Kusamakura (earlier translation used the title "Three-cornered World" or "Grass Pillow") describes a few days or even weeks

in the life of a painter/poet who is seeking a setting in which to view the world in a "non-emotional" and truly artistic way. In other words, just observe what happens rather than why or how. He finds a very remote hot spring inn deep in the mountains, but on the arduous road in he hears stories of strange happenings at the inn. The stories involve the innkeeper's daughter and her failed marriage. As he meets and learns more about this woman, the artist's goal of viewing his world in a non-emotional way come under constant challenge. Soseki includes several humorous characters and the kind of off-kilter, surprisingly blunt dialog that I often seem to encounter in Japanese literature, as well as, of course, poetic descriptions of the surrounding mountains and sea, as well as detailed observations concerning the local flora and fauna. I found the digressions on art theory intriguing enough to follow up with additional reading after finishing the novel. Anyone not burdened by the need for a plot line should considering reading this poetic and intriguing novel. The author note tells us this is an intriguing Japanese novel by "one of Japan's most influential modern writers, [who] is considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji period (1868-1914)." He died in 1916. Intriguing to say the least! This tale is 60% meditation on the philosophy of art, particularly poetry, 30% travelogue, and 10% pure poetry. It took me a long time to read this novel, and I loved every single, slow swallow of wonderful passages, ideas, and thoughts. Sometimes, I would read a single sentence or part of a paragraph and work it over and over in my mind. For example: "As I get back to my feet, my eyes take in the distant scene. To the left of the path soars a mountain peak, in shape rather like an inverted bucket. From foot to summit it is entirely covered in what could be either cypress or cedar, whose blue-black mass is striped and stippled with the pale pink of swaths of blossoming wild cherry. The distance is so hazy that all appears as a single wash of blurred shapes and colors" (5). This sounds like he is describing an impressionist painting. Soseki was educated in England after graduating from the University of Tokyo. References to Western art and literature are sprinkled throughout the book.

His style resembles an ordered stream of consciousness. The novel is the story of a journey around Japan, and it is obvious the experience the narrator has far outweighs the actual walk. Soseki frequently pauses to drink in the surroundings, only to be interrupted by a fellow traveler. I return to my thoughts, is a frequent refrain. This novel is a key work in the Japanese transition from traditional to modern literature. An artist abandons city life to wander into the mountains to meditate, but when he decides to stay at a near-deserted inn he soon finds himself drawn to the daughter of the innkeeper. The artist becomes entranced by her. She reminds him of Millais's portrait of Ophelia drowning and he wants to paint her. Yet, troubled by a certain quality in her expression, he struggles to complete the portrait until he is finally able to penetrate the enigma of her life. Interspersed with philosophies of both East and West, Soseki's writing skillfully blends two very different cultures in this unique representation of the artistic sensibility. Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was one of the first Japanese writers to be aware of Western culture and has been seen as a counter-reformation figure maintaining the virtues of tradition at a time of intellectual chaos. Soseki is generally acknowledged to have been one of the most important writers of the modern period. Kusamakura is narrated by a thirty-year-old artist, wandering about in the countryside and wondering about life and art. There isn't much tourist-traffic in the mountain area he's in, and he's the only guest at the resort he winds up at -- but the odd but striking (she "looks good, but she's a loony") daughter of the owner, Nami, manages to attract his attention there. There isn't much story in Kusamakura -- but then that's the way the narrator likes things to be in his art, too. One reason he's out here is that he's looking for the: "intriguingly otherworldly, that 'nonemotional' realm I aspire to" Indeed, his focus is intently on that nonemotional-notion -- not un-emotional, he's careful to emphasize, but truly non-emotional -- and even his way of falling in love is (he claims ) nonemotional. And, as he explains:
The way I read novels is nonemotional too, which is why the story doesn't matter. I find it interesting just to open up the book at random, like this, like pulling one of those paper oracles out of the box at a shrine, see, and read whatever meets the eye.

And Kusamakura almost lends itself to such an approach, the meandering narrative filled as much with digression -- on art and the creating of art, especially -as actually progressing in any traditional way.

The narrator repeatedly describes his attempts at painting and writing poetry -- a process akin to stirring arrowroot gruel until it "will, of its own accord, positively rush to glue itself to your chopsticks", he says at one point. There are many references to artistic theory and artists (including Western ones from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and his Laocon to Oscar Wilde), with discussion of everything from calligraphy and pottery to poetry. The narrator certainly is into detachment -- so too in his appreciation of most art, including his own:
You just take it as it's written. Once you start asking why, it all turns into detective work.

And he certainly doesn't think anything of that:

The usual novels are all invented by detectives. There's nothing nonemotional about them -- they're utterly boring.

This meandering (non-)tale is, indeed, largely observational. There are a variety of episodes, and occasionally even the narrator can't help himself from wondering what's behind certain actions and events (especially involving Nami); at one point he practically interrogates someone for further information (sounding very much like a detective at work). But while there are questions, there are few answers, definitive or otherwise. The narrator seems happy enough with his trial-and-error approach -- to art, to life. This novel was previously translated under the title The Three-Cornered World, which refers to another of the narrator's pet theories -- and explains his world-view: artists, he suggests, live:
in a three-cornered world, in which the corner that the average person would call "common sense" has been sheared off from the ordinary four-square world that the normal inhabit.

That, too, is how he explains what is special about what artists create:
For this reason, be it in nature or in human affairs, the artist will see the glitter of priceless jewels of art in places where the common herd fears to tread. The vulgar mind terms it "romanticizing," but it is no such thing. In fact, the phenomenal world has always contained that scintillating radiance that artists find there. It's just that eyes blinded by worldly passions cannot see the true nature of reality. Inextricable entanglements bind us to the common world; we are beset by obsessions with everyday success and failure and by ardent hopes -- and so we pass by unheeding, until a Turner reveals for us in his painting the splendor of the steam train, or an kyo gives us the beauty of a ghost.

Kusamakura is a novel of an artist trying to create, looking for inspiration, trying to reveal some 'scintillating radiance', but Sseki doesn't force the issue. The narrator dabbles and scribbles, finding some inspiration but for the most part unable to get it just right. Yes, there's a satisfying concluding moment -- but even that is agreeably subdued: art, here does not shout from the mountain-tops. Kusamakura is like a meandering mountain-hike. The pleasures of the text are in the small details and shifts, the aperus and the narrator's nonemotional (and occasionally emotional) thoughts. The setting and the somewhat quirky characters, and the loony tragic-beauty that is Nami, do, of course, help with the atmosphere, too. Certainly not for those readers looking for detective-work fiction, but if one is willing to just drift along, Kusamakura offers surprisingly many rewards.