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千羽鶴
撫摸這個既冷又暖的茶碗珍品，
讓菊治憶起父親情婦的肌膚……
它誘發的究竟是反胃的齷齪，還是令人飄飄欲仙的誘惑？
故事從鎌倉境內的某間茶室開端。
出身於茶道名門的菊治，
在一場猶豫著該不該參加的茶會上，
與父親生前過從甚密的數名女子悄然相遇。
而為他沏茶的不是別人，
竟是來時路上，那位令他眼睛一亮、手持繪有千羽鶴包袱巾的小姐。
透過一只古老茶碗的流轉，
所有人的命運，將因此產生一連串彷若被牽引至茶湯漩渦中的魔性變化……
「真美啊！」菊治喃喃自語地說：
「我父親可能也曾忘我地撫弄這個茶碗，以麻痺各種罪孽之心。」
讓菊治憶起父親情婦的肌膚……
它誘發的究竟是反胃的齷齪，還是令人飄飄欲仙的誘惑？
故事從鎌倉境內的某間茶室開端。
出身於茶道名門的菊治，
在一場猶豫著該不該參加的茶會上，
與父親生前過從甚密的數名女子悄然相遇。
而為他沏茶的不是別人，
竟是來時路上，那位令他眼睛一亮、手持繪有千羽鶴包袱巾的小姐。
透過一只古老茶碗的流轉，
所有人的命運，將因此產生一連串彷若被牽引至茶湯漩渦中的魔性變化……
「真美啊！」菊治喃喃自語地說：
「我父親可能也曾忘我地撫弄這個茶碗，以麻痺各種罪孽之心。」
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1952
8 people want to read
About the author
Yasunari Kawabata
426 books3,848 followersYasunari Kawabata (川端 康成) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read today.
Nobel Lecture: 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...
Nobel Lecture: 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 27, 2018
Thoughts before reading:
I have a burning question to ask after reading two Yasunari Kawabata's novels and on my way to read the third: Is that just this Kawabata guy, or is it common for men in general to keep thinking about this perfect but unreal phantom of a beautiful woman (whom they can't be with for one reason or another), even when they already had a solid but flawed wife or girlfriend (they are flawed because all humans are flawed) by their sides?
Any menfolk bothers to answer me?
Thoughts after reading:
3.5 stars.
I think it's fitting to share with you one of the messages I think Mr. Kawabata might want to express through this story: love can be hellish.
Also I want to add photos from a band called Moran and a music video of theirs: 薔薇色の地獄 (translation: Rosy Colored Hell)
Link to music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVt_H...
After reading Snow Country and The Old Capital, I notice a major change in Kawabata's themes: the sense of guilt and karma dominate Thousand Cranes like it has never been in the previous two books.
The plots are rather straight forward and easily understandable: the main story is centered around a young man (Kikuji) and his relationships with a few different women: Mrs. Ota, a long term mistress of the man's late father (who was a master of tea ceremony), Miss Ota, her daughter. Chikako, Kikuji's father's less favored former mistress and Yukiko, a young woman whom Chikako tries to match-make with Kikuji. After a chance meeting with Mrs. Ota and her daughter, Kikuji started a (slightly incestuous) affair with his father's former mistress, but this relationship soon attracts unexpected jealousy, death, misunderstanding and loss among the characters.
Honestly, I once again have problem with Kawabata's treatment with his male character and relationship. I mean, why must the women (totally three of them, I mean three!) in the story just fall right onto the guy's laps? What had they seemed in this man anyway? I don't even know!
Okay...to be fair I do know why Mrs. Ota is into this guy...because she seems to mix Kikuji, his late father and her own late husband together when she was with the young man.
Still, I like Kikuji's memory about his late father and his mistresses, I also like his relationship with Mrs. Ota and how this relationship provokes a lingering sense of guilt between them. Kikuji's interaction with Miss Ota is also well written.
However, I really don't like how Chikako is being painted into a bitter older woman who acts only out of malice and jealousy to a point she is entirely two-dimensional.
Among the three Kawabata's books I've read, here is my rating:
The Old Capital >> Snow Country >> Thousand Cranes.
(Link: http://vampirekiki.deviantart.com/art...)
Edited@04/01/2017:
This re-read is a strange experience for me, the translator--a Japanese language major I guess, had translated the text very closely with its original Japanese form--theoretically it should be a good thing for a translation to be close to its original text, right? But the problem is, when reading this translated text I feel I'm reading Japanese instead of Chinese...and the structure of some of those translated sentences makes the text quite difficult to understand...in short, in my opinion it isn't a very good translation. I understand the translator might want us to experience the text as close to its original form as possible..............but I do think such manner of translation fails to bring out the beauty and lyricism of the writing.
I also need to make a complaint on how a female lead's name, Yukiko, was translated in this version. As many of you might know, 'yuki' means snow in Japanese and since Yukiko represents purity in the story so logically her name should have been translated into 'snow', but the translator just ignored it entirely.
So this is the second time I read Thousand Cranes and I noticed a number of small details I failed to catch on in the first reading, and this time I also read the second half of the story: turns out Mr. Kawabata had written one novella/sequel and a few short stories about the same set of main characters from Thousand Cranes, and for decades we Chinese readers had only seen the first half of the story about these MCs. As for the sequels, it had only been recently translated into Chinese for the first time through this version (which was published in Taiwan).
To be honest, I think the first half of Thousand Cranes (which starts with the MC goes to a tea party and meet the three female leads for the first time and ends with Miss Ota's disappearance) is far better than the second half (starts with the MC's honeymoon with Yukiko and 'ends' with the sudden death of an unlikable supporting character, Chikako).
To be fair, the second half of the story is unfinished so we never get to see the true ending of Thousand Cranes ---supposedly the author Mr. Kawabata planed to let his MC divorce his wife Yukiko and let him get back togehter with Miss Ota and then the two commit suicide. Sounds like one hell of a melodrama, right?
Still.........I like the romances in Thousand Cranes to an extent, first we get the complicated love-square (or even a love-heptagon, if we added the dramas among the MC's late parents and Mrs. Ota into the equation?) among the MC with Mrs. Ota, Yukiko and later Mrs. Ota's daughter Miss Ota; then we got the MC's longing for Miss Ota and his shame when facing his lovely, innocent newlywed wife, Yukiko.
I actually like how Mr. Kawabata displayed the complication of human's emotion and how his characters deal with longing, shame and guilt; all of the human dramas and interaction among lovers are also played out with outermost elegance.
After reading the second half of the story, I do believe the MC would eventually go back to Miss Ota.
PS: the relationship among the MC, his wife and Miss Ota also reminds me of Eileen Chang's short novel Red rose, White rose.
Review for Sleeping Beauties by the same author: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have a burning question to ask after reading two Yasunari Kawabata's novels and on my way to read the third: Is that just this Kawabata guy, or is it common for men in general to keep thinking about this perfect but unreal phantom of a beautiful woman (whom they can't be with for one reason or another), even when they already had a solid but flawed wife or girlfriend (they are flawed because all humans are flawed) by their sides?
Any menfolk bothers to answer me?
Thoughts after reading:
3.5 stars.
I think it's fitting to share with you one of the messages I think Mr. Kawabata might want to express through this story: love can be hellish.
Also I want to add photos from a band called Moran and a music video of theirs: 薔薇色の地獄 (translation: Rosy Colored Hell)
Link to music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVt_H...
After reading Snow Country and The Old Capital, I notice a major change in Kawabata's themes: the sense of guilt and karma dominate Thousand Cranes like it has never been in the previous two books.
The plots are rather straight forward and easily understandable: the main story is centered around a young man (Kikuji) and his relationships with a few different women: Mrs. Ota, a long term mistress of the man's late father (who was a master of tea ceremony), Miss Ota, her daughter. Chikako, Kikuji's father's less favored former mistress and Yukiko, a young woman whom Chikako tries to match-make with Kikuji. After a chance meeting with Mrs. Ota and her daughter, Kikuji started a (slightly incestuous) affair with his father's former mistress, but this relationship soon attracts unexpected jealousy, death, misunderstanding and loss among the characters.
Honestly, I once again have problem with Kawabata's treatment with his male character and relationship. I mean, why must the women (totally three of them, I mean three!) in the story just fall right onto the guy's laps? What had they seemed in this man anyway? I don't even know!
Okay...to be fair I do know why Mrs. Ota is into this guy...because she seems to mix Kikuji, his late father and her own late husband together when she was with the young man.
Still, I like Kikuji's memory about his late father and his mistresses, I also like his relationship with Mrs. Ota and how this relationship provokes a lingering sense of guilt between them. Kikuji's interaction with Miss Ota is also well written.
However, I really don't like how Chikako is being painted into a bitter older woman who acts only out of malice and jealousy to a point she is entirely two-dimensional.
Among the three Kawabata's books I've read, here is my rating:
The Old Capital >> Snow Country >> Thousand Cranes.
(Link: http://vampirekiki.deviantart.com/art...)
Edited@04/01/2017:
This re-read is a strange experience for me, the translator--a Japanese language major I guess, had translated the text very closely with its original Japanese form--theoretically it should be a good thing for a translation to be close to its original text, right? But the problem is, when reading this translated text I feel I'm reading Japanese instead of Chinese...and the structure of some of those translated sentences makes the text quite difficult to understand...in short, in my opinion it isn't a very good translation. I understand the translator might want us to experience the text as close to its original form as possible..............but I do think such manner of translation fails to bring out the beauty and lyricism of the writing.
I also need to make a complaint on how a female lead's name, Yukiko, was translated in this version. As many of you might know, 'yuki' means snow in Japanese and since Yukiko represents purity in the story so logically her name should have been translated into 'snow', but the translator just ignored it entirely.
So this is the second time I read Thousand Cranes and I noticed a number of small details I failed to catch on in the first reading, and this time I also read the second half of the story: turns out Mr. Kawabata had written one novella/sequel and a few short stories about the same set of main characters from Thousand Cranes, and for decades we Chinese readers had only seen the first half of the story about these MCs. As for the sequels, it had only been recently translated into Chinese for the first time through this version (which was published in Taiwan).
To be honest, I think the first half of Thousand Cranes (which starts with the MC goes to a tea party and meet the three female leads for the first time and ends with Miss Ota's disappearance) is far better than the second half (starts with the MC's honeymoon with Yukiko and 'ends' with the sudden death of an unlikable supporting character, Chikako).
To be fair, the second half of the story is unfinished so we never get to see the true ending of Thousand Cranes ---supposedly the author Mr. Kawabata planed to let his MC divorce his wife Yukiko and let him get back togehter with Miss Ota and then the two commit suicide. Sounds like one hell of a melodrama, right?
Still.........I like the romances in Thousand Cranes to an extent, first we get the complicated love-square (or even a love-heptagon, if we added the dramas among the MC's late parents and Mrs. Ota into the equation?) among the MC with Mrs. Ota, Yukiko and later Mrs. Ota's daughter Miss Ota; then we got the MC's longing for Miss Ota and his shame when facing his lovely, innocent newlywed wife, Yukiko.
I actually like how Mr. Kawabata displayed the complication of human's emotion and how his characters deal with longing, shame and guilt; all of the human dramas and interaction among lovers are also played out with outermost elegance.
After reading the second half of the story, I do believe the MC would eventually go back to Miss Ota.
PS: the relationship among the MC, his wife and Miss Ota also reminds me of Eileen Chang's short novel Red rose, White rose.
Review for Sleeping Beauties by the same author: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Displaying 1 of 1 review