Mil grullas

by Yasunari Kawabata

En la bella ciudad de Kamakura, una mujer que oculta una mancha en uno de sus pechos manipula los preciosos objetos de un rito que trasvasarán, como fantasmas, el peso del erotismo de una generación a otra. Así, un joven hereda las obsesiones amorosas de su padre, experto en la ceremonia del té. Mil grullas en vuelo aparecen a lo largo del relato como misterioso auspicio.
Yasunari Kawabata, uno de los mayores escritores japoneses del siglo XX, explora en esta novela la fuerza del deseo y del remordimiento, y la sensualidad de la nostalgia. En esta bellísima historia, cada gesto posee un significado, y hasta el más leve roce o suspiro es capaz de iluminar vidas enteras, a veces en el preciso instante en que son destruidas.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Classics, Asia, Literature, Nobel Prize

144 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 1952

About the author

Yasunari 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...

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t get involved with your dead father‘s mistresses is the main theme of this novella. Now that both his mother and father have died, a thirtyish Japanese bachelor is having an affair with his father‘s second mistress. The father had a lifelong mistress that he dumped near the end of his life to hook up with this second woman just before his death.



The first mistress is bent on revenge. Since the bachelor has shown no amorous interest in her, she is devoting herself to making sure that the bachelor does not marry his mistresses’ daughter as the mistress wants. In fact at one point the daughter comes to his house telling him ‘leave my mother and I’ll be your mistress.’ Meanwhile the vengeful mistress is trying to fix him up with other young women.

The abandoned first mistress even ‘breaks into’ his house at one point and calls him up at work to say ‘I cleaned up your tea cottage and I invited this woman over for tea and I’ll cook.’



Intertwined with the action of the story is a lot of symbolism and information about the Japanese tea ceremony and the use of cups, most of which are hundreds of years old and extremely valuable. Footnotes give us information about makers and dates of manufacture. One cup gets deliberately broken at one point.

Suddenly Spoiler. The mistress dies. She committed suicide. So now all the main characters have to deal with their complex feelings about her death. The bachelor and the young woman work with a doctor to hide the way she died. The man feels guilt and that he treated the mistress shabbily. And we can imagine what the young woman thinks after proposing that he dump her mother. And of course the vengeful first mistress has to deal with it also.



The novel was written in 1952, just a few years after the World War II and I wonder if the forwardness of these women, which surprises me, given the little bit I know about Japanese culture, is related to the loss of so many men during the war which empowered women. This is perhaps similar to what happened in Russia. Still, when a woman arrives at the bachelor’s house, she kneels at his feet.



The author won the Nobel Prize in 1968, the first Japanese author to win the prize.

One thousand cranes, usually origami, are popular at Japanese weddings symbolizing happiness, peace and long life.

It was a good read and more of a novella than a novel, only 140 pages.

Photos from top from: tbn0.gstatic.com
Tea cups from liveauctioneers.com
Origami instructions assets.marthastewartweddings.com/styl...
The author from wikipdia

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my country, there is a generalized tendency to glorify the heritage left to us by our ancestors. With the loss of God, children are regarded as the bearers of eternal life that infuse meaning into our perishable existence.
But what about the sins of the parents? Are they also bequeathed to their children in order to be atoned for?
Kawabata explores the ongoing dichotomy of love versus duty to our progenitors through the prism of the Japanese ancient traditions, mining the deceptively simple story with recurrent imagery that creates a rhythmical pattern reminiscent of minimalistic poetry. A girl who brings the faint perfume of morning glories and whose pink kerchief displays a thousand-crane pattern, the virulent storm and cleansing rains that wash out the dirtiness of betrayal and Machiavellian machinations, the sun setting on the grove of the Hommonji Temple and the thousand cranes flying from the piece fabric as if escaping from unavoidable calamity. Bad omen or the full acceptance of the transcience and imperfection of beauty?

In Kamakura, a woman called Chikako hides a horrendous birthmark as large as the palm of her hand that covers her left breast. Haunted by a shameful past, she gets hold of some precious objects used in the Tea Ceremony that are endowed with the power to transfer the burden of eroticism from generation to generation. Thus, tea bowls, water jars and flower vases glint with the ghost of Kikuji’s deceased father, an expert of such ritual and a man whose extramarital affairs marked the lives of two women with contrasting personalities that conjure up the eternal dichotomies in The Tao Te Ching. Chikako is as manipulative as she is resentful, Mrs. Ota, as fragile as guilt-ridden, and Kikuji, used as a surrogate for his father, will find himself dragged away against his will by the currents of an obsessive love triangle that will end in tragedy.

The Tea Ceremony acquires symbolic transcendence and acts like a connecting point between life and death, memories and presages, corruption and purity, nature and aesthetics. The storyline flows in a neverending continuum where time is suspended and the reader floats along Kikuji’s preordained destiny. Kawabata’s novels have no end and no begining precisely because they could be over in every chapter. Only the insinuation of a gradually increased intensity electrified by a melancholic undertone is noticeable, but no preconceived plan or definite purpose is made explicit. And so the dramatic explosion is deferred indefinitely and only the lingering voices of characters are left after the last page is turned, like the fluttering image that a haiku poem leaves on the reader’s mind.

A novella that explores the sensuality of nostalgia, the clashing forces of remorse and desire condensed in a wishful tale where every gesture has a meaning, and even the slightest touch or breath has the power to illuminate entire lives, sometimes right at the instant they are about to be destroyed, but never fallen into oblivion. The thousand cranes might have taken flight, but the feeling of their soft plumage brushing against velvety skin will keep us warm even in the coldest night.



A thousand cranes for peace. Peace Memorial, Hiroshima.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel, we follow the destiny of Kikuji Mitani. A well-off thirty-year-old whose parents died today. He does not know what to do with his life, caught up in the wanderings of modernization at the work of Japanese society and nostalgia for ancient rites.
Kikuji had to be marked by the image of horrific brown spots on the chest of Chikako Kurimoto, who was briefly one of the mistresses of his late father, who loved his rival Mrs. Ota more.
Kikuji is attached to the tea ceremony ritual and regularly meets these two women who knew his father. Chikako is intrusive, jealous, and mean, without embarrassment, and will work, as if to avenge his father, to rot in Kikuji's sentimental life in a poisonous friendship. This one will not miss, as formerly his father, to fall under the spell of the sweet Mrs. Ota. It does not mention the presence of the very young and pretty Yukiko Inamura during a tea ceremony as coming out of a dream. All haloed by her pink silk furoshiki (square of fabric) 'white birds and the very discreet girl of Mrs. Ota, Fumiko, who looks too much like his mother not to generate some emotion at Kikuji. As often in the great classic Japanese novels, Kawabata offers us a psychological game where the male hero is the toy of women who are sometimes perverse and evil, sometimes fragile, mysterious, and ephemeral.
The atmosphere here is oppressive, and we feel that dramas will arise from a situation with a shaky start. Kikuji feels the same emotions as the women who have marked his father as a kind of fatality, a destiny that is almost hereditary and somewhat vicious.
The pace is slow, and the story seems rich in events. The author makes mountains of things without much interest in building his dialogue and relationships between his characters. Yet, it works when we project ourselves into Japanese psychology and traditions. We were hit by the central role of the tea ceremony and its objects, such as the cups. We presented genuine works of art that continuously convey memories and transmit feelings from generation to generation, arousing the imagination and emotions of the characters.
Despite a reservation about the end being semi-open and not neat enough for my taste, I found a beautiful novel that was not dull, as tasting the style of great classical elegance and poetry was powerful. Moreover, it is a great vehicle to share with us the art and the sensory experience of the tea ceremony, the emotions that animate the characters and give a sharp acuity to the images that strike the imagination of the reader (Chikako's stains, precious objects, dress and accessories of Yukiko).
It is a pleasant reading moment to enjoy as a sweet green tea from Japan.

[B0nnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The memory of that birthmark on Chikako’s breast was concrete as a toad.

The sins of the fathers is an old theme, found in the Bible, Euripides, Shakespeare, and countless other works. It's used here too in this slim book of Kawabata's but this is probably the only time it is acted out using bits of pottery, cloth and tea. True, the characters aren't exactly holding these items and making them talk. There's a sparse background on which they have plenty of room to act on the imagination. Kawabata is famous for leaving a lot of blank space. From his Nobel lecture.

Here we have the emptiness, the nothingness, of the Orient. My own works have been described as works of emptiness, but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West. The spiritual foundation would seem to be quite different.

Senbazuru - or one thousand cranes - is the Japanese tradition of folding 1,000 origami cranes in order to have a wish granted. That idea is not addressed directly in this story. Rather, it's the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu), and its place in forming the Japanese mind. The setting is just a few years after WWII. Western culture is being embraced, leading to loss of respect for the ceremony. Kawabata sees its degradation as a symbol of the loss of traditional values. Also from his Nobel lecture,

I may say in passing, that to see my novel Thousand Cranes as an evocation of the formal and spiritual beauty of the tea ceremony is a misreading. It is a negative work, and expression of doubt about and warning against the vulgarity into which the tea ceremony has fallen.

Thousand Cranes has no origami magic, but instead a kerchief with the thousand crane pattern which was once carried by a young woman named Yukiko. That kerchief is important - we are told Yukiko is beautiful, but the kerchief is the only actual description we get of her. This novel is full of such associated images. Understanding them feels a little bit like learning another language, with the symbolism being a sort of grammar. It's well worth the effort.

[John Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to an ancient Japanese legend, the gods will grant a wish to anyone who prepares a string of 1000 origami paper cranes, one paper crane for each of the 1000 years that the mystical Japanese crane is believed to live.

Thousand Cranes is a book full of sadness and regret. The writing is as delicate as a paper crane. Reading this book, I was afraid that the slightest accidental fold of a page would cause the whole story to break.

Yasunari Kawabata was the first Japanese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is known for his lyrical, poetic prose. Thousand Cranes serves as an excellent example of Kawabata's beautiful writing. This book is full of longing: longing for love and friendship, longing for repentence, and longing for finding meaning in this complicated world.

Thousand Cranes was written in the aftermath of World War II, a time of great social and political upheaval in Japan. The story revolves around the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, which provides a kind of anchor for our main characters in this time of radical change, as they cling vainly to the traditions of a bygone era that will never return.

The plot centers on Kikuji, a young man in his late 20s whose parents have passed away. He is manipulated by two of his father's surviving mistresses, one of whom seems to have good intentions, while the other is looking for revenge. One of the major themes of the novel is how the sins of a parent propagate down to a child. As much as they may want to escape, they are unable to do so.

The highlight of this book is the beautiful writing, which is full of lyricism and subtlety. The plot itself is less compelling, but it serves its purpose as a vehicle for Kawabata's poetic prose.

Overall rating = 4 stars. (5 stars for the writing; 3 stars for the plot and characters.)

[Jr Bacdayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There used to be a time when the beauty of a single flower was enough to give a man pleasure, a time when a lone star in the dark expanse of the night gave delight to a wanderer gazing up above, a time when the exquisite beauty of a piece of pottery was enough to evoke the feeling of longing, when the graceful movements of a woman pouring tea stirred the heart. Those times have passed. Appreciation for the elegance found in the simple is now dulled by the seduction of the exciting, the novel, and the vulgar. It wasn’t as if it instantaneously disappeared, it shattered piece by piece, like shards of tea vessel, one by one plucked by the invisible hands of time until no trace of it remained.

In his 1968 Nobel lecture Kawabata expressed regret:
"A tea ceremony is a coming together in feeling, a meeting of good comrades in a good season. That spirit, that feeling for one's comrades in the snow, the moonlight, under the blossoms, is also basic to the tea ceremony. I may say in passing, that to see my novel Thousand Cranes as an evocation of the formal and spiritual beauty of the tea ceremony is a misreading. It is a negative work, and expression of doubt about and warning against the vulgarity into which the tea ceremony has fallen.”

Kawabata believed that the tea ceremony has regressed into a game of deceit, of cat-and-mouse that he highlights with his use of Chikako as a character. He creates a cunning and manipulative woman who makes use of the tea ceremony to influence people to her advantages and thus depicts the soiled mud into which the grand tradition has fallen. Kikuji, a bachelor, is interesting as a character because he rejects the inherited culture of tea ceremony yet he is drawn to it because of Mrs. Ota and Fumiko. At first it was the mother, his bridge to the past, that draws him back to appreciate the traditions of long ago, but when he lost her he found traces of her in the daughter. To him Fumiko represented the good in the tea ceremony, an ode to the traditions of the past, evoking her mother, evoking the ancient practice that highlights the reticence, the humbleness, the peace, and grace of the Japanese people. Thus even though the contemporary beauty of Yukiko appealed to him, Kikuji was still drawn to Fumiko like a waft of floral fragrance lingering under his breath. However the glare of the present-day was too much for the faint Yukiko and broke the wistful dream. In the end Kikuji’s expression saying Fumiko has no reason to die is the voice of Kawabata muttering in regret that the noble traditions of the fading tea ceremony should not disappear.

At the surface Thousand Cranes is a tragic novel of love and longing but at the same time it is a sentimental look and a disdainful scowl at different pasts of the tea ritual. Its lyrical prose enchants the reader into a peaceful lull, its symbolisms whisper of the dark and light and the blur we often find ourselves in. An enchanting book through and through, one that is bound to stay with me in the depths of my dreams.

Maybe in my dreams a mournful voice expressing grief will reach my consciousness because the proud traditions of the past have now become merely decorative, like a thousand cranes in a kerchief, wanting to soar, but forever stuck in portrait.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Worrying oneself over the dead—was it in most cases a mistake, not unlike berating them? The dead did not press moral considerations upon the living.”



Kikuji is floating like a red maple leaf on a still pond. His father and mother are dead, and the most logical thing is for him to marry now. The family house is large and musty from disuse. He needs to fill it with children and the care of a woman who will make the house into a cheery home again. Or at least that is what is being suggested to him.

The first to start to take control of his life is Chikako, one of his father’s castoff mistresses. She has a birthmark, which as a boy he inadvertently saw. The size and shape and placement of this birthmark haunt him as if it were a living creature beneath her skin. ”Had his father occasionally squeezed the birthmark between his fingers? Had he even bitten at it? Such were Kikuji’s fantasies.” Chikako has found the perfect woman for him. ”One of the girls was beautiful. She carried a bundle wrapped in a kerchief, the thousand-crane pattern in white on a pink crape background.”

All Kikuji has to do is indicate that he is interested, and all the details will quickly be worked out. The thousand crane girl will be his. He doesn’t even need to say anything; he just needs to nod, but he is wrestling with who he is in relation to who his father was. Is this his decision or is it his father’s decision through his surrogate, the bitter and overbearing Chikako?

When Kikuji meets another mistress of his father, Mrs. Ota, the tentative track leading to his future takes another unexpected detour. Her daughter Fumiko is a carbon copy of her mother. She has grown up with the world taking more from her mother than what she can afford to give. She wants to break the pattern, but isn’t sure the world will let her. “Mother and I both presume a great deal on people, but we expect them to understand us. Is that impossible? Are we seeing our reflections in our own hearts?” There is a poignancy here that resonates with anyone who feels that her life has been misunderstood by those who know her. That their best qualities are perceived as weaknesses, and their weaknesses are perceived as lost strengths.

The plot revolves around the tea ceremonies, who shows up to the events, and the implements that are used to conduct the ceremonies. ”It had passed from Ota to his wife, from the wife to Kikuji’s father, from Kikuji’s father to Chikako; and the two men, Ota and Kikuji’s father, were dead, and here were the two women. There was something almost weird about the bowl’s career.” I often feel this way about antiques that have been passed down through my family to me. The history of all those other owners, blood of my blood, comes to me in the stories surrounding those artifacts. I can still see the glass fronted bookcase, that now sits in my home office, where it originally stood for decades in my grandmother’s house. I can still remember the books and bobbles that she had kept preserved on its shelves. When I buy items from antique stores that have lost their histories, I hope that a new line of stories will begin with me. So I understand the idea that this tea bowl could be haunted by the essences of previous owners.

With the women he is surrounded by, can he ever separate himself from his father? ”“You think of my father, don’t you, and my father and I become one person?” His mind is scattered to the point that making any decisions beyond what to eat, where to sleep, and when to go to work are beyond him. His father and the vestiges of women he left behind have put Kikuji in a position where he is encountering the ghost of his father wherever he goes. ”To forgive or to be forgiven was for Kikuji a matter of being rocked in that wave, the dreaminess of the woman’s body.”

Does he need to forgive himself or forgive his father? Who is responsible for his life now? Who will save him?

This is a quiet tale with grand passions smothered before they can ignite. There are seemingly bloodless battles being waged in the minds of all concerned. A reader who reads this book impatiently, skimming along waiting for the stop signs and big curve ahead warnings to guide them to the point of the book, will have missed seeing the man floating on the still pond who wants them to ponder things along with him. My suggestion is to read some of the book and then stop and make some hot tea. Read some more and let your mind sift through the words for the quiet meanings that will be lost if you drive by too fast.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Agir(آگِر) · Rating 5 out of 5]

انگار هربار که دستش تکان می خورد، گل سرخی در دستش می شکفد
و انگار هزار درنای کوچک و سفید دور و برش پرواز می کنند



کشور ژاپن و فرهنگش همیشه برام اسرارآمیز بوده
چه کیمونوهای زیبا و چه شکوفه های گیلاس و حتی آن خودکشی از نوع سامورایی
از همان کودکی با دیدن کارتون افسانه توشیشان عاشق افسانه ها و داستان های این سرزمین شدم
و در نوجوانی با فیلم هفت سامورایی آکیرا کوروساوا
و همچنین آن فیلم ارواح یعنی کوایدان که از افسانه های ژاپنی گردآوری شده توسط «لافکادیو هرن» برگرفته شده بود و این یکی بدجور منو ترساند

:و بعد نوبت کتابهای کاواباتا رسید
خانه زیبارویان خفته

و حالا
:هزار درنا

مرگ فقط تفاهم را قطع می کند. هیچ کس نمی تواند این را ببخشد

با اینکه نمی توانم ادعا کنم تمام جمله های کتاب را درک کرده ام
اما در سادگی قلم کاواباتا، رازهایی عمیق نهفته است
:و یکی از اصلی ترین دغدغه های این نویسنده بزرگ ژاپنی

در گلدانی که سیصد سال دست به دست گشته بود، گلی بود که یک روزه پژمرده می شد
در نیلوفر جدا شده از ساقه اش، چیز ناراحت کننده ای دیده می شد
«آدم منتظر است همین جوری چشمش پژمرده بشود»

داستان اصلی کتاب در مورد سردرگمی ها و بی تصمیمی ها و مردد ماندن های کیکوجی است
..پسری که از خیانت های پدرش آگاه بوده و همراه مادرش این تحقیر را احساس کرده
و در کنار آن داستان دیگری هم هست در مورد مراسم چای
و پیوند خوردن سرنوشت کیکوجیِ با این مراسم کهن

پارچ سرنوشت غریبی داشت، ولی شاید غرابت جزئی از طبیعت ظروف آئین چای است
طی سیصد یا چهارصد سالی که از عمرش می گذشت و قبل از رسیدنش به دست خانم اوتا، از دست چه کسانی و با چه سرنوشت های غریبی که نگذشته بود؟

:و این بار سرنوشت غریب کیکوجی
جوانی مردد مانده میان اصالت و هویت و زندگی مدرن و سنت های کهن و خانه ای قدیمی
و دوگانگی ها که ذهنش درگیر فهمیدن آن است

به فومیکو نگاه کرد و رفتارش در مقابل چیکاکو
از ساده لوحی بود یا نداشتن احساس؟

:در مورد پدرش
درست به همین علت که نمی توانست او را به یاد آورد، می توانست ببخشد
آیا این واقعیت عجیب نبود؟

وقتی چشمت به پیاله ای می افتد، عیب های صاحب قدیمی اش را فراموش می کنی. زندگی پدرم قسمت خیلی کوچکی از عمر پیاله بود

و تجربیاتی که او از گذشته و زندگی پدرش گرفته

"عزبها آدم های خیلی جالبی هستند"-
"خیلی"-
"ولی این راه و رسم زندگی نیست"-
"درسم را از پدرم سرمشق گرفته ام"-

اما کیکوجی در آنچه به یقین رسیده شک می کند
و این شک با چشیدن زنانگی واقعی شروع می شود
برای او که هر بار در آخر رابطه جنسی احساس ناخوشایندی داشته است
:هرمان هسه در مورد این حس از زبان گرگ بیابان می گوید

زندگی شهوی و امور جنسی بذائقه من هیچگاه خالی از طعم تلخ و فرعی گناهکاری و آلودگی که جز همان طعم شیرین و ترساننده میوه ممنوع چیزی نیست نبود و به گمان من بر هرکس که اهل معنویات است فرض بود که از آن میوه بپرهیزد و خود را در ایمنی نگاه دارد

اکنون هرمینه و ماریا این باغ را از جنبه بی گناهیش بمن نشان داده بودند و من با امتنان میهمان این باغ گردیده بودم اما بزودی برای من موقعی فرا رسید که بیشتر برانم، در این باغ همه چیز گرم و مطبوع و زیبا بود، باید پیشتر رفت و تاج و افسر حیات را ربود، فراتر تاخت و کفاره گناهان بی پایان زندگی را پرداخت، چنین بود تقدیر من. یک زندگی ساده، یک عشق ساده و یک مرگ ساده برای من در حکم هیچ بود
شاید ما امروز برای آخرین بار در کنار یکدیگر خوابیده بودیم، شاید فردا سرنوشت تازه ای برای ما آغاز می شد؟ از آتش اشتیاق می سوختم، از شدت ترس داشتم خفه می شدم، با وحشیگری به ماریا چسبیدم، بار دیگر با ولع و در تب و تاب کوره راه ها و ظلمات باغ او را در نوردیدم و بار دیگر از میوه شیرین آن درخت بهشتی دلی از عزا در آوردم


کیکوجی با معشوقه پدرِ مرده اش هم آغوش می شود و بجای اینکه این احساس گناه مضاعف شود برعکس از آن لذتی می برد که همانند گرگ بیابان در همان شب دوباره با ولع آنرا را از سر می گیرد اما فرقی که این دو معشوقه دارند که ماریا زنی است جوان و خانم اوتا زنی است بیست سال بزرگتر از کیکوجی

کیکوجی هم به جواب سوالی می رسد
اینکه چرا خانم اوتا آخرین معشوقه پدرش بود و پدرش دیگر سراغ زنی دیگر نرفت
و هم به درک تازه ای از زن
آیا در پوست سفید او، ژرفای وجود زن را حس کرده بود؟

اما خانم اوتا خودکشی می کند و ذهن کیکوجی درگیر پیچیدگی بیشتری می شود
عشق یا گناه،کدامشان او را کشتند؟

او برای ازدواج مابین دو انتخاب مانده
دختر هزار درنا و فومیکو دختر خانوم اوتا
مابین زیبایی و پاکی و یا لطافت و احساس گناه

هردو پیچکند، نیلوفر و کدوی گلدان
«کیکوجی پوزخند زد: «هردو پیچکند

با اینکه او دارد از تردید ها خلاص می شود و درناها شاید برای همیشه پرواز کنند و زنانگی را می خواهد برگزیند اما آن ماه گرفتگی(چیکاکو) تاثیر شومش را بر سرنوشتش می گذارد یعنی دوباره بی تصمیمی
و همین درنگ کردن است که فومیکو را وا میدارد تا دست به کاری بزند که شاید هم کیکوجی را از تردید نجات دهد و هم خودش را از تنهایی

وقتی مرده ها در وجود کسی زنده می مانند، کم کم حس می کند خودش هم در این دنیا نیست

کاش کیکوجی درنگ نمی کرد و فومیکو کمی دیگر صبر می کرد
شاید اونموقع با حسرت بجای کیکوجی نمی گفتم
..آه، فومیکو

[Issa Deerbany · Rating 3 out of 5]

رواية تدور أحداثها حول الشعور بالذنب والتخلص منه من خلال بطل الرواية الذي بعد وفاة والديه لم يكن يعرف أين تقوده حياته او ما الذي يريد ان يفعل بها.

تجذبه صديقات وعشقات والده الذي كان يمارس فن تناول الشاي باحترافية، وهو فن منتشر هناك في اليابان حيث يخضع لعادات وتقاليد غريبه علينا نحن القرّاء العرب.

احدى عشيقات والده تحاول تدبير زواج له، ولكن بسبب تردده وتوهان مشاعره بين المرشحة للزواج وبين ابنة عشيقة ابيه الاخرى.

الرواية نحمل عمق فلسفي عميق لمجتمع له فلسفته عن الحياة والموت والتكفير عن الذنب .

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Traditional Values

"Thousand Cranes" is about the continuity of tradition and the conformity by individuals with traditional values.

At the heart of the novel is the Japanese Tea Ceremony. While tea has been drunk in Japan since the ninth century, it only became a part of a formal ceremony with religious significance around the 12th century.

An elaborate set of equipment is used in the Tea Ceremony. Often the equipment, such as drinking bowls, is artisan-made and is kept in a family for periods as long as four hundred years.

These drinking bowls are treated like art works and have great sentimental and economic value.

Empty Vessels

By participating in a Tea Ceremony, a person honours and perpetuates not only the traditional Way of Tea, but their own family tradition.

The tea bowls are important vessels in the ceremony. Alone, they are empty, but must be filled with tea and hot water.

In the same way, people are empty vessels until they are realised and shaped by the right traditions and influences in accordance with the precepts of Zen Buddhism.

Remove the tradition and ceremony, and the process of personal growth and socialization stalls.

Born under a Bad Sign

Kawabata uses the Tea Ceremony as a symbol of the tradition and legacy of a family, only the portrait he paints is of a family that has lost its way, partly due to the premature death of both of the protagonists’ parents.

The Tea Ceremony for Kikuji’s family is conducted by Chikako, a woman who was once his father’s mistress, and ended up having a role in his household.

In the only aspect of the novel I didn’t like, Chikako has a birth mark across her chest. This is regarded as a bad sign. It denies her the possibility of a husband, and after joining the household as a servant, she becomes quite "sexless".

Her birthmark heralds ill, when she effectively takes control of the family’s future via her control of the Tea Ceremony. She attempts to use the formalities of the Ceremony to find a suitable wife for Kikuji.

Kikuiji, on the other hand, has other plans. He isn’t necessarily looking for a wife yet. He seems to be much more independent than most Japanese. Like his father, he is prone to be tempted by mistresses, and he is unable to make a prompt choice between the rival brides Chikako has in mind for him.

Inherent Vice

Although Kikuji and Chikako are pitted against each other in the novel, they are both part of the same problem: the breakdown of tradition and the social expectation that we will all conform to the same standards.

Kikuji rebels against tradition in pursuit of his own desire and satisfaction. Marriage and family are secondary to him.

In contrast, marriage, family and the Tea Ceremony are important to Chikako, but only as a means of perpetuating her own role in life. She embraces the Tea Ceremony selfishly and purposively as a vehicle.

Thus, in this family, two important vessels for perpetuating tradition, the family and the Tea Ceremony, have flaws in the glass.

Chikako represents an inherent vice, a threat to the authenticity of the Ceremony.

Kikuji, on the other hand, represents the inherited vice of libertinism that possessed his father.

Vice-Like Grip

Kawabata paints this portrait with such grace and economy, yet like the early stages of a painting, it took me a while to see it taking shape.

For almost half of the novel, it just didn’t grab me. When it did, it took hold of me with a vice-like grip and wouldn’t let me go. Then when it ended, it ended too soon. I could not see where Kikuji was headed, but nor could he. This is the beauty of Kawabata.



VERSE:
Her Mother’s Lipstick
[In the Words of Kawabata and Shakespeare]

In her hand, her mother’s tea bowl.
The white glaze hinted of red.
The colour of faded lipstick,
The colour of a wilted red rose,
The colour of old, dry blood,
The colour of love’s labours lost,
The colour of families long gone
And of families yet to come.



OTHER KAWABATA REVIEWS:

I read "Thousand Cranes" straight after reading and reviewing "Snow Country":

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Brina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Thousand Cranes is a novella by Japanese Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata. Unfortunately the book was not my taste, but I did glean much from this short book that many consider a gem. The book follows Kikuji Mitani as he copes with the deaths of his parents. He is left in the care of his meddlesome housekeeper who attempts to arrange his marriage, even though Kikuji is not interested in marriage at this point in his life. Each meeting with a perspective bride occurs at a traditional tea ceremony. The imagery of these traditions evoked thousands of years of Japanese history and was actually quite moving, especially the scarf one young woman wore which depicted a thousand fluttering cranes. I took these cranes in motion to symbolize this novella, one in which ancient and modern Japanese culture were at a crossroads.

Each of the four women in this novella were depicted sexually and whether or not Kikuji could gain from a relationship with any of them. I found this to be demeaning, and, as a result, I was unable to empathize with the main protagonist or mesh with any of the flow of this book. Especially revolting to me was the open treatment in which Kikuji and his father discussed a hideous birthmark on their housekeeper's breast, as though this diminished her character. Even if she was of a high moral fabric, which I found to be revolting in its own right, the thought that men would think low of her due to a physical defect was depressing to me, especially as I seek to find quality books written by female authors from around the globe. That a male author would only depict women in a sexual manner was alarming to me, given that this book is modern and women's role in society has shifted to one in which they have more roles than that of mother and housewife.

From this novella I can see where Kawabata's writing would garner him Nobel consideration. This particular story did not move me and was frustrating given that a man only viewed women as sexual objects, and even still, the ending did not fit, at least to me, with the rest of the story. I did learn about the Japanese tea ceremony tradition and how even clothing and dishes were supposed to associate with the four season. I had selected this book think it was the modern story about the one thousand paper cranes and, ultimately, I was much disappointed. I hope that if I ever decided to read Kawabata again that I will enjoy an uplifting experience.

2.5 stars

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

With emerald shades,
Dance eternal cranes.
In the pristine rains,
A warm koicha shared.
Upon poignant chests.
Tranquil prayers knelt

Just as Bolaño teases my psyche, Kawabata plays with my rhythmic senses. In his words I find songs of a wintry heart waiting for a prosperous spring. I cannot refrain myself from scribbling lost thoughts in the shadows of Kawabata’s characters. Speaking of shadows; what an enigmatic delusion? The more you walk into it the more it grows; a loyal companion who never departs your physicality no matter how much you want it to leave. And then somehow, on a rainy day you crave for the sun, once again to be able to walk with your humble silhouette. Kikuji lived in and among numerous shadows of his past and present. Like the serpentine birthmark on Chikako’s breast, Kikuji’s past was conspicuous as warts on a toad. The ugliness of the birthmark that marred Chikako’s luminous skin spewed venomous ghosts through the intoxicated brew. The novel opens with Chikako inviting Kikuji to meet a prospective bride in pretense of a tea ceremony. The purplish mark on Chikako’s breast was all Kikuji remembered about his father’s mistress. As if the mark was an effigy of his father’s betrayal, the anguish of his mother and yet somehow it made him desire its touch in a bizarre way. Yukiko Inamura , a girl with the thousand cranes patterned kerchief was chosen for Kikuji’s miai(matchmaking).

Kawabata interlaces the complex emotions in simple characterizations; analogous to the meticulous procedures that of a tea ceremony. Sen no Rikyū is considered as a profound historical figure in the tradition of wabi-cha(the Japanese Way of Tea). In the early 1500s, Rikyū integrated the teachings of Zen philosophies with the simplicity of tea to achieve aesthetics with pristine lucidity. Based on the four Zen principles of Harmony, Respect, Purity and Tranquility; the tea ceremony is more of a spiritual experience than mere drinking of tea. The ceremony that commences with the cleaning of the tea utensils before the tea is whisked, is symbolic to achieving stillness of mind and heart, by eradicating the worldly filth and strives for simplicity. Kawabata however fills the beauty of the tea ceremony with repulsiveness of human complexities and rigid destinies; a befitting paradox to the traditional Japanese art of Tea. Regarding his novel, Kawabata once said, “It is a negative work, and expression of doubt about and warning against the vulgarity into which the tea ceremony has fallen."

Unlike other tea masters, Mr. Mitani left a legacy of guilt and melancholic irregularities to his son (Kikuji). With the passing of tea utensils through generations, Kikuji not only inherited the embellished porcelains but also his father’s revolting past and his women. Kawabata uses various tools of the tea ceremony as pictures on a nostalgic wall of grotesque sentimentalities. When Chikako serves tea to Kikuji in his father’s favourite Oribe(a black bowl) for the first time, Kikuji snubs the wistfulness brought by the kitchen-ware.

"But what difference does it make that my father owned it for a little while? It’s four hundred years old, after all – its history goes back to Momoyama and Rikyū himself. Tea masters have looked after it and passed it down through the centuries. My father is of very little importance.’ So Kikuji tried to forget the associations the bowl called up.It had passed from Ota to his wife, from the wife to Kikuji’s father, from Kikuji’s father to Chikako; and the two men, Ota and Kikuji’s father, were dead, and here were the two women. There was something almost weird about the bowl’s career."

The same outlook is displayed when Fumiko brings the Shino Jar over to the cottage.

"A jar that had been Mrs. Ota’s was now being used by Chikako. After Mrs Ota’s death, it had passed to her daughter, and from Fumiko it had come to Kikuji.It had had a strange career. But perhaps the strangeness was natural to tea vessels. In the three or four hundred years before it became the property of Mrs Ota, it had passed through the hands of people with what strange careers?"

The ceramics that once were proud of their serene concoctions were now symbols of forlorn tragedies. Kawabata delineates the corruption of sanctimonious tea ceremony by whisking in human greed and viciousness. Resembling the serene tea that gets muddied by loosened clay particles., the essence of chaste spirituality vanishes into emotional turmoil ridden by jagged history of the human soul In this book, the tea ceremony upstages the mortals as it takes the centre stage of vanishing traditions and escalating materialistic vulgarity transforming into a laudable protagonist.

Furthermore, when Fumiko brings the red and the black Raku bowls over to Kikuji’s cottage, the molded clay become symbols of an incomplete love. The love between Mrs. Ota and Mr. Mitani that was haunted by immoral ramifications; Mrs. Ota’s love for Kikuji as she could not detach herself from his father’s memories; Kikuji’s love for Fumiko that dwelled in sinister shadows of his bedding Mrs. Ota; Fumiko’s apprehensions in reciprocating the warmth burdened with her mothers sins and the malice of Mr. Mitani in Chikako’s sexless existence. In a peculiar way all of it appeared to juxtapose the ghosts raised from the antique bowls.


"Though they were ceremonial bowls, they did not seem out of place as ordinary teacups; but a displeasing picture flashed into Kikuji’s mind. Fumiko’s father had died and Kikuji’s father had lived on; and might not this pair of Raku bowls have served as teacups when Kikuji’s father came to see Fumiko’s mother? Had they not been used as ‘man-wife'...."




With artistic perfection Kawabata paints the red and black Raku giving a heart to these lifeless objects. The crimson love blackened by shame. The dreaminess of a man’s love and a woman’s devotion perished in morbid fancies.

Kawabata does not romanticize suicide. He explores death in depths of salvation for it being the definitive pardon to mortal transgressions. Mrs. Ota’s untimely death or rather suicide brought closure to several irregularities. Her guilt that lived in the Raku bowls churned venom in a sorrowful Shino. Even though one forgives the dead ; the viciousness of the past becomes sorrows of the present. An urge to spit out all the venom.

“Death only cuts off understanding. No one can possibly forgive that”....."Guilt never goes away but sorrow does."

Gravely haunted by her mother’s death; ”Maybe mother died from not being able to stand her own ugliness”; Fumiko could not bring herself to love Kikuji for she felt the burden of acquiring the touch that once belonged to her mother. Even the smashing of the Shino did not mitigate Fumiko’s grief of her mother’s ignominy.

Conversely, the “death” of the Shino in some way freed Kikuji from the paralytic curse induced by Mrs. Ota’s bond to him. Now, he sensed freedom and for the first time saw Fumiko in a pristine cleanness detached from the all the repulsiveness that once followed her existence. Fumiko was then an enlightened soul achieving the primitivism of the tea ceremony.

“He could think of no one with whom to compare her. She had become absolute, beyond comparison. She had become decision and fate."


Leaving traces of the mono no aware concept(Beauty and Sadness), Kawabata puts forth the idea of 'perishability' being the essence of nature. The indigo morning glory that hung on the gourd in Kikuji’s cottage, in its short life span bestowed flavor in the morning tea fading in the watery oblivion.Chikako’s greed for the antique tea bowls and Kikuji’s guilt over Mrs.Ota’s suicide and his intriguing affinity to the lipstick stained Shino creates a nauseating sense of filth; contradicting the simplistic spirit of the tea ceremony that Kawabata speaks so fondly; gradually disappearing in human greed. The aesthetic transience of beauty that envelops the wabi-sabi concept of accepted transience and imperfection is vivid through the quixotic words of this text and the flawed existence of its people.

“Does pain go away and leave no trace, then?’‘You sometimes even feel sentimental for it.”


Personally, the picture of thousand cranes is synonymous with Sadako Sasaki, a book that I had read years ago. Sadako, a victim of the Hiroshima bombing, prepared thousand origami cranes as a prayer for her recovery from leukemia. Legend has it that Sadako could not finish the said number of paper cranes; however, her brother Masahiro Sadako asserts that she indeed completed the 1000 paper cranes and it was during her second origami cycle that her youthful life was cut short. In the Japanese culture the crane stand for longevity and good fortune. The tradition of folding 1000 cranes is done when someone has a wish for better health, peace and happiness. Sardonically, the kerchief of patterned crane that the Inamura girl held represented the tragedy of missed chances and missed chances of luck and hope that eluded Kikuji’s fated destiny. The ‘bird of happiness’ after all did not nest in Kikuji’s life .


In his Nobel Prize speech Kawabata commented:-

"A tea ceremony is a coming together in feeling, a meeting of good comrades in a good season. That spirit, that feeling for one's comrades in the snow, the moonlight, under the blossoms, is also basic to the tea ceremony. A tea ceremony is a coming together in feeling, a meeting of good comrades in a good season. I may say in passing, that to see my novel Thousand Cranes as an evocation of the formal and spiritual beauty of the tea ceremony is a misreading. It is a negative work, and expression of doubt about and warning against the vulgarity into which the tea ceremony has fallen.



As the fragrant tea emits transitory life into the tinted ceramics, Kawabata brilliantly bring beauty in the dynamism of nothingness exposing the conundrum veiled within the peaceful periphery of mortality.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
My first venture into anything by Kawabata; this novella centres on the tea ceremony. Kikuji has lost his father and mother; he is a young man and there is the question of his father’s two mistresses and the possibility of whether he ought to marry. There is a great deal of consideration, in an oblique way, of the importance of inheritance and the continuation of tradition. The novel is set in the 1950s in a time of great change in Japan. The prose is precise and describes well the sense of decay and degeneration, especially in relation to Kikuji’s garden and tea house. Subtlety and intricacy are two of the words that the reviews seem to throw up regularly. It is a novel about ideas and people rather than a linear plot; actually it could also be said that it is a novel about Kikuji’s love life!
Loneliness and disorientation are themes, but it is impossible to avoid contempt Kikuji has for older women in particular; neither Mrs Ota nor Chikako ae portrayed positively. There is an extended description of a birthmark in the shape of a mole that Chikako has on her breast; this is early in the book and is designed to ensure the reader has it in mind whenever Chikako is present. I get a sense of women being demeaned and worshipped; the descriptions of the two younger women are in sharp contrast to the older women. Take note of what Kikuji thinks of himself when he has had a sexual encounter with Mrs Ota, "the conqueror whose feet were being washed by the slave." Quite.
Whilst I can appreciate the intricacies of the tea ceremony, the discussions about pottery and the wonderful prose, even the analysis of a changing society. I also like the lack of ending, Kawabata didn’t like writing endings. All these are strong themes, but just as strong are the motifs relating to the women, especially Chikako and her birthmark, which seems to be a symbol of malevolence and Chikako’s character seems to be linked to it. But the issue is much more visceral;

“Not that. No, the trouble would be having the child look at the birthmark while it was nursing. I hadn’t seen quite so far myself, but a person who actually has a birthmark thinks of these things. From the day it was born it would drink there; and from the day it began to see, it would see that ugly mark on its mother’s breast. Its first impression of the world, its first impression of its mother, would be that ugly birthmark, and there the impression would be, through the child’s whole life.”

And

“It was not just the fear of having a brother or sister born away from home, a stranger to him. It was rather fear of that brother or sister in particular. Kikuji was obsessed with the idea that a child who sucked at that breast, with its birthmark and its hair, must be a monster.”

There is a link here that I almost missed; the pottery of the tea ceremony must be flawless and beautiful; lesser pieces and those that are flawed degrade the ceremony. Kawabata’s descriptions of the younger women’s flawless necks reminded me of some of his descriptions of the tea ceremony pottery. Too much objectification for me I’m afraid.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bowls and tea utensils as manifestations of human interactions, revealing lingering affinities and resentments, form the heart of this book on lost chances, shame and guilt
He could not call up the faces of his own mother and father, who had died three or four years before. He would look at a picture, and there they would be. Perhaps people were progressively harder to paint in the mind as they near one, loved by one. Perhaps clear memories came easily in proportion as they were ugly

I liked the atmosphere of decay, and the focus on the tea ceremony, but the plot is rather convoluted and women just exist as stereotypes in the world Yasunari Kawabata sketches.
Kikuji Mitani is the narrator, a man in his 30s in post-WWII Tokyo. During a tea ceremony he reconnects with two lovers of his deceased father. Mrs. Ota a 45 year old becomes his lover in something resembling the Oedipus myth. The level of drama following this is, on some levels, Greek myth level as well.
The other lover of his father is Chikako, defined by a large mole on her breast and apparently a key she retained to the apartment of Kikuji. In the novel she is often described not as just noisy but also man like in her determination and agency/decisiveness in her role as marriage broker.

Then we have Yukiko Inamura, a young girl with the 1.000 cranes pattern on her kimono, a symbol of utter happiness. Meanwhile mrs. Ota has a daughter, called Fumiko who is also of marrying age.

Kikuji is a rather weird narrator, in part 1, between chapter 3 and 4 our protagonist goes from professing a feeling of disgust to mrs Ota to, bam, lets bang the 25 year older lover of my dead father, without any explanation.
Then in chapter 4 he is suddenly trying to bite his lover and then just falls a sleep mid rage?

Chikako meanwhile is also a character, this woman just barges in uninvited and sets up match making for the adult son of her former lover?

Meanwhile porcelain plays an important role, as does the tea ceremony, while remnants of the destruction of the Second World War flicker through. The tea bowls, being 200 to 300 years old, being so much less transient and sensitive to destruction than human life and passion.
The atmosphere focus of the book makes this quite suitable to a film adaptation, while shame and guilt play important parts as well.

A strange work, with interesting themes but an execution that left me wanting more clarity.

[withdrawn]

What happens when traditions start to fall apart? when a new generation has let the old ways of their parents drop. What was the value in those ways? How can the value be retained when the tradition has been smashed?

The pieces cannot be put back together. When we try, like Nietzsche, to philosophize with a hammer, we may be left with only shards and those shards can leave painful wounds.

There's a love story here but in the new world, the love must remain unrequited. It becomes impossible and is also left in shards.

Such is the message of this gently told, poignant novel. There is a musty beauty about it that has left me wanting more. Luckily, I bought four of Kawabata's novels. This is my first. Thanks to William1.

[Helga زن زندگی آزادی مرد میهن آبادی · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I have read several books by Japanese authors and they have either been hit or miss.
I don’t know if it’s the style of writing or getting lost in translation, but the sentences are short and disjointed which as a result sometimes do not make sense and the whole story is dialogue-driven, which gets irritating at times.

The story is about Kikuji Mitani who attends a tea ceremony held by one of his deceased father’s mistresses. There he meets another mistress of his father’s and her daughter and later has an affair with her.
The story revolves around a dying tradition, beauty as opposed to ugliness and old versus young.

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Chikako telephoned Kikuji's office. ‘Are you going straight home? This is the day your father had his tea ceremony every year.’ Kikuji said nothing. ‘I was cleaning the tea cottage and all of a sudden I wanted to do some cooking.’ ‘Where are you calling from?’ ‘I'm at your house. I'm sorry, I should have said so.’ Kikuji was startled. ‘You don't think you're being a little too forward?’ ‘Shall I call the Inamura girl? The Inamuras are very interested in you. If she comes it will be a sign everything is already settled.’ Kikuji's chest tightened painfully. ‘I don't like anything about the idea.’ ‘We'll talk about it later. Come home right now.’”

“As the train approached Tokyo Central Station, he looked down upon a tree lined avenue. It ran east and west, almost at right angles to the railroad. The western sun poured into it and the street glittered like a sheet of gold. The trees, with the sun behind them, were darkened to black. The shadows were cool, the branches wide, the leaves thick. Solid Western buildings lined the street.”

“The Mrs. Ota whom Kikuji knew now was rather different from the mother Fumiko knew. Fumiko had no way of knowing her mother as a woman. It was strange that the child should not know the body from which she had come, and the body itself had been passed on to the daughter. In Fumiko's face he saw her mother. If Mrs. Ota had made her mistake when she saw Kikuji's father in Kikuji then there is something frightening, a bond like a curse, that to Kikuji Fumiko resembled her mother. But Kikuji, unprotesting, gave himself up to the drift.”

************

This 1949 novel was cited with two others when Yasunari Kawabata became the first Japanese Nobel Prize laureate for literature in 1968. He had been published since 1925 and ‘Thousand Cranes’, like others in his post-War works, have themes of a loss of Japanese culture. On the surface it is a simple story. A young man Kikuji visits an old temple far away from his modern life and office work in Tokyo. His parents had both died. He is invited to a tea ceremony by Chikako, a jealous woman who had an affair with his father. She tries to fix him up with Yukiko, a beautiful young girl.

At the ceremony he meets Mrs. Ota, his father’s long time mistress, and her daughter Fumiko. Both Ota and Chikako press Kikuji for his attention and he winds up in bed with the former mistress who is twenty years older than him. Chikako is obstinate he should meet with Yukiko again, and Kikuji is caught in the midst of a patriarchal society now run by women. Even the tea ceremony had fallen into a vulgar state. Returning to Tokyo Chikako has entered his home and begun to cook and clean, in honor of his father’s annual tea day. Without his consent she invites Yukiko to join them.

Chikako had already begun talks with Yukiko and her mother about a marriage, and even his maid is more informed about the plans than Kikuji. When Mrs. Ota kills herself Kikuji is attracted to Fumiko, who resembles her mother. Chikako interferes with the relationship by insinuating malicious things about Mrs. Ota. Kikuji sees symmetry in their sharing of the tea bowls his father and Mrs. Ota once used. Fumiko smashes her mother’s bowl and disappears on a unexpected trip, leaving Kikuji wondering what has become of her. The novel’s conclusion is not an ending in a conventional sense.

Kawabata committed suicide in 1972, practically de riguer for many Japanese novelists. Defeat and occupation had taken a toll on Japan, brought upon itself by adopting Western style imperialism during the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras. He was inspired by the simplicity of Zen, haiku, ink painting, bonsai and flower arranging, and often left his works intentionally unfinished for aesthetic purposes. ‘Thousand Cranes’ also bears the scars of modernity and decline, in the person of Chikako, whose ugly birthmark on her breast is a physical manifestation of the loss of traditional decorum in the age.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Obviously I do not have the same taste in books as the Nobel Prize Committee of 1968, not if Thousand Cranes is typical of Yasunari Kawabata's novels. This is one of the most boring books I've ever read.

There's this dude named Kikuji whose father had a couple of affairs. After his parents' deaths, Kikuji finds himself embroiled in a love triangle with one of the women and her daughter.

In the background is the embittered other mistress who is trying to get Kikuji engaged to some young girl he's never met and, I suppose, get him out of the arms of her rival and the rival's daughter.

It is set across the backdrop of several tea ceremonies. Not only is the reader subject to that boring activity (it's probably really beautiful in person and I'd like to experience one, but not read about it all the dishes and stuff, over and over), the characters are constantly rehashing the same shit about guilt and attraction, blah blah blah.

Was this the author's fantasy, to have all these women pining after him and then his son after he croaked, because they were just so in love with him that they had to latch onto his progeny once he was gone?

There were only two men in the novel and the rest were women, but the women were two dimensional and seemed merely to serve as sex objects, servants, and ego-stokers. And the suicides! What the fuck kind of sick fantasy, is this?

Maybe there's supposed to be some grand meaning that evades my too-literal brain? Something about the cranes on the girl's scarf or the tea serving/drinking or some other shit?

I don't know and really don't care. I loathe this kind of sentimental and romantic drivel, especially when all the characters are hetero. I kept thinking it'd get better, that they'd shut up with all the feelings talk and it'd get interesting.

Nope.

[Maryana · Rating 5 out of 5]

One chance in a lifetime. - Sen no Rikyu

Diving into the world of thousand cranes, we are invited to attend a Japanese ritual with half a millennium of history - the tea ceremony. Although drinking tea was widespread in Japan from about the 9th century, it was in the 16th century when a legendary figure of Sen no Rikyu initiated a philosophy of the way of tea. Thanks to Rikyu, drinking tea acquired a whole new dimension, becoming a kind of spiritual practice and meditation. In addition, he invented and perfected other forms in art and architecture. In Rikyu’s Japan, there was no profession of architect or designer, but we can think about him as a designer of a novel space especially dedicated to the tea ceremony itself - chashitsu or tearooms. There are some variations, but usually, a chashitsu is a small, simple timber building, located on a precinct of a private house, a temple or a park.

The chashitsu we visit in this novel is a small space near Engakuji Temple in Kamakura. Its minimal dimensions, low ceiling height and dim light create a very intimate atmosphere - a unique sense of closeness between the attendants. While this ritual is supposed to be a gathering of respect, harmony, purity and tranquillity, there is a certain feeling of unease between the attendants. They are not particularly pleased to meet each other here, in one of the most intimate spaces in the world. It’s easy to see that some are not interested in the tea ceremony either. There are hidden intentions behind each movement. There are feelings of shame, guilt and scorn behind each word. While witnessing this human drama, does the tearoom maintain its dignity? Do tea bowls, water jars and flower vases maintain their essence or become empty containers? Passing through various generations over centuries and contrasting with the brevity of human life, these objects seem to possess a special destiny, a life of their own. They remind us of the possibility of eternal values.

With the tea ceremony at the heart of this novel, Kawabata plays with a dichotomy of eternal and ephemeral, love and duty, refinement and vulgarity. Through a deceptively simplistic plot and a minimal set of characters, the author weaves a complex thread of ideas, thoughts, feelings and emotions. His delicate evocative prose reads as verse. There are soft edges to his sentences.

Although this piece is not an aestheticist work (as Kawabata himself stated), we can find a variety of vivid imagery related to nature, beauty and art. Contrasting with the convoluted nature of human relationships, it produces a powerful effect. The figure of a crane is a sign of love, hope and happiness - in this novel, it becomes an unattainable human ideal.

The clash between modernity and tradition I sensed in Snow Country is even more evident in Thousand Cranes. Not sure if Kawabata was a traditionalist, but I can feel a touch of scepticism about his view on future generations and their ability to understand and maintain traditional values. Written after WW2 with a “danger” of westernization and loss of cultural identity, I know where Kawabata comes from. I may have very different values from those of the author and yet I respect some questions he asks: would the future generations be able to understand the essence of traditions? If they don’t understand it, will this essence be inevitably lost?

And now a question about this novel: will it become a historic relic, a piece of its time? Or will it be able to withstand the test of time, touch and influence the future generations?



The oribe tea bowl is dark charcoal fabric tinted with shimmering lights, reminiscent of a starry night sky. Does it dream about eternity?

4.5/5

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not at all familiar with Japan and Japanese literature, but this was quite a nice first acquaintance. Kawabata (1899-1972) gives us a short but very intense story about the young man Kikuni, who's a bit confused after the death of his parents. He gets caught up in the intrigues of the former mistresses of his deceased father. One of them wants to associate him with her own daughter, getting him stuck in a intricate web.

What struck me was the very slow pace of the story, the drawn-out observations and especially the subtle, restrained relationship between the main characters, full of symbolism, especially associated with the tea ceremony. Kawabat describes a way of oppressive relating that suddenly can go from warmth to coldness and even cruelty. An intriguing read, inviting to try other work by this writer.

[Kavita · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are times when you wonder what is in a certain author's mind as you read a book they have written. This is the question that I kept asking myself throughout this book. I understand that Thousand Cranes symbolises the decay of Japan in the post war world, but even with that understanding, I still didn't get much of what was going on.

Kikuji is the protagonist and his sexual viewpoint towards all women he encounters is basically what the book is about. He inherits his father's two mistresses, Chikako and Mrs Ota. Chikako has an 'ugly' birthmark on her breast, which makes her unfeminine and malevolent. That's about it for her. Mrs. Ota cries all the time and feels guilty. Mrs. Ota's daughter, Fumiko, is much the same in addition to being slightly unbalanced. Kikuji also leches at his friend's wife, who isn't even in the story and only appears for about two sentences for this sole purpose. And then, there is the 'Imamura girl', who is just hanging there in the background, waiting for a response from Kikuji. In the end, nothing happens.

I admit I do like a solid plot and strong characters more than flowery prose and random musings. And if I have to read prose just for the sake of the writing, then I prefer to have the female characters be more than just sexual objects. This book made me feel rather nauseous in many places, especially whenever Chikako showed up.

The tea ceremony bits were interesting since I connected with the ideas represented by the age-old bowls and their passing through various hands before being inherited by Kikuji. But this wasn't enough to save the book for me by any means.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

61st book of 2021. Artist for this review is Japanese artist Maruyama Ōkyo.

2.5. Beautifully written again, but not quite as beautiful as Snow Country. Kawabata definitely writes in almost haiku form here, with many paragraphs being just single lines. I found everything here too nuanced, too stripped bare. I found Snow Country sharp, more engaging. This is centred mostly around Japanese tea ceremonies and I felt my ignorance throughout—I imagine there was a lot going on that simply went over my head. I felt the impression of things, of tension, of slight words with more powerful meanings, but other than sensing their veiled notions, I felt nothing else. The moments of drama/sadness/event washed over me uselessly as everything else, leaving me apart from the narrative. My ignorance of the fact doesn't change the reality of it, however, and I understand my limited understanding perhaps damaged the novel; I have no qualms with admitting that this probably is a very subtle and brilliant work by Kawabata, but sadly I could not join it in its elusive dance of tea ceremonies and clipped dialogue. In short, look for someone with a greater understanding than me.


"Cranes"—c. 1770

[Bart Moeyaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kikuji Mitani vertrouwt Chikako Kurimoto niet. Sterker nog: hij verafschuwt haar bijna. Ze is de minnares van zijn overleden vader. Kikuji refereert naar een meisje dat hij wél het summum vindt. Ze draagt een doek met een patroon van duizend kraanvogels, en die duizend kraanvogels staan symbool voor geluk en zuiverheid. Naar dat geluk en die zuiverheid is hij op zoek.

Uitgerekend bij Chikako wordt hij uitgenodigd voor een theeceremonie. Mevrouw Ota — de rivale van zijn vaders minnares — blijkt er ook te zijn. Met deze bijna twintig jaar oudere vrouw begint Kikuji een affaire. Meer geef ik niet prijs, omdat het je leesplezier kan vergallen.

Vanaf het begin heb ik me bereid verklaard om me te laten leiden door Kawabata’s langzame pas bij het uitbouwen van dit liefdesverhaal. Het tempo wordt versterkt door het terugkeren van ceremonies of locaties, het belang van een bepaalde theepot. Mijn twee reizen naar Japan hebben extra kleur gegeven aan wat ik las. Als Kawabata het verhaal voortdrijft aan de hand van een kale dialoog, dan zie ik ondertussen de tuin om het theepaviljoen heen, dan ruik ik de regen, dan valt een specifiek licht door de papieren wanden.

‘Duizend kraanvogels’ is uit het Japans vertaald door Cornelis Ouwehand.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note on the pronunciation of Japanese names

--Thousand Cranes

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upon reaching the final pages I was less convinced that this is a story about the complicated relationship between a young man and his late father’s former lovers than a surprisingly moving consideration of the permanence of things—objects, rituals, social mores, even inherited traumas—that long outlast any individual human life. How minor the little melodramatic interpersonal dramas of this novel must appear from the perspective of a 300+ year old tea bowl that has passed through countless hands across dozens of generations. What beauty such perspective can hold. How delicately room is made for such a perspective without any such thing ever being stated. Such mastery to allow the unsaid to convey just as much of the story as anything actually written down on the page.

“Seeing his father and Fumiko’s mother in the bowls, Kikuji felt that they had raised two beautiful ghosts and placed them side by side. The tea bowls were here, present, and the present reality of Kikuji and Fumiko, facing across the bowls, seemed immaculate too.”

[Parastoo Ashtian · Rating 3 out of 5]

به نظر من آدم نمی تونه با کشتن خودش کارهای اشتباه و نادرستی رو که توی زندگی اش مرتکب شده، جبران و رفع و رجوع کنه. این طور مردن فقط سوء تفاهم ها رو بیش تر می کنه. هیچ کس نمی تونه همچین آدمی رو ببخشه.

از متن کتاب

[Paul Sánchez Keighley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about jealousy, death, milfs and tea. At its core, though, lies an exploration of ritual and tradition. That's Kawabata for you. His book are like essays wrapped up in torrid telenovelas.

Kawabata is old-school Japan at its best. His books invariably celebrate tradition. Even his spare writing style is a sort of poignant demonstration of how much meaning can be packed into the traditional kanji in which he writes.

So in Thousand Cranes it was nice to see him using the Japanese Tea Ceremony as a vehicle for grappling with the meaning of ritual and tradition: why we pass them down the generations, how we attach meaning to ritual objects, how we seek traces of former owners in these guiltless objects, and how these objects outlive us:

When you see the bowl, you forget the defects of the old owner. Father’s life was only a very small part of the life of a tea bowl.

We don’t want to let go of the past, but sometimes the past is too heavy to bear. So we turn memory into action and thus dilute our grief in repetition.

This is the third Kawabata I read and they’ve all been five-starers for me. I’m a fanboy. Even though he writes about an antiquated, heavily patriarchal world I don’t identify with at all, I can’t help reading his books with anything but sheer delight. He explores his themes by dancing around them, glancing at them in different lights, peeking at them from behind curtains, but never explicitly addressing them. Everything is in the subtext.

Also, his execution manages to feel both surgically precise and ethereally evocative. He’ll often convey moods or set a scene with these crisp descriptive passages that feel almost like haikus in prose form:

Though it was broad daylight, rats were scurrying about in the hollow ceiling. A peach tree was in bloom near the veranda.

[Gearóid · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a curious and unusual book!
It is a very short read and there is a real sense
of calm and peace reading it.
It is really beautifully and simply written.
But even though it is very calming and nice to read it
is jam packed with symbolism and some really complex emotive
stuff.
I can't even begin to understand it all but I would gladly
read it again and again and each time I think I would understand
the symbolism and complexity of these characters relationships more.

It really is very captivating and unusual.

[Araz Goran · Rating 3 out of 5]

يا له من سرد ممتع ورقيق و يالجمال الشخصيات وسحرها، يبدو الأدب الياباني هنا في أجمل صوره من حيث والوصف والإبداع والغوص عميقاً في سحر الأجواء اليابانية التقليدية ..
نص يستحق أن يغرق فيه القارئ، مشاحنات وخيبات وسقطات كبيرة في موضوع الحب والغراميات.

الرواية تبدو ساحرة جداً تزهو بشاعرية كثيفة ومحاكاة ذكية لموضوعة النفس والعاطفة والحب والجسد والشهوة والإمتلاك، العاطفة هنا شكل من أشكال المشاعر التي يتسلط عليها القبح والجمال والحب والبغض والندم، يسمو أحياناً ليبدو روحياً تماماً ثم يستعيد رتابته الجسدية المعهودة.

يسير بنا كاوباتا في ظل علاقات متشابكة، حميمية صارخة، يطرح تلك العلاقات بين جنبات الشر والخطيئة والجسد والجمال الأنثوي الذي يصفه بشيء من الرقة والحميمية البالغة ويرسم خطوط الأنوثة على جسد الرواية بشكل لطيف ليس بأستطاعتي أن أصفه بالبذاءة على الإطلاق..
يروي لنا كاوباتا عن التقاليد اليابانية العريقة ، مثل طقوس تناول الشاي، والخزف الياباني العريق والمناسبات التقليدية.

هذه الرواية بقدر ما هي منعشة روحياً ونفسياً ، هس بالقدر نفسه تحمل ملاحظات كثيرة واستغراباً يصل حد الفجاجة أحياناً، لم يكن بأستاطعتي تحمل أو ربما تقبل تلك العلاقات الغربية التي تبدو شيئاً مربكاً للغاية، وليتنا تنحصر في جانب معين بل ترتبط بمفاصل الرواية وفلسفة الحب فيها ..

هذه الرواية هي مثار جدل، مليئة بالأشواك والتقلبات والفجاجة والحب والأنس والرقة والشاعرية والهدوء، وفيها الكثير أيضاً من الروح اليابانية..

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I lived in Japan for 18 months as part of a work assignment; 12 months in Tokyo and 6 months in Kyoto. Tokyo is the political and economic capital of Japan, so it's much more bustling, modern and new. Kyoto, on the other hand, is the storehouse of Japan's traditional culture. While I enjoyed Tokyo, I readily (and easily) fell in love with Kyoto. Hidden beauty abounds with its temples, parks, and walkways; it's a step back in time where you’ll get a taste for what Japan was like during the Edo period, when the city served as the capital and emperor’s residence.

Immersing myself fully in the culture, I was fortunate to be invited, on a few occasions, to participate in the refined tranquil ambience of the traditional tea ceremony, called sado in Japanese. Tea ceremonies have been held in Japan for over 1000 years, and the tradition remains. It’s a choreographic Japanese cultural activity of preparing and serving matcha (a fine powder of Japanese green tea) with wagashi, a traditional Japanese sweet to balance out the tea’s bitterness.

Sado has a set of rules and etiquette called osahou, from the way you sit and how you stand, to how to serve tea. The server follows the rules one by one in order through the ceremony. In Japanese Sado the tea set, the tea room and the process of tea serving is referred to as composite art.

[image: InsideKyoto.com]

It is with this background that I was looking forward to reading Thousand Cranes, a novella that weaves a delicate web of sexual relations behind the veil of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. This morbid, faintly incestuous tale is set against social rituals and the finely crafted utensils of the tea ceremony — objects that acquire special significance as the story unfolds.


[image: tsunagu Japan]

The main character is Kikuji Mitani, now in his mid-twenties. He is invited by his late father's spurned lover, Kurimoto Chikako, to a tea ceremony but realises when he gets there that Chikako is playing matchmaker and has arranged this to be a miai, where Kikuji can check out a prospective mate named Inamura Yukiko. Throwing a wrench in Chikako's machinations is the unintentional presence at the ceremony of Mrs. Ota and her daughter, Fumiko. Mrs Ota replaced Chikako as Mitani Snr.'s lover and remained with him until the day he died. Kikuji becomes drawn into the world of his late father with devastating consequences.

Thousand Cranes is a novella of gestures and images. From the first arresting memory Kikuji recalls in the opening pages - Chikako's disfiguring birthmark that covers half her breast - to the "thousand crane kerchief" Yukiko has with her, to the ceremonial tea cups used in the novella's tea ceremonies, attention is focused on these images; they are imbued with layers of meaning. As possessions are passed from one generation to the next, affections and passions are also transferred through the same hands.

At just 147 pages, Thousand Cranes is an effective story of deep emotion and binding personal ties that still exert a hold even after death. With a thousand cranes traditionally signifying a long and prosperous marriage, it seems it is an unattainable illusion for Kikuji .

I savoured this novella over the course of a day. Like a good cup of tea, it was enjoyed sip by sip.

“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment.”

– Muriel Barbery