flemmings | (no subject)

So why, with a plethora of enticing books to choose from, must I decide to devote my day off to another stab at Soseki's Sorekara? Especially when I disliked the (plump, smooth, valetudinarian, 'oh my poor high-pitched nerves and subtle sensibilities') protagonist so much when I first met him in translation a quarter of a century ago (sob)? I can hack my way through Sanshiro well enough, to judge by the first thirty pages I read of *that* before being distracted by the Oooh shiny! elsewhere. But Soseki's Meiji vocabulary here makes me cry. Have had recourse to the translation more than once, to find out what it was Meiji called postcards and so on, and half the time the weird Japanese sentence becomes an equally weird English sentence. Oh well. This, I am told, is how one passes ikkyuu. And if I keep on, I'm told I shall find myself in Kagurazaka again. (Note- buy flat map of Tokyo so I can see how various parts of the city relate.)

But I've done my couple of hours for today and succeeded in finishing precisely one chapter; now for English.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was so impressed with myself for making it all the way to the end of Kokoro, and then I found an essay saying, essentially, Mori Ogai and many of the other Meiji writers are hard, but even elementary school students can read Soseki -- to which I could only think, THANKS (with a certain gritted-teeth sarcastic tone.) But indeed he's not that bad, except for how quickly vocabulary was coming into use and falling out of use.

Way back in third year Japanese the local infant prodigy (a first year with homestay Japanese and a year in Japanese HS) was reading Kokoro. He reported that Boku's sections were a piece of cake, and then you got to Sensei's part OMG....

Judging by what gets published *for* elementary school kids, me, I doubt that essay's statement just a tad.