Like its Western counterpart, modern Japanese fiction is predominantly secular. Despite the ostensibly heavy Buddhist overtone in premodern Japanese literature, modern Japanese fiction reflects the rapid westernization and modernization brought on by the Meiji Restoration (1868) and betrays a deliberate break from the premodern when literature was at times used as a vehicle for conveying Buddhist thoughts and teachings. Modern Japanese fiction, in its predominantly introspective mode, can be seen as an extended quest for a god that is not there rather than a testimony of religious faith. Ichirō in Natsume Sōseki's (1867–1916) The Wayfarer (Kōjin, 1912–1913) is the prime example of the frustrated spiritual quest of a modern intellectual. In a moment of existential angst, he proclaims that the three choices open to him are "religion, suicide, and madness" and proceeds to hover in a state of mental breakdown, knowing in fact...