A Spoiler in Our Textbook

Natsume Soseki is considered a literary giant in Japan. I read about his novel in one of our textbooks when I was a high school student. I was not familiar with literature, but I had heard his name.  So I expected to read more in the class. An excerpt from his book Kokoro was included in our textbook. “Kokoro” means heart. I remember I was not moved by the excerpt.

 

Ten years later, I had the opportunity to read the book Kokoro from the beginning to the end. I was surprised. It turned out to be a very interesting mystery novel. Let me introduce the beginning of the story to you: One day, in the late Meiji era, maybe around 1912, a student saw a mysterious man on the beach. He was talking with a foreigner in English. In those days, most Japanese couldn’t speak English, So the student became interested in the man and called him sensei. Sensei means master or teacher in Japanese.

 

Naturally, the student respected him. But sensei was still mysterious. He had graduated from the best university and was still of prime working age. However, he was doing nothing but visiting a grave. The conversations between sensei and the student tell us that sensei was a highly educated, smart person.

 

Are you interested in this story? We have to consider the fact that the Meiji era was an era of Japanese development. So if a highly educated, smart person was ambitious, that person could be anything: a billionaire, a leader of Japan. But sensei and his wife lived very quietly. Why was that? At the end of the story, sensei sent a letter to the student. In the letter, sensei confessed his secret.

 

I am sure you would like to read this novel now. But that is not my point. My point has to do with my high school textbook. Can you guess what part of the story they forced us to read by including it in our textbook? They picked the last part of the book: sensei’s letter. A stupid textbook publisher made that decision, the crazy Ministry of Education gave its permission, and the idiot teachers selected the textbook for us.

 

Having people read the mystery-solving part alone is the worst thing one can do to a mystery novel. It is especially rude to the author and the readers. We call this a spoiler. In our case, it was a huge spoiler. My classmates, my older and younger friends from my high school, and the students from other high schools that chose the same textbook were all victims of this spoiler. They lost the opportunity to enjoy the mystery of Kokoro.

 

I know Kokoro is a little too long to be included in a textbook in its entirety. But if the textbook’s writers/publishers had really wanted to introduce students to Natsume Soseki, they could have considered one of the author’s many shorter novels. How could they have chosen sensei’s letter? They must apologize to Soseki-sensei.

 

Incidentally, my grade in my Japanese literature class was not good. But I am happy I failed to earn the high regard of a bunch of fools.

 

If I were a textbook editor, I would have put the beginning of Kokoro in the textbook. If I were a teacher, I would have recommended that my students discuss sensei’s mystery. I would have said, “Your discussion was really interesting. I wish I could reveal the answer, but I am just a teacher. I am not allowed to spread sensei’s secret. If you are interested, visit our library and read Kokoro. I assure you, there are many other interesting books in our library.”

 Japanese 

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Picture by kogome