And Then

And Then (1909) by Natsume Soseki is one of a three novels considered a series that Haruki Murakami called among his favorites (the others are Sanshiro and The Gate). Like those other novels there is little that happens in the novel, but the inner lives of the characters are in tumult for various reasons-in this book it is because freeloading Daisuke, a spoiled son of a wealthy businessman, is in love with his best friend Hiraoka's wife Michiyo. Diasuke is both repellent and admirable, he looks down on his father and brother since they resort to working to earn a living while Diasuke remains to high minded to lower himself to work. But he has high ideals even though he is approaching 30 unmarried after turning down several marriage proposals arranged by his father-he is on his last leg as far as that goes. He hasn't bothered contributing by earning his own living. For some reason in spite of himself he helped Hiraoka marry Michiyo, the sister of his best friend who passed away at a young age without considering marrying her himself, which is how he arrived at his dilemma. Daisuke is something of cypher, but his problems seems very much to be those of a first world variety-there is little to upset him in his regular day to day life in which he has a houseboy and a maid looking after his needs. I must admit that the excellent afterword written by Norma Moore Field gave a full biography of Natsume Soseki and helped me situate this novel in Soseki’s biography-and within the trilogy of book mentioned earlier in particular.