Novel
The Quilt
蒲団
Tayama Katai · 1907
Synopsis
Takenaka Tokio, a thirty-four-year-old novelist, is bored in a loveless marriage as in his work. A young provincial student, Yokoyama Yoshiko, writes to him of her admiration and asks to become his pupil; after a few letters, he agrees, and she comes to Tokyo. He falls in love with her without saying anything, for fear of what people will say. Yoshiko, according to the note in the Spanish translation, refuses the submissive life expected of young women, goes out with her friends, then becomes involved with another student.
Context
The story appeared in 1907 in the magazine Shinshōsetsu. It starts from the author's relationship with a real pupil, Okada Michiyo, and was judged scandalous for the frankness with which it speaks of desire; Britannica speaks of an embarrassing detail. Written in the third person, it is nevertheless regarded as the first I-novel, a genre that draws on the author's own life, and it is what made its author's reputation.
Who it is for
A short narrative, whose frankness caused a scandal, about a married man's unspoken desire for his pupil.
Prizes and reception
It opened the genre of the narrative drawn from the writer's own life in Japan and became its model, at the cost of a scandal.
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