How Do You Live?

How Do You Live? is a novel translated from Japanese author Genzaburo Yoshino. The book was published in 1937, and it’s called 君たちはどう生きるか　(Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka) in Japanese . It follows a young 15-year-old boy called Junichi Honda, whose nickname is Copper, and his uncle as the boy encounters life about poverty, spirit growth and finding the meaning of being a good human. The story takes place in the 1930s, and Copper lives with his single mother, because his father had died a year before. His father’s death brought inevitable and enormous change to Copper, including his own betrayal of his best friend. Luckily, his uncle is there to fill in the role of a father. He writes to him in a notebook sharing his knowledge and offering valuable life lessons, along with big questions. He helps Copper understand the outside world deeper as Copper begins to encounter many adventures. How Do You Live? is mainly about Copper, but there are interjections from his Uncle’s notebook, which is filled with all sorts of information on how to cope with life. This notebook also helps Copper understand how he wants to live his life. Along with the course of the story, Copper gets to answer the question of how he will live based on the discoveries he made about heaven, earth and human nature.

I really enjoyed this book because it’s not like those normal types of coming-of-age books. It paints every single detail in your mind extremely clearly. I can image Uragawa’s fried tofu shop, the Taiyaki bean cake, and even the cold ice packs in the little tin bucket. I can tell that much care was put into writing this book, and I think that everyone should read it.

I picked out one of my favorite quotes from the book:

“You take many things from this world, but I wonder what you will give back in return?”

I love this quote because it talks about how we randomly take things from this world, but we won’t give anything back in return. By using this quote, I think that Genzaburo wants us to appreciate our world more, and never needlessly take things from it.

I would recommend this book because it’s a very interesting novel. It’s sort of like a slice of life thing, and I think that some kids can relate to the story. This book should be read by everyone at least once in their lifetime.