied an intimacy that made bowing unnecessary. Sanshirō, however, raised himself from the chair and bent low in formal greeting.’ He’s like every awkward teenager, unsure of how to act or what to say. ‘He could only regret, when the moment had passed and his mind began to function clearly, that he had failed to say one thing or another.’

The strangeness goes beyond this and includes the writing and narrative style, and this is what seems alien and prefigures so much modern Japanese literature. There are disconnections, moments when the narrative stops suddenly or changes track. ‘Anyway, enough of that. Here’s what I wanted to say.’ But the section ends there, and we never discover what the character wanted to say.

It’s a novel of uncertainties, reflected in the writing, the characters and the narrative.