Museum Hours

The missing corner of the three cornered world is common sense. This absolutely exquisite novel from 1906 by one of the most revered of Japansese writers, Natsume Soseki, considers to droll but also profound effect how a slightly hapless artist seeks to engage 'non-emotionally' with the world as he visits a remote mountainous spa or hot springs. As the protagonist describes this aesthetic using the analogy of the game of Noh; the pleasure that we take from engaging in the game is not from any skill at presenting the raw human feelings of the 'everyday' world but: "...from clothing feeling 'as it is' in layer upon layer of art, and in a kind of slowed serenity of deportment not to be found in the real world". That phrase 'slowed serenity of deportment' (instantly becoming one of my favourite ever lines) is a beautiful way of capturing a wholly different disposition towards the world is required in order to be truly able to apprecia