The central character of Futon or The Quilt is a man caught in the midst of many contradictory desires, originally appearing in 1907 its mention and discussion of repressed passions may have provoked sharp intakes of breath although from a retrospective viewpoint the story is a fully realized portrait of a man caught with ennui in the emerging realization that his married life is running on empty. Through translator Kenneth G. Henshall's thorough introduction we learn that Futon along with Toson's Hakai/The Broken Commandment, of 1906 is one of the earliest examples of the Shishosetsu. Takenaka Tokio is a man of literature who receives repeated requests to act as a patron for a young woman named Yoshiko whose character is the polar opposite to that of his wife, she in ways represents the new age, unlike Tokio's rather old fashioned wife she has a passion for new literature, under Tokio's tutelage the plan is that she will become a successful writer, which of the time the idea of a female author was more than likely seen as being quite a modern phenomenon. There are many scenes of desperation throughout the beginning of the story, Tokio's sense of entrapment within his marriage reduces him to bouts of drinking out of frustration, and when Yoshiko has moved into the family home he begins to become deeply enraptured by her, but is caught in wondering if she feels the same way, rumours go around and she has to move to a relatives house to avoid the gossip of scandal spreading. The story becomes more fraught for Tokio when it's discovered that Yoshiko had been whisked away one night by a fellow student, Tanaka, and Tokio is left in a state of agonized suspicion as to whether anything happened between the two, has Yoshiko's chastity been preserved?, the rest of the story witnesses the untangling of the predicament. Futon is obviously an important landmark work in Japanese Literature, there is much here that is representative of the changing attitudes of the age, and also of it heralding the changes within literary styles told with a psychological honesty that must has made revelatory reading on its publication. (from: http://nihondistractions.blogspot.com... )