Japanese is a very expressive language, containing many words without direct English translations. A famous example, most likely popularised by tumblr, is komorembi (sunlight filtering through trees). “Kokoro” is another word that is hard to translate:

Kokoro, the novel’s title, is a complex and important word that can perhaps best be explained as “the thinking and feeling heart,” as distinguished from the workings of the pure intellect, devoid of human feeling.

The novel, a classic in Japan, presents the relationship of a young man and Sensei. However, underlying the relatively simple plot is the strong symbology of the fading Meiji era and subsequent internationalisation of Japan (a recurring theme in much of 20th-century Japanese literature). While this was a good thing to many, the previous generation experienced a complex kind of guilt, manifesting in the “thinking and feeling heart”, which is portrayed very well in Kokoro. But even without this deep motif, Kokoro is a powerful and tragic novel that broadened my understanding of Japanese culture.

Kokoro, the novel’s title, is a complex and important word that can perhaps best be explained as “the thinking and feeling heart,” as distinguished from the workings of the pure intellect, devoid of human feeling.

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“I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said to him, ‘If there’s any fault in me, then please tell me honestly. If I can correct it, I will.’ And he replied, ‘You don’t have any fault. The fault is in me.’ When I heard that, it made me unbearably sad. It made me cry. And I longed more than ever to know how I might be to blame.”

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Woman that she was, my mother’s reasoning grew rather incoherent at such times, though when it came to talking, she could easily outdo my father and me combined.

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a commonplace idea stated with passionate conviction carries more living truth than some novel observation expressed with cool indifference.

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In my heart, though, I was saddened that the person I loved and trusted most in the world could not understand me. But it’s within your power to help her understand, I thought, and yet you’re too cowardly to do so, and I grew still sadder.

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