Botchan
坊っちゃん
夏目漱石 · Japanese
A quick-tempered young man from Tokyo takes a mathematics post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and lasts less than a month.
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Pagera Editor's Note
A quick-tempered young man from Tokyo takes a mathematics post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and lasts less than a month. He nicknames every colleague on sight, walks straight into every trap set for him, and cannot tell an ally from an enemy until it is far too late. Sōseki's most widely read novel is funny on the surface and unsparing underneath, and the one person who ever loved the narrator plainly is the old servant Kiyo, whose place in the story is only clear at the end.
Author
夏目漱石
Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) is widely regarded as the foremost Japanese novelist of the modern era. A scholar of English literature who studied in London, he left academia to write full time for the Asahi Shimbun. His works, among them Kokoro, I Am a Cat and Botchan, examine loneliness, self-interest and the strain of a society modernising faster than the people inside it.
Botchan
坊っちゃん
夏目漱石 · Japanese
A quick-tempered young man from Tokyo takes a mathematics post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and lasts less than a month.
First paragraph preview
Original (Japanese)
親譲りの無鉄砲で小供の時から損ばかりしている。小学校に居る時分学校の二階から飛び降りて一週間ほど腰を抜かした事がある。なぜそんな無闇をしたと聞く人があるかも知れぬ。別段深い理由でもない。新築の二階から首を出していたら、同級生の一人が冗談に、いくら威張っても、そこから飛び降りる事は出来まい。弱虫やーい。と囃したからである。小使に負ぶさって帰って来た時、おやじが大きな眼をして二階ぐらいから飛び降りて腰を抜かす奴があるかと云ったから、この次は抜かさずに飛んで見せますと答えた。 親類のものから西洋製のナイフを貰って奇麗な刃を日に翳して、友達に見せていたら、一人が光る事は光るが切れそうもないと云った。切れぬ事があるか、何でも切ってみせると受け合った。そんなら君の指を切ってみろと注文したから、何だ指ぐらいこの通りだと右の手の親指の甲をはすに切り込んだ。幸ナイフが小さいのと、親指の骨が堅かったので、今だに親指は手に付いている。しかし創痕は死ぬまで消えぬ。 庭を東へ二十歩に行き尽すと、南上がりにいささかばかりの菜園があって、真中に栗の木が一本立っている。これは命より大事な栗だ。実の熟する時分は起き抜け
English translation (Pagera AI)
See the full translation preview in the reader.
Pagera Editor's Note
A quick-tempered young man from Tokyo takes a mathematics post at a middle school in rural Shikoku and lasts less than a month. He nicknames every colleague on sight, walks straight into every trap set for him, and cannot tell an ally from an enemy until it is far too late. Sōseki's most widely read novel is funny on the surface and unsparing underneath, and the one person who ever loved the narrator plainly is the old servant Kiyo, whose place in the story is only clear at the end.
Author
夏目漱石
Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) is widely regarded as the foremost Japanese novelist of the modern era. A scholar of English literature who studied in London, he left academia to write full time for the Asahi Shimbun. His works, among them Kokoro, I Am a Cat and Botchan, examine loneliness, self-interest and the strain of a society modernising faster than the people inside it.
Translation status
999 people requested this translation
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