Botchan

About

A brash young teacher from Tokyo arrives in a conservative boys' school in Japan's deep south, armed with an absolute lack of respect for local customs and an unfortunate talent for making enemies. Botchan — the nickname means something like "young master" — collides with every established hierarchy: pompous colleagues, unruly students, and the entire social apparatus of a town that runs on deference. Soseki's 1906 novel remains one of the funniest books in Japanese literature — a comedy of manners that doubles as a study of what happens when principled stubbornness meets institutional mediocrity. Botchan's refusal to play along is both his greatest virtue and his most reliable source of disaster. A novel about the particular Japanese art of making enemies by insisting on honesty.