Natsume Soseki | The Three-Cornered World

9781805332503

02/07/26

PB

224 pages

Translated by Damian Flanagan

‘Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature’ Haruki Murakami

‘Vastly refreshing … Soseki doesn’t shrink from seeking and finding exquisite pearls of beauty’ Guardian

”The greatest Japanese novelist of the modern period’ Telegraph

In this Japanese classic, an artist on holiday at a mountain hot spring becomes fixated on a mysterious local beauty.

A young artist travels into the mountains, in search of the refreshments of nature. Staying at a small hot-spring hotel, he soaks in the water and takes walks nearby, always intending to do some painting – though he never seems to get around to it. Instead, he finds himself transfixed by the daughter of the hotel owner, an enigmatic young beauty.

His preoccupation is neither romantic nor sexual, but aesthetic: why is he so drawn to O-Nami’s changeable face, now hostile, now serene? And what prevents him finally putting brush to paper and painting her portrait? As the holiday goes on, these two circle each other, pursuing barbed yet friendly conversations about art and despair. And the more the artist learns about the girl’s life – a divorce, a rumoured entanglement with a local priest, a cousin in the army about to travel to the Manchurian front – the more he comes to realise that experiencing O-Nami’s beauty to the full requires not just gazing upon her, but understanding her.

One of the foundational classics of modern Japanese literature, The Three-Cornered World is a masterful exploration of the beauty of nature, the artist’s temperament and the hidden springs of human sympathy.