Ten Nights of Dreams/Soseki Natsume

It is fantastic and absurd dream stories!

Ten Nights of Dreams is Japanese famous novel written by Soseki Natsume in 1908. It consists various ten short story about dream. Some of them begin with the phrase "This is what I saw in my dream", this phrase is well known among Japanese fans. This novel was made into movie in 2007.

The first night is known as especially beautiful story in ten nights. In the first night, the dreamer was asked by woman who says she was dying to bury her in the ground. She also said him that she would come to see him again after one hundred years later. She actually died with having tears running down her cheeks.

The dreamer buried her and waited her with counting sunset. However, he could not see her for years and suspected she told a lie. The white lily bloomed with dropping dew in front of him then. He kissed it and realized that a hundred years had already come.

There is a connection between woman and the lily. Woman is often compared to a flower. "Beautiful woman's standing style is as grass peony, sitting as peony, walking style is lily" is a Japanese famous saying. There are many woman's names come from flowers in the world including Japan, Rose, Violet, Margaret, Jasmine and Lily.

In addition, a lily is described "百合" in Japanese. "百" means a hundred, "合" means fit, match or combine in Japanese. That is why a lily bloomed in front of the dreamer.

On the other hand, there are many different ways to interpret the 10th night. Shotaro who is a main character of this story is knocking pigs off one after another not to fall over the cliff. Some people think a pig is desires, sexual desire, sleep desire, drinking desire or appetite. Other people think a pig is working. People work hard to live(not to fall over the cliff) like Shotaro.

Maybe you cannot grasp Soseki's meaning of some night stories after reading. When you cannot understand them, you should enjoy reading them without interpreting. Ten Nights of Dreams is originally fantastic and absurd dream stories.