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I am not a good enough reviewer to properly express why this is a five star book. I cannot do it justice with my meager words. My only hope is to possibly express just a touch of why this book works.

I've read three of Soseki's books and I've had a weird "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" reaction to them. First was Botchan which I really liked but had some major issues with the translation (this chair was too hard). Second was Kusamakura which has one of the most perfect translations I've ever read, with every chapter being beautiful, but I simply disliked the book (this chair was too soft). Then there is Kokoro which is just right in every way.

The book is deceptively simple. It follows a young man who meets an older gentleman who he refers to as Sensei the entire time. He looks up to Sensei though can't quite seem to express why. Sensei is a cynical man who holds no position. He simply stays home with his wife and reads. What happened in Sensei's past? Well that's something our narrator intends to find out.

Let me say now, during the first third of this book I kept asking myself why I was continuing on with it. The narrator is not a particularly likable fellow and Sensei honestly isn't really either. I was annoyed at these two people (and at least one of our narrator's actions actively angered me... which is unusual as I'm not the sort to get mad at fictional characters) and frankly when we started getting Sensei's past I thought it was pretty obvious where it was going... but at some point something clicked for me. It's hard to fully explain but I became engrossed not with the actual events, but the reactions of the characters. When we get inside Sensei's head and hear some of his descriptions of events I was caught up in his practically paranoid outlook and found the way he unfolded his tale to be fascinating.

There's something about this book that is practically insidious. The story itself is interesting, but not exactly groundbreaking... but it's told in a perfect manner. It got under my skin in a way that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I would be at work and a part of it would pop into my head. I would be driving and start thinking about Sensei's words. It's the sort of book that feels, while not really a perfect story, a perfectly told version of the story.

Again, I don't even know if what I'm saying makes sense, but at this point it's really the best I can do. The book is a masterpiece and one that will no doubt be staying with me for quite some time. 5/5 stars.