The Wayfarer (novel)
novel by Natsume Sōseki
The Wayfarer (Japanese: 行人, Hepburn: Kōjin) is a 1912 novel by Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki. It is the second part of a trilogy starting with To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (1912) and ending with Kokoro (1914).
Plot
Jirō, a young office worker in late Meiji era Tokyo and narrator of the novel, tells of the unhappy marriage of his older brother Ichirō, a university professor, and his wife Onao. During a family excursion to Osaka, the suspicious Ichirō asks Jirō to try Onao's fidelity by staying overnight at an inn with her in Wakayama. Jirō, reluctant at first, eventually agrees to the plan. Soon after their return, Jirō tells Ichirō that his brother has no reason to question his wife's loyalty, but Ichirō is unsatisfied with Jirō's answer and insists on further reports. Jirō evades his brother's inquiries, which strains their relationship. Weary of the growing familial tensions, Jirō decides to leave home and move into a quarter of his own. When he learns that his parents worry about Ichirō's increasingly eccentric behaviour, he persuades his brother's colleague H to take Ichirō on a holiday with him to help Ichirō regain his mental stability. While en route, H sends a long letter to Jirō in which he explains that Ichirō's nervous state is due to his being too demanding of himself and his surroundings, and to his constant aiming at the absolute.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Wayfarer (novel)” is novel by Natsume Sōseki. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Wayfarer, novel and Natsume, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “novel by Natsume Sōseki” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5824170. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912 and 1914.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Wayfarer (novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.