is a 1909 Japanese novel by

Natsume Sōseki , born , was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels ''Kokoro'', ''Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'', ''Kusamakura (novel), Kusamakura'' and his unfinished work ''Light and Darkness (novel), Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of Br ...

. It is the second part of a trilogy, preceded by '' Sanshirō'' (1908) and followed by '' The Gate'' (1910).

Plot

The novel starts with Daisuke, the protagonist, waking up and staring at the ceiling, his hand feeling for his heartbeat. He is the son of a wealthy family and has graduated from a prestigious university, but despite graduating, he is now thirty years old and unemployed, depending on his father's wealth. One day, he meets his former university friends, Hiraoka and Terao. Hiraoka had a career in the Japanese civil service, but he fought with his boss and was fired for mismanaging finance. Terao intended to become a world-famous novelist but ended up in a part-time job translating works and writing short articles for low wages. These two friends represent a world that Daisuke feels completely detached from, and he questions their reasons for working. Daisuke does not have much attachment to traditional Japanese society since his education has given him the knowledge that the world is too vast to be confined to the boundaries delineated by tradition. Furthermore, he cannot form any connection to modern society, which views education merely as the prelude to success in a bureaucratic order. Because of Daisuke's detachment from everything, his family decides to continue their financial support for him only on the condition that he marries a woman they have chosen for him. However, Daisuke decides not to take any more support from his family and not to get married. He eventually falls in love with Michiyo, the wife of Hiraoka.

Publication history

The publication of ''And Then'' was announced in the newspaper ''

Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese daily newspaper founded in 1879. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. The ''Asahi Shimbun'' is one of the five largest newspapers in Japan along with the ''Yom ...

'' on 22 June 1909. It then appeared in the ''Asahi Shimbun'' in serialised form between 27 June and 14 October the same year. The following year, it was published in book form by the Shunyodo Publishing Company.

English translation

''And Then'', an English translation of ''Sorekara'' by Norma Moore Field, was first published in 1978.

Adaptations

Natsume's novel has been adapted into a

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

Yoshimitsu Morita was a Japanese film director. He was known for his versatility, having directed satires, melodramas, crime thrillers, and pinku films. His most acclaimed films include The Family Game (1983), Sorekara (1985), Haru (1996), and Lost Parad ...

in 1985 and into a stage play by Kana Yamada in 2017.

References

External links

Complete Japanese text
on

Aozora Bunko Aozora Bunko (, , also known as the "Open Air Library") is a Japanese digital library. This online collection encompasses several thousand works of Japanese-language fiction and non-fiction. These include out-of-copyright books or works that t ...

{{Authority control 1909 Japanese novels Novels by Natsume Sōseki Novels set in Japan Novels set in the Meiji era Novels first published in serial form Works originally published in Asahi Shimbun Japanese novels adapted into films