But Who?Ī positive Sōseki review appeared on my feeds not long back, so the answer was staring me right in the face. Was going to read another Mishima, but then I thought why not try a Japanese writer I haven't yet read. Published in cooperation with the Japan Foundation and the Sasakawa Foundation, this novel is part of an international program to bring one of Japan's most popular author to a new international audience. An analysis of the novel by Damian Flanagan casts fresh insights into its complex symbolism and ideas, establishing The Gate as one of the most profound works of the modern age. Highly prized for the beauty of its description of the understated love between Sosuke and Oyone, the novel has nevertheless remained in many ways mysterious. Oyone's health begins to fail, and news that her estranged ex-husband will be visiting nearby finally promotes a sense of crisis in Sosuke and forces him temporarily to quit his life of quiet domesticity. Seemingly cursed with the inability to have children, the couple find themselves having to take responsibility for Sosuke's younger brother Koroku. One of the central masterpieces of 20th-century Japanese literature, The Gate describes the everyday world of the humble clerk Sosuke and his wife Oyone, living in quiet obscurity in a house at the bottom of a cliff.
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