‘Une journée de début d’automne’ (‘A Day at the Start of Autumn’) by Natusme Sōseki (Review)

Early last week, I looked at Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Hell of Solitude, the first of a number of acquisitions inspired by a reread of Anri Yasuda’s excellent work, Beauty Matters, and I’m back today to talk about a second one, by another of my all-time favourite Japanese writers. I’m afraid, though, that this is one that few of you will be able to try for yourselves. You see, having sampled virtually everything of the writer’s work that’s available in English, I’ve had to branch out a little – allons y ***** Une journée de début d’automne consists of seven short pieces by the great Natusme Sōseki, written between 1907 and 1914. It’s not a collection that was published as such in Japanese as far as I’m aware, and none of the inclusions seem to be available in English. It’s fortunate, then, that other languages are treated more favourably, meaning I was able to source this French-language edition, in the translation of Elisabeth Suetsugu. The opening piece, ‘Le soir de mon arrivée à Kyôto’…