Japanese Literature Summaries
日本語

The Silver Spoon — Summary and Characters

A silver spoon wakes a childhood

Author
Naka Kansuke
Published
April 1913
First appeared in
Tokyo Asahi Shimbun
Form
Novel
Genres
  • Psychological
Length
93,738 characters
Reading time
About 3 hr 7 min
Orthography
Modern script, historical kana

About this work

An autobiographical novel serialized in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun from 1913. Naka's teacher Natsume Sōseki praised it warmly and recommended it to the paper. Taking as his thread a small silver spoon kept in a box in his study, the narrator sets down with great delicacy the memories of a sickly, shy childhood watched over by his aunt, in the sensations of a child kept intact. Said to catch the inner world of a child more purely than any other work: a classic of modern Japanese literature.

Summary

In the drawer of the bookcase in my study there is a small box that has been put away there since long ago. It is a box of cork, which seems once to have held imported snuff, and inside are cowrie shells and camellia seeds and the little playthings of my childhood; and among them is one small silver spoon of an unusual shape. One day I found this silver spoon in a drawer of the tea cabinet at home — it was the spoon with which my aunt used to give medicine to me, a sickly little child. Taking the silver spoon for its thread, the story follows my memories in fine detail, in a child's own senses. The first part is childhood: how I, shy and timid and weak in body, who had never once come down from my aunt's back, was brought up under the shelter of temple fairs and side shows and old tales told beneath the lamp, and how I came in time to have two friends, O-Kuni-san and O-Kei-chan, and to learn what parting is. The second part is boyhood: how in a classroom seething over the war with China I insisted that we were sure to lose; how I came to resent the lessons in morals; how I said good-bye to a brother who dragged me about in the name of "education"; how I came to admire an old priest at a temple, and visited my aged aunt and spent one last night with her. At the close of the story comes the summer of my seventeenth year. On the evening when the elder sister of a friend, whom I had met at the villa where I was staying, goes away, the sound of the rickshaw grows distant and the gate shuts, and hidden among the flowers I weep without stopping. Regretting that I had not said a single word of farewell, I smell the sweet scent of the peaches she left behind, and weep afresh. Naka Kansuke's imperishable masterpiece, of which it is said that no other work has drawn the world of a child's heart so purely.

Characters

Chapter-by-chapter synopsis

The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).

  1. 1. About This Work
  2. 2. Main Characters
  3. 3. Major Supporting Characters
  4. 4. The Silver Spoon, and My Aunt's Own Hands
  5. 5. Childhood Days in Koishikawa
  6. 6. School — The Dunce and the Class Monitor
  7. 7. O-Kei-chan
  8. 8. Part Two — War, My Brother, and Rebellion
  9. 9. The Old Priest of Shōrinji, and Parting from My Aunt
  10. 10. The Summer of Seventeen — Echo Peak and the Elder Sister
  11. 11. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing

The opening (original text)

In the drawer of the bookcase in my study, where I keep all sorts of odds and ends, there is one small box that has been put away since long ago. It is made of cork wood, with pictured paper bearing a peony pattern pasted over the joints of the boards, but it seems originally to have held some imported snuff. ... Inside it are packed cowrie shells and camellia seeds and the small odds and ends that were my playthings when I was little; and among them there is one silver spoon of an unusual shape, which I have never once forgotten.

The Silver Spoon by Naka Kansuke (Aozora Bunko)

The ending (original text)

"Good-bye, and take care of yourself." In the dark I bowed my head without a word. The sound of the rickshaw grew distant, and the gate shut. Hidden among the flowers, I wiped away the tears that flowed without stopping. Why did I say nothing? Why did I not speak a single word of farewell?

The Silver Spoon by Naka Kansuke (Aozora Bunko)

Famous passages

In a drawer of the bookcase in my study, where all manner of odds and ends are kept, there has long lain a small box.

An opening that draws out the memory of childhood from a small box, holding a silver spoon, kept in the study. A limpid autobiographical work that won Sōseki's high praise.

Read the original

The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.

Aozora Bunko library card

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