Thoughts on Kokoro

Kokoro was a very different story in terms of styling and the characters in general. I felt like Murakami took a lot from Soseki in his works. What I liked about the story was how frank the author was about the main character's emotions and perspective of change. There were many points in the story where the main character reported feeling a visible change after and interaction. For example, when the main character came back home for the summer and stayed with family, the MC was not very fond of his uncles various mentioning of marriage. When the main character rejected the proposal and hurt his cousin's feelings, the following summer, the character went into detail about how the atmosphere completely changed. This example is one of many that deepened my perspective as a reader. Being able to map when the main character's world perspective was changing and even when the main character did not want his perspective to change was interesting. I also felt like the main character in this story was a little similar to Boku in that (despite the MC's range of emotions differed greatly from Boku) his treatment of others was similar. In a way, the main character in Kokoro had the same disillusionment and normalness I felt in reading Boku. Although, the character in Kokoro was more selfish in many ways. Reading how he handled suddenly proposing and not telling K about any of it had me feeling less and less sympathy. I especially felt less sympathetic when he continued to not tell his wife anything and let his guilt degrade their marriage and cause Ojosan emotional harm. In the end, I felt like dragging Ojosan into his guilt and problems made the selfish act of going behind K's back even less justified. However, despite this, the story was enjoyable because there was a window into the minds of the characters that was different from a lot of Murakami's work.

Ariel