The Miner is the most daringly experimental and least well known novel of the great Meiji novelist Natsume Soseki. An absurdist novel about the indeterminate nature of human personality, The Miner, written in 1908, was in many was a precursor to the now-infamous work of Joyce and Beckett. The narrative unfolds within the mind of an unnamed protagonist-narrator, a young man caught in a love triangle who flees Tokyo, is picked up by a procurer of cheap labour for a copper mine, then travels toward and inside the depths of the mine, in search of oblivion. As he delves,...Read more
The Miner is the most daringly experimental and least well known novel of the great Meiji novelist Natsume Soseki. An absurdist novel about the indeterminate nature of human personality, The Miner, written in 1908, was in many was a precursor to the now-infamous work of Joyce and Beckett. The narrative unfolds within the mind of an unnamed protagonist-narrator, a young man caught in a love triangle who flees Tokyo, is picked up by a procurer of cheap labour for a copper mine, then travels toward and inside the depths of the mine, in search of oblivion. As he delves, the young man reflects at length on nearly every thought and perception he experiences along the way, in terms of what the experience means to him at the time and in retrospect as a mature adult narrating the tale. His conclusion? That there is no such thing as human character. The result is a novel that is both absurd and comical, and a true modernist classic.
- ISBN10 0008112460
- ISBN13 9780008112462
- Publish Date 16 April 2015 (first published 31 January 1950)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint The Friday Project Limited
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 200
- Language English
- URL http://harpercollins.co.uk