What is the nature of essay-writing in the Hyakkien Zuihitsu? This collection contains pieces that were first published as novels. For Hyakken, the essay form has nothing to do with style, but only with content: the essay is either an "account of humanity" or an "account of social life."When the mystical is recounted, it is called a novel, even if the mode is essayistic. The distinctive feature of the Hyakkien Zuihitsu is its novelistic quality. It is influenced by Natsume Soseki's I Am a Cat and consists of a deformation of actual experience, This essay pursues this issue by comparing the collection with Hyakken's diaries from the same period.
