Botchan

Description

If you aren’t familiar with the works of Natsume Soseki, you will definitely grow to become more interested after having read this droll and imaginative novel. Botchan is quite possibly one of the most popular and loved Japanese publications of all time, penned in the early years of the illustrious author’s career.

The story follows Botchan, a young man who had grown up under the protective gaze of a family servant named Kiyo. As he grew from boyhood to adulthood, Kiyo held her protégée in high regard, exaggerating his qualities, and even viewing him as her own.

After having graduated from Tokyo University with a mathematics degree – not because he enjoyed the subject, but because it was the only one he could actually pass – Botchan went on to accept a job as a math teacher in the South of the country. Without the nurturing hand of the woman who had been by his side during his formative years, however, he soon finds that everything changes for the worst.

Botchan’s story is as fascinating as it is funny. We are presented with the young teacher’s indifferent attitude toward his colleagues and students, as well as his rebellious thoughts aimed at the system whose product he had become. The story shows his struggle in accepting his role in life and his apparent inability to fit in. Often paralleled with similarly complex, “fed up” characters like Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Botchan is also a young man who cannot seem to come to terms with the restrictions and illogical limitations that the world around him holds.

Essentially a study in morality having to do with the differences between people with opposing moral views, the book continues to be one of the most loved, entertaining, lighthearted and enlightening stories written by any Japanese author.
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