Grass on the Wayside
is a 1915 Japanese autobiographical novel by Sōseki Natsume. It is his only autobiographical work of fiction, and his last completed work. Together with Kokoro (1914), Grass on the Wayside is often cited as Natsume's major literary effort. Plot After having returned from England, Kenzō, an egocentric, emotionally detached man in his thirties, teaches English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. His wife Osumi, with whom he constantly argues, is pregnant with their third child, and to facilitate their monetary situation, he starts writing articles for magazines until late in the night. While he holds neither one of his siblings in high regard, he supports his older, sickly half-sister Onatsu with a monthly income, although she is herself married (her husband Hida is rumoured to spend his money on a mistress), and also lends money to his older brother Chōtarō. One day, Kenzō is approached by his former adoptive father Shimada, who asks him for his financial support. Kenzō remembers his secured but loveless childhood at his possessive foster parents' home, where he lived between the age of two and eight. When Shimada divorced his wife Otsune and remarried, Kenzō first lived with Otsune before returning to his natural parents, where