This Modern Age

“You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom [and] independence,” Sensei says to the narrator. This “modern age” is the Japan of well over a century ago. While that may seem a far cry from the loneliness experienced by many today, one of Japan’s foremost novelist’s depictions of a man’s struggle with loneliness and isolation offers a unique perspective on some of what is at the root of one of the biggest challenges faced today.

Kokoro

Written by Natsume Sōseki, among Japan’s most famous authors, the 1914 novel Kokoro follows the relationship between an unnamed narrator and Sensei, an older man who becomes a surrogate father to the narrator after they meet by chance on vacation. Sensei is jaded and distrustful, cautioning the narrator against becoming too close after he begins visiting Sensei and his wife in Tokyo. Sensei serves as a mentor for the narrator, warning him against intimacy but refusing to divulge the cause of his loneliness and cynicism. Time goes by, and the narrator returns home when his father’s health declines, mirroring that of the Meiji emperor’s. When Sensei sends an urgent plea that he return to Tokyo, the narrator insists he must remain at his ailing father’s bedside. Only after receiving Sensei’s thick suicide note does he flee the countryside, and the origins of Sensei’s loneliness and broken view of the world unfold as he reads the letter that comprises the final third of the book.

The Meiji Restoration

During the late 19^th century, Japan underwent fundamental societal changes during the period that followed the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). The government promoted Western-style industrialization and its military, transportation, and communication systems were modernized. Parliamentary politics and a constitution were adopted. In stark contrast to previous eras of isolation and self-reliance, Western technologies were actively imported. For example, Japan brought in British engineers to advise them on how to create a modern navy and a railway system. With this industrial transformation came Western ideas as well, which brought immense social change as traditional values were supplemented with individualism. The novel’s translator in English, Meredith McKinney, puts it as follows:  “the Meiji period’s embrace of Western individualism provoked irreconcilable inner conflicts that haunted them through life.” Sōseki echoed this in his own writings, saying that Japan had “not had time to digest” Western culture given how quickly they had “tried to absorb it.” This theme plays in several of the novels written in the last few years of his life.

Sōseki in London

In addition to bringing foreign advisors to Japan, the government sent academics abroad. In 1900, Sōseki’s employer, the Ministry of Education, sent him to London to study English. Sōseki was out of sorts in Britain, writing that he felt “like a poor dog that had strayed among a pack of wolves”. Sōseki’s “intense cultural shock and social alienation” lead to the “release of his pent-up creative urges,” reflected in the novel by Sensei’s eventually being driven to pen his long suicide note to the narrator.

Sensei’s Self-Exile

When Sensei and the student first meet, the narrator describes Sensei as “signaling that he is unworthy” of friendship, expressing disappointment with Sensei’s apparent lack of enthusiasm towards their blossoming relationship. This sentiment is fleshed out with the narrator’s later assessment that Sensei “must love” but is “unable to (…) accept into his heart another who sought to enter.” Sensei’s own statements corroborate this: Sensei tells the narrator that his friendship will “never really satisfy” him and that he will grow disillusioned with their friendship shortly. However, as their relationship progresses, Sensei drops breadcrumbs of information about his past but continues to keep the narrator at arm’s length.

Loss of Trust and the Sense of Community

Later in the novel, Sensei’s story more fully explains his generalized mistrust and unease in engaging with the narrator socially. As he reveals in his suicide note, Sensei’s uncle swindled him out of his inheritance. After such betrayal, Sensei is “convinced others must be equally treacherous” and that given the right circumstances any good person can turn deceitful. Even well into their relationship, Sensei says he mistrusts the narrator because his “past experiences have made me suspicious of people.” Conversely, in the same exchange Sensei begs to be able to “trust just one person before I die,” looking at the narrator’s eagerness to learn from his experience as a sincerity he used to be able to count on.

The End of the Meiji Era

When the Meiji emperor dies in 1912, marking the end of the era, Sensei begins to feel as if his time is also drawing to a close. In his letter, Sensei tells the narrator that he must “follow the spirit of Meiji,” explaining that they each belong to different eras. Despite his apprehension towards their relationship in the beginning of the novel, by the end the narrator is the only person Sensei is able to explain to what he views as the causes of his isolation.

Sensei’s Letter

Sōseki, and by extension Sensei, view their “difficulties as symbolic of the historical predicament” facing Japan at the time. On one hand, Sensei states that the letter aims to present his life “for others to learn from,” hoping the narrator heeds his cautionary tale. At the same time, Sensei recognizes that his letter is written not just for the narrator to draw lessons from, but for his own sake as well. He says his testament arose from a “need I have felt from within myself,” tracing back to his earlier plea to be able to trust just one person in what remained of his life. In his relationship with the narrator, Sensei eventually gets that wish.