J-Wednesdays 水曜日だ！: Botchan by Natsume Soseki

I am quite ashamed of myself for having recycled one of my book reports when I was in college. I am a little bit busy because I'm preparing for my interview for graduate school tomorrow, when in fact I'm also busy watching some Korean drama series with my mother. I'm trying to take my mind off the interview tomorrow yet I know that I still have to prepare for it vigorously. Half of my mind encourages me to relax yet half of it tells me to panic! I don't know what to do anymore. Nonetheless, I bring you Natsume Soseki's Botchan.

This book called Botchan by Natsume Soseki was one of my book reports in my Japanese Literature class in college. It was a required report but I also had fun reading it. Some say that this book is an equivalent of "The Catcher in the Rye" or "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in Japan because the book is also widely read by Japanese people during their childhood. The term "Botchan" is used to call boys or young men of respectable families or can also be used to call someone (an adult male) who has not quite managed to "grow up" yet.

PLOT:

The story is about Botchan’s life as a middle school teacher in the country-side. Since Botchan was born and raised in Tokyo, he was ‘culture-shocked’ by how the people there behaved. At first he experienced the pranks of his students which made him really irritated because he hadn’t expected that even in a town so small, all of his moves were being monitored against his will. As the story moves forward, he learns more about the small town and he grows more hatred for it. Many unfortunate things happen to him and he eventually learns that some of his co-workers were responsible for it. The ‘evil’ co-workers made schemes in order to ruin Botchan’s reputation. Many secrets arise as Botchan becomes more involved in the happenings in the town.

The book's theme is on morality, and how the main character, Botchan, questions it. Especially in Japan, where there are certain types of "usual Japanese behavior" that Botchan doesn't seem to understand. In an attempt to bring you something from the book that I found amusing, I present you this excerpt.

".. what Redshirt had to say made perfect sense, but splendid as it sounded, that still didn’t give it the power to seduce you deep down in your heart. If you could really win people’s hearts over with the power of money, authority, or reason, then moneylenders, policemen, and college professors would be more popular than anybody else. There was no way that my heart was going to be swayed by the logic of some middle school Assistant Principal (Redshirt). People operate on their likes and dislikes, not on logic."

- excerpt from Chapter VIII of Botchan

The snippet above was one of Botchan's musings and it definitely shows his outlook in life. I definitely learned from Botchan's way of thinking, which also reflects the writer, Natsume Soseki's, way of thinking. He pointed out something that we might not know or might have not thought about yet, and that is no matter how we think that something is supposedly "logically right," if we don't agree with it, we will not accept it. People have feelings, and that's what makes us a more unique being, and because of that, we usually utilize our feelings in order to live.

I hope that by reading this sort of review of mine, you get inspired to read this book. It's definitely worth reading and it's also light-hearted and will leave you thinking about things in life that we don't usually think about everyday.

A post about books.

I love books. I always buy them whenever I have enough money. Even if I don't really know whether the book would be good, I'd buy it once I declare it interesting. However, I don't really read it immediately. In fact I have so many books that are left unread in my bookshelf. The books won't even fit the bookshelf anymore. The reason why I don't read the books immediately after buying it is that I'm busy with school. As a student hailing from a liberal arts college, it is to be expected that I read a lot of things required for class. That's why my books get neglected easily. During the summer vacation however, when I just did internship and no reading required, I finished three books. Those are Catching Fire, Mocking Jay and Th1rteen R3asons Why.

I'll start with Catching Fire and Mocking Jay. I've already read Hunger Games (first book of the trilogy) way back before the movie was released. Then after being free from school works, I immediately started reading Catching Fire. All I can say about Catching Fire is that it is an action-packed book. I think it is the longest among the three because of those exciting happenings in it. At the end of Catching Fire, I was so mind-blown that I had to read Mocking Jay right after. While I was reading Mocking Jay (middle part), I had to stop. I didn't like what was happening anymore, and I feel like I'm being tortured mentally. Suzanne wrote the book in a way that you wouldn't able to predict anything because many things could possibly happen. I was like 'brain, please stop over-thinking and let me finish this book.' But my mind won't and I was getting paranoid by the minute. Then I decided to let myself breath and didn't read it for a day. When I got impatient, I read it with the decision of finishing it so that my paranoia would stop. I finished it and I will not spoil anything by commenting on the ending.

Next is Th1rteen R3asons Why. This book is by Jay Asher and my copy is published by Razor Bill. When I first saw this book at the book store (Fully Booked), it was in the section of the 'featured' books. Being put there was of course a huge thing, that's why I got interested and read the synopsis at the back. It was interesting and I already felt the excitement just by reading the synopsis. I then bought it and started reading it. It was a kind of book that I didn't have to put down just because I don't feel like reading anymore. I put it down because I needed to do something else. It was like a priority to finish this book because it keeps on growing inside me while I'm reading it. I can't help but continue to read. So the story goes like the guy lead, Clay Jensen, received tapes from an unknown sender. He listens to the tapes and he found out that the voice behind it was Hannah Baker, the girl from her school who committed suicide. By the time he had received those tapes, Hannah was already dead. Those who received the tapes were the ones involved in Hannah's decision to take her own life. The title 'Th1rteen R3asons Why' comes from the tapes. Hannah provides reasons why she took her own life and those involve people too. It's not much of a kind of book where I can relate with but it provides readers with a different insight. Sometimes I'd be mad at Hannah because of deciding to take her own life with those reasons. But the book also provided me a reason why those thoughts exist in the minds of teenagers. One more thing, I love the character of Hannah Baker and Clay Jensen. They have fresh personalities, unlike those in other books or movies that I've already seen before. I really love this book and I recommend it for those who like to read young adult novels. And for those who don't, I still recommend it because it has a unique way of narration which shows two perspectives at the same time.

Those are the books that I've finished reading this summer in the Philippines. Now school's started and I guess textbooks and journals would take the spotlight in my priority reading list. Since I am in my last term, I hope that I could read novels again (not as a school requirement) after graduation!

I also bought a Jane Austen collection of her seven novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. This was published by Barnes and Noble, NY. I wanted to buy Pride and Prejudice only but the cost of that book is nearly the same as this cool compilation. It has an 'old book' feel to it that's why I had decided to buy it after thinking a lot. 

I haven't started reading it yet but I will once I have time. What I'm currently reading is (and the unfortunate book which would be dumped because school has already started) John Green's Paper Towns. I couldn't say much about it but it is a mystery type of young adult novel. I've already read John Green's Looking For Alaska and it was good but not so awesome (for me), and I have his 'An Abundance of Katherines,' which is also one of those books that I haven't read yet.

One last thing, I am actually collecting books and it is one of my dreams to build a library in my house full of books that I've collected in my lifetime.