BookReport of Botchan
Botchanis a very interesting, intriguing and amusing novel, which is written by a Japanese novelist NatsumeSoseki, who is the one of the greatest writers of Japan and is widely considered the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji Era.The book is written in an autobiographical style which described the life of a son born in Tokyo, hot-blooded, simple-hearted, pure as the crystal and sturdy as a towering rock, honest and straight to a fault, intolerant of the least injustice and a volunteer ever ready to champion what he considers right and good and kneel down even to a child if he acknowledge his wrong.
The story concentrates on the time when the hero teaches mathematics in a middle school in a distant and undeveloped town after he graduated. In the middle school, there are a gang of instructors of dark character who are always playing their annoying intrigues. The hero of the story is also a victim of their plots, but he finally comes out triumphant by smashing the petty red shirt, knocking down the sham pretentions and by actual use of the fist on the Head Instructor and his henchman.Some peoples think that the story is a biting sarcasm on a hypocritical society because the author himself was an English teacher in a middle school somewhere about the same part of the country described in the story on his younger days.
There are seven main characters in the story. The hero “botchan” is pure, straight, brave but quick-temper, dashing-spirit and saucy teacher. There are old maid servant Kiyo who is devoted to the hero and four faculties in that school whothe hero nicknames them separately, ?Badger? for the principal who is full of hypocritical morals, ?Red Shirt? for the head-teacher who is a bastard, ?Hubbard Squash? for the teacher of English who is very coward, ?Porcupine? the teacher of mathematics who is rather wise andalways ready to help others, and ?Clown? for that of drawing who is scheming.
On a scene in the story, all their characteristics are vividly manifested. On the farewell dinner party for ?Hubbard Squash?, the principal and the Red Shirt make an address firstly in which they praise the Hubbard Squash in a lavish terms, express
their regret, and say his departure is a great loss not only to the school but to them in person; however, what the truth is that they played a trick to make Hubbard Squash transferred.And then Porcupine make a speech to satire those dark characters , in which it expresses the Nebeoka where Hubbard is going to teach is a place where the customs are simple and untainted and the people there still strong in the
straightforward characteristics of old days.In contrast to what Porcupine do, Hubbard himself behaves rather cowardly; he also makes an address, buthe is too ?good-naturedness? because he just respectfully thanks the principal and the head-teacher who fooled him.
There are many bright virtues I should learn from the hero. He is a greatest warrior against hypocritical society. He treats the raise of salary nothing when he realizes that it has broken his principles; he feels sympathy for and indignant to Hubbard Quash? suffer; he defends for his friend Porcupinewhen he was treated injustice. He is very brave to challenge the authority, to defend the justice.He is so pure, and I love him very much.
Beside my favor for the hero, I also have a preference to Kiyo and Porcupine. Kiyo treats his master with all her heart. While the family of the hero shows an indifference to him, Kiyo was almost blindly fond of him (according to the hero). I think that is why the hero has such good trait.And porcupine is a man of wisdom, perseverance, and sharp-minded. When he knows he has blamed the hero wrongly, he makes a lengthy apology to him.He helps the hero a lot; he helps the hero with the house-holding and many other things. What?s more, it?s him who comes up with the idea to knock down the sham pretentions and hypocrisy of Red Shirt.
Although it is a Japanese novel, I read the translation by YasotaroMorri. The translated version is worthy reading, it almost vividly passes on the humor and satire tone to us. It is a light, amusing, and instructive story, with no tangle of love affairs, no scheme of blood-curdling scenes or nothing startling or sensational in the plot or character. The story, however, once you start to read it, you can not drop it until you finished it.
