5 h 25 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 25 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if telling the truth makes you the most troublesome person in the staff room?
Botchan leaves Tokyo to teach mathematics in a faraway country town. Hot-headed and blunt, he dislikes the place and refuses to flatter anyone. Students test him, colleagues scheme, and his quick temper makes every slight harder to swallow. He tells the story himself, saying exactly what he thinks.
In Natsume Sōseki’s short comic novel, honesty meets a world of polite lies. The smooth senior teacher Red Shirt arouses Botchan’s distrust, while the bluff Porcupine shares his blunt manner. Behind Botchan’s reckless pride stands Kiyo, the old servant whose kindness gives him something his family does not.
What you’ll discover
- A voice without filters Botchan’s quick, plain speech brings you close to his anger, pride, and comic misjudgments.
- A staff room of schemers Meet teachers whose nicknames expose the habits Botchan finds so hard to tolerate.
- Honesty with rough edges Follow a young man who hates deceit but is far from a saint.
- Kindness beyond the family Discover Kiyo’s steady affection for a reckless boy she insists on seeing as honest.
- The sting of belonging nowhere Recognize the discomfort of working among strangers whose rules you neither like nor trust.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy a funny first-person narrator, school and workplace comedy, and a straight-talking outsider among schemers. It also offers a warm story of an old servant's loyalty.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A straight talker meets smooth schemers
- Kiyo believes in the reckless boy
- First impressions become names that stick
- School pranks turn into personal warfare
- A meeting changes his view of Porcupine
- A promised raise tests his loyalty
- Kiyo makes genuine kindness easy to recognize
- His voice reveals what he misses
- Honesty matters even when it blunders
Who’s who
- The narratorA reckless Tokyo man, called Master Darling by Kiyo, who takes a mathematics post in Shikoku and cannot bear lies or flattery.
- KiyoThe old family maid who adores the narrator, spoils him with gifts, and dreams of living in his house one day.
- PorcupineHotta, the broad, loud head of mathematics, popular with students, quick to anger, and a rival and later friend to the narrator.
- Red ShirtThe head teacher with a soft voice and a red flannel shirt, who uses smooth words and quiet schemes to get what he wants.
- ClownYoshikawa, the drawing teacher, a flatterer who follows Red Shirt everywhere and repeats his opinions.
- Hubbard SquashKoga, the pale, gentle English teacher, a quiet gentleman who would rather keep his post and his mother's house.
- BadgerThe principal, who talks about education and virtue while arranging Koga's transfer and deciding the students' punishment.
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Botchan in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Botchan
by Natsume Sōseki · 1906
A short-tempered Tokyo math teacher lands in a Shikoku school where students and colleagues all play tricks.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Because of an inherited recklessness, I have been losing at one thing or another since childhood.”
In short
What happens when a young man who cannot lie takes a teaching job in a town where everyone smiles and schemes? He jumps from a school window on a dare.
Botchan at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 5 min2 h 25 min fast, 3 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 44,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1906by Natsume Sōseki
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A reckless boy finds one believer in Kiyo
The book opens with a list of the narrator's failures, and he tells it almost with pride. As a boy he jumps from a second-floor window because a classmate calls him a coward. He ruins a neighbor's carrot patch by wrestling on it. His father says he is no good, and his mother cannot hide her worry.
His mother favors his older brother, a pale boy who studies English to become a businessman. The two fight about once every ten days. Once the narrator smashes a chess piece against his brother's forehead, and his father threatens to cut him out of the family.
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Which edition is right for me
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Details
- First published
- 1906
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 30 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Natsume, Sōseki. Botchan. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/botchan.
Natsume, S. (2026). Botchan. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/botchan (Original work published 1906)
Natsume, Sōseki. Botchan. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/botchan.
@book{natsume2026botchan,
author = {Natsume, Sōseki},
title = {Botchan},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/botchan},
note = {First published 1906}
}
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What is Botchan about?
A young mathematics teacher from Tokyo takes a job at a middle school in Shikoku. His honesty and temper clash with students who play pranks and colleagues who scheme, while he thinks fondly of his old maid Kiyo.
What does the word Botchan mean?
Botchan is a Japanese word for a young master or a sheltered, pampered boy. In the book Kiyo calls the narrator Master Darling, a term of tender affection that he finds both funny and touching.
Who are Red Shirt, Porcupine, and Clown?
They are nicknames the narrator gives colleagues. Red Shirt is the head teacher who wears a red shirt, Porcupine is the large mathematics head Hotta, and Clown is the drawing teacher Yoshikawa, who flatters Red Shirt.
The author
Natsume Sōseki
1867–1916 · Japanese novelist
Natsume Soseki was a Japanese novelist born in Edo, now Tokyo, in 1867. He studied in London from 1900 to 1903 and later lived in Tokyo. His novels include I Am a Cat, published from 1905 to 1906, Botchan (1906), and Kokoro (1914). He died in Tokyo in 1916.
“Because of an inherited recklessness, I have been losing at one thing or another since childhood.”
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