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A review by lvyy
Botchan by Natsume Sōseki
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I’m still not sure whether I’m meant to like Botchan… he’s certainly praised much in the novel by Kiyo and in the foreword but as I reader I found him a bit too simpleminded.
Botchan is not the type to think ahead and acts irrationally when he feels insulted. He often judges the countryside people to be rural, poorly uneducated, sly hearted, etc. all the while professing his own moral high ground as he is able to act forthrightly and without need for masks. Whether or not this is true, he certainly has a way of stereotyping the people he meets in the countryside city. And ultimately wields violence as ‘heaven’s judgement’ against Red-Shirt and Clown after he spies on them potentially meeting dancing girls in a hotel with Porcupine.
After beating them up, Botchan finally resigns as he so often threatened to do in his mind and returns to Tokyo to be with Kiyo.
Is there some stranger interpretation of his relationship with Kiyo - half a mother to him, governess, attendant, and to his 2nd landlady his ‘wife’? At least Botchan can recognise her devotion to him after he leaves her for that month to teach.
Botchan is not the type to think ahead and acts irrationally when he feels insulted. He often judges the countryside people to be rural, poorly uneducated, sly hearted, etc. all the while professing his own moral high ground as he is able to act forthrightly and without need for masks. Whether or not this is true, he certainly has a way of stereotyping the people he meets in the countryside city. And ultimately wields violence as ‘heaven’s judgement’ against Red-Shirt and Clown after he spies on them potentially meeting dancing girls in a hotel with Porcupine.
After beating them up, Botchan finally resigns as he so often threatened to do in his mind and returns to Tokyo to be with Kiyo.
Is there some stranger interpretation of his relationship with Kiyo - half a mother to him, governess, attendant, and to his 2nd landlady his ‘wife’? At least Botchan can recognise her devotion to him after he leaves her for that month to teach.
Content Warnings
Minor: Bullying, Infidelity, and Death of parent