An Adopted Husband [Sono Omokage]

Authors

Futabatei Shimei, (author)
Buhachiro Mitsui, (translator)
Gregg M. Sinclair, (translator)

Files

Description

This novel by Futabatei Shimei (1864–1909) falls squarely within the traditions of Naturalism in literature. Reminiscent of Theordore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie or Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, it presents characters in the grip of forces they cannot resist or control. Tetsuya is a Professor of Economics and Finance who has accepted an adoption-marriage to pay the costs of his education. Now he finds himself miserable with his neglectful wife Toki-ko, and attracted to her illegitimate half-sister Sayo-ko, who cannot help herself from returning his affections. Enmeshed by their emotions, hemmed in by convention, tormented by guilt and remorse, the lovers careen down a tears-laden course of deceit and dissolution. In Meiji Japan, the idealists must bend while the realists flourish and the costs to humanity are measured in suffering and despair.

ISBN

978-1-60962-245-9 ebook

Publication Date

3-21-2022

Publisher

Zea Books

City

Lincoln, Nebraska

Keywords

Japan, Meiji, novels, Tokyo

Disciplines

Fiction

Comments

An Adopted Husband (Sono Omokage) appeared in 1906. This English translation was first published in 1919.

Recommended Citation

Shimei, Futabatei; Mitsui, Buhachiro; and Sinclair, Gregg M., "An Adopted Husband [Sono Omokage]" (2022). Zea E-Books Collection. 122.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/122