J
by H
About This Novel
"Grass Pillow" is one of Natsume Soseki's early important masterpieces. The novel writes about "I": In order to escape the worries of the world and seek a world of "inhuman" beauty, a young painter came to a remote mountain village and what he saw, thought and heard there. The work focuses on describing the people and scenery in the mountain village, interspersed with a large number of "my" monologues about art theory and aesthetics, and comparing the differences between Eastern and Western art. The most core point in these monologues is "inhumanity". The so-called "impersonal feelings" are a realm that transcends morality or human feelings, a worldly realm that transcends the secular world, and is also an artistic aesthetic. For example, the "I" in the work believes that the artistic conception conveyed in Tao Yuanming's poems is deeply "inhuman". Therefore, "The Straw Pillow" is more like Natsume Soseki's treatise on art than a novel; and the description of the mountain village style and the occasional haiku and poems make this work like a beautiful travel prose. In short, "The Straw Pillow" is a unique work and well worth reading.
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