Historias en la palma de la mano

by Yasunari Kawabata, Amalia Sato (Translator)

Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1968, Yasunari Kawabata es ampliamente conocido en Hispanoamérica por sus novelas incisivas, maravillosamente líricas y profundas. Pero según él mismo, la esencia de su arte debe ser buscada en la serie de historias cortas a las que llamó "historias en la palma de la mano" escrita a lo largo de su vida. Comenzó a experimentar con las formas breves en 1923 y retornó a ellas cada tanto. De hecho, el último de sus trabajos fue una reducción a la medida de la palma de la mano de una de sus obras mayores, País de nieve, escrita poco antes de su suicidio en 1972.
Como soñadas, intensamente atmosféricas, por momentos autobiográficas y otras veces fantásticas, estas historias reflejan el concentrado interés del autor japonés por la miniatura, el fragmento de argumentos reducidos a lo esencial y la escritura relámpago. En Historias en la palma de la mano conviven la soledad, el amor, el paso del tiempo, los rituales y la muerte. Este conjunto de relatos captura el rango inigualable y la complejidad de uno de los más grandes talentos literarios del siglo xx.

Genres: Short Stories, Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Classics, Literature, Asia

289 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

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

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

a symmetrical simplicity denoting the depths of human complexity.

He understood that human beings cannot make other human beings unhappy, he murmurs, as I gaze up at the bewildered night sky.

the ephemeral life of time.
the beating of a hummingbird's wings.
a world contained in a vase filled with peonies.

death throes under the fading light of dusk.
fragments of a dream that never belonged to this place.
the atmospheric silence of an afternoon wrapped in autumnal colors.
a bowl being dashed against a rock; the sound of somebody's heart breaking.

'My novel has found a beautiful soul. How shall I write it? Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words. . . .' he whispers, as I hold an obstinate pen reminiscing what has never happened.

brevity that distills a universe down to its essence.
the absolute harmony between a snow-covered mountain engulfed in amber flames
and us.
a minimalist expression of beauty.

solitude in the palm of my hand.




April 26, 16

* Quotes:
"There is a God" (Kami imasu, 1926)
"The White Flower" (Shiroi hana, 1924)
** Also on my blog.

“Many writers in their youth write poetry; I, instead of poetry, wrote the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. … The poetic spirit of my young days lives on them.” - Kawabata

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There are not many bell crickets in the world. Probably you will find a girls like a grasshopper whom you think is a bell cricket....... To your clouded, wounded heart, even a true bell cricket will seem like a grasshopper....”

The birds scurry over to the lake, noisily pecking the earliest fish of the season. A fresh flower bud opens to the flutter of the hummingbird. The white flower that bloomed last night desired to be pink. Pink was the colour that would erase its transparency. Pink was the word needed to woo the girl whose cousin had died of a lung disease. Pink was all she sought after. The pleasant smell of the spring even makes the sunrise look alluring. The goldfish on the roof glowing in the morning sun were the key that would open a life of happiness and free Chiyoko from the shackles of her perfidious past. Who would know the taste of genuine freedom better than the toes who among the folds of soft linen cheerfully witnessed the pongy shower of morning nails descending from the graceful sways of the mosquito net; emancipating the feet from the burden of overgrown nails and the woman’s heart from the burdensome memories of her childhood. The heron is busy this morning plucking stems to build a nest. On a branch below, the blue jay fervently chirps fleeting from trees. The mother seemed to have lost her child. Similar to Yoshiko, would the baby bird be a stranger to the warmth of a mother’s affection? Would Yoshiko be able to find the vanished love in the jay’s frantic search? Ah! The altruistic motherly love! Such wonders it bestows. Ask for its soundness from the woman who in the process of giving a compassionate haven for a pet dog’s safe birthing found love birthing itself once again in her barren womb. The heavenly fragrance of young plumeria permeates throughout the street, but it desists from entering my room. Maybe, it is bashful to mingle with the divinity of cherry blossoms and luscious persimmons that have seemed to occupy my room this morning. The dull walls illuminate through the glittering lights of colourful paper lanterns and the morning silence is interrupted by numerous chuckles of children whose quest of finding the grasshopper and the bell cricket has made the dragonflies take a break on my balcony wondering if Fujio would ever know Kiyoko’s illuminated name on his waist when he gave her the bell cricket. In the world of grasshopper would Fujio ever remember the beauty of a bell cricket? The beauty of love? The umbrella that had witnessed a budding love would certainly vouch for it. So would Yuriko who was consumed by the splendour of love and worship blinding her soul as it dissolved in its own muddled opulence. The lilies gorgeously bloomed with all their might. As the canaries rested, the bonds of strange loves disseminated in to the depths of the earth freeing a man from a vicious guilt and a woman who loved her husband even through the darkest hours. While the lotuses blushed to the gossip of the hat incident and the trickery of the water imp ; the words ‘sacrifice’ and ‘humanity’ reflected through the ripples in the lake as a man solemnly pledged to marry the girl to the insistence of the sparrow’s matchmaking skills. The serenity of floating bamboo-leaf boats was cracked by a sudden childish game of war; the humble boats transforming into battleships. Uncertainty and fear of a new world permeated through the bamboo-leafs sending worrisome shivers through Akiko’s heart wondering whether her marriage was just an act of pity; a war-time sentimentality towards the cripple. The pail of fresh, pure water brought forlorn nostalgia to the women who were far away from their homeland striving in the muddied waters of Manchuria. Loneliness brings a plethora of diminishing memories. The friendless heart cries pleading the ruthless mind for some affectionate nostalgia. The vibrancy of gaudy snakes slithering through the moist soil of the lake brought back memories of Ineko’s dream equating human ambitions to the scheming slithering movements of a snake just before catching its prey and fragility of human sentiments to the recurrent shedding of the snake’s skin. The industrious heron was back again picking up dried twigs off the ground. In the coming months the tamarind tree will be overflowing with the whiteness of the heron eggs. The sight of the virtuous eggs in which new life resides was somehow repulsive to the aging couple who dismissed a meal of eggs. No longer was it a sanctuary of new life, the eggs were messengers of death. How peculiar is human mind and how brittle the heart depositing its deep-rooted fears in a pulsating mirage that swings between life and death? Ask, Noguchi who saw Taeko riding a white horse, the virgin pink replaced by a deathly black. Or can the young girl who picked up the ceramic shards of a shattered Kannon figurine give the legitimacy of a weaker vessel equating the porcelain fragility to the elusiveness of her heart? Are dreams the spiritual heralds or are they harbingers of premonitions? The rooster and the dancing girl flippantly tap the surreal vision protecting public morals through the flurry of love letters. Fate, beliefs, shadows of the past, will it ever let go of its mortal ugliness? Ask the blind man and the girl standing on the threshold of love and fate. Will the son who never knew his mother be able to let go the frightful suspicions over his fate and for once witness his wife pleasantly breast-feeding the child of their love? Up in the tree, the coquettish chuckles of Keisuke and Michiko resonated through the rustling leaves while a clandestine world was created away from the ugliness of earth, its beauty residing on the wings of the birds. As the clouds cast a silhouette over the lake, the wind roared making a couple shudder to the thought of the ferocious thunder in autumn. The birds flew to a sunny place where even though the novelty of the face like the beauty of first love diminishes as time passes by; its memories are solidified into the heart blinded by the ugliness of time.

“Thank you. A dray...... “Thank you. A rickshaw...... “Thank you. A horse........ “Thank you...”

The girl whose smile outside at the night stall saw the possibility of the nightly sky being lit by dazzling flowery fireworks bowed to the coquettish love. At the pawnshop where shame and reputation crumbled under the weight of survival, I pondered on how the older sister would have looked adorning her younger sister’s clothes. The elegant kimono that once had touched the younger sister’s supple skin soaking up every passion of her heart; could the cloth then truly transmit those sentiments into the taut dermis of the older sister. Could the younger sister’s life bring the long forgotten enthusiasm in the older sister through the clothes? Could the sliding rock make a barren womb fertile? While the young lady of Suruga, drenched in the pouring rain parted from the train station with a poignant good-bye, the dutiful wives daintily holding onto the umbrellas patiently waited for their husbands at the rainy station. Oh, dear husbands won’t you hurry back before it is too late. Love is fickle, it abhors stagnation. Can you ever hold an ocean in the core of your palm? How can love be shackled with ignorance? Can love be fastened with a knotted string? Ask, the bound husband who breathes a life of a stringer? Ranko would know too. The beauty of love is as delicate and transient like the sprinkling of cherry blossom. Yet, in an uncanny way love resides in the sinister corners of brooding nostalgia. Ask the woman with a silver coin who waited for the silverberry thief from the moment the sour berry touched her tongue. The grandeur of the silver berries that countermand the simplicity of the persimmons found beauty in its ephemeral form. Is it then the human soul so besotted by the chimera of magnificence that the radiance of the ring made a young maiden forget her nakedness in the bath tub? The glass that has been firmly stuck on the back of the lowly man, will it ever break releasing love from societal shackles of class distinction without his shards piercing the heart of love? Can an urchin’s love find refuge in the bourgeois prefecture? Does gradation of love magnify in the class war? Can inked words bring a world of fondness? Will a half-torn photograph find its way back to becoming one complete entity eradicating the ugliness of a heart-break by singing a love song? Love is iniquitous. In its glory will it graciously bring the beauty of passion and in its waning carry the squalor of disgust. Can then the brazen culpability rescue the final ruins of love through love suicides? Does loving too much signify slaughtering the essence of love with its own opulence? The broken rice bowl will no longer hold the beauty of cooked rice. The beauty of her mother’s eye flourished in the malice of theft. The aspiration of love vanished in the desolation of its past. A child’s viewpoint conferred the man an honour of a bleeding heart. The hair that sowed the first seedling of love with a slap of affection grew when the lovers slept. And on the day when the insomniac love went into a soundless slumber the hair no longer interrupted the lover’s sleeping habit. The wife of the autumn wind left traces of an overpowering possessive love as she scattered like a paulownia leaf. The winds of change blew towards the hometown enlightening Kinuko to view the happiness that encircled her through the optimism of her sister-in-law. Is love egoistic? It is possessive? Or is it that man has planted its bleeding soul in the establishment of love. The sting of sharing a lover’s warmth is uglier than the writing a letter to a man on behalf of a woman who has shared a bed. The women of the harbor town wrote as wives of the nightfall weaved the poetry of momentary love. The chewed pieces of newspapers in the child’s mouth recited a tale of an audacious girl of samurai descendant who was as fierce in her actions as the woman who stood between the supernatural trance battling a saw and childbirth. The beauty of the chestnut burrs glowing from atop a tree is shattered in a puddle of ugliness the moment it hits the earth. Underneath the streaming exquisiteness of a prostitute lies a menacing melancholic sea. The legendary beauty of the O-Shin Jizo sculpture, guardian of the children, fades in the wretchedness of reality. “Thank you”, he courteously said to the rickshaw that passed by him whilst he tenderly glanced at the girl next to him who was about to be sold by her mother. Mr. Thank you was his moniker, the only source of stability in the turbulent economical times; his heart brimming with compassion and chivalry but would love ever find a warm place within it. The question lingered in the air as he drove the bus to the next town and the enduring fragrance of love found a way to trickle within the woven threads of tabi(white socks) and a red top hat as they rested in the frostiness of a murky grave. The two decorated accessories whose beauty was marred by the ominous shadows of death and disease.

“The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night."

It has been more than ten hours since the first flower of the spring had bloomed. The transcendent moonlight seems to have found a way to my room brightly stamping its authority on the room floor. The words of the priest from the mountain temple fleeted through the moonlight as the shuffling of ‘go’ stones were strategized on a day running toward winter. Did the priest’s astuteness intertwine the ends of fate and destiny together? Can the beauty of the nature be truly cherished when it achieves salvation from materialistic crudity? On the gloomy boulevard, the street lamp looked like a ball of fire; the tungsten blazing through the glass, its fiery flames engulfing a maiden’s prayers as superstitious whims roar with laughter. The girl who approached the fire did not yearn to walk to the home where her heart never belonged. Was it a forlorn heart’s pitiful dream? Or was it a blessing, the path to one person’s happiness that was found in the smiles of the woman he loved? True happiness? Where does one discover it? Does it lie down in the eyes of the deaf neighbors when they scrutinize youth while the ugliness of age depreciate their bodies? Is a philanthropic deed itself rooted within the egocentric domain of personal bliss? Can the purity of philanthropy escape the ugliness of self induced happiness? Does the crippled wife of the poultry man ever question if there is a God when her husband carries her to the bath house? If there was no God then how would the survival of Beppu Ritsuko to be able to glimpse several glorious seasons of autumn rain be elucidated? Was it divine intervention or as in the case of the peasant was it providence that bestowed him the veneration of lavatory Buddhahood? Can clemency be sought from those who have been wronged? Did Yumiko find her deliverance by distributing God’s bones? The paperweight that was cautiously bought with the prized silver fifty-sen pieces was now the only lasting remembrance that Yoshiko had of her mother and her life from the pre-war time. How is it that human sentiments are nourished through lifeless objects? One measly touch of the flawlessly cut riding clothes was all Nagako desired to feel the warmth of a loving family. Every tear, every twinge and elation crystallized in the core of these comatose substances giving it a timeline of life and death that ultimately liberates the human soul from the burdensome past. Is then death the truthful path to salvation? Does death actually erase the distinction between genders through its neutral death mask? Is it necessary to pile on some make-up and a fake smile to dissolve the agonizing pain of death and go on living? Will the solemnity of a funeral home be marred by the nitty-gritty of daily life? The sacredness of death is sooner or later misplaced in the allure of newborn memories. From the time one is born, we adorned diverse masks throughout varied life-stages as we get engrossed in the roles we play. Are we then afraid of that deciding day when the mask finally falls off and the repulsiveness of truth peeks from the dazzling veil of fallacy? The man who did not smile already knew the perils of a handsome mask. Is human spirit a frightening thing emitting the lingering fragrance of guilt like the chrysanthemums place on the grave? The incident of the dead face made me question the faithfulness of faces that are genetically connected. A wife’s search was marred by the faces of love. The face of the child nestled in her bosom yearned for a sense of belonging. Does it really matter if a child has a dissimilar face than its parents? Does the purity of parental love fail to permeate the external physical segregation? Is the solidarity of love so feeble? Ask the earth who embraces children giving them an optimism of love. Is the realm of noble love narrowed by pitiable visage similarities? When a heart can find a sense of belonging in a new household do practical imagery overrides the matters of genuine love? Love has no inhibitions, no boundaries; humans do. The couple, who resides within the tenderness of a tree trunk, ask them if they know a thing or two about immortality. The bleeding ankles of a young girl that searched for the summer shoes as she rode behind the carriage, may tell you the sweetness of an everlasting journey. As the snow tumbles down from the wings of the flying birds, Sankichi falls in love once again. The transitory beauty of the snowflakes crystallizes on my windowpane on a balmy spring night as the love of Shimamura and Komako cascaded through the artistic gleanings from the snow country.

The moonlight has been quite mulish as it seems to reside firmly on my bed gazing through the printed words held in my hand. The name of the man who will never write scintillating stories again, shine brightly in the moonlit room. The remnants of the luminous paper lanterns collide with the subtle moonlight, giving way to a flimsy apparition now occupying my room. Suddenly an arm is jutted out towards me and I nervously wonder why. And, then as the crickets take pleasure in their nocturnal chorus, from the palm of the hand are released ingenious stories overflowing with mystique, surrealism, melancholy, beauty, spirituality, allegorical narratives and a splash of haiku echoing in the haunting silence of the heart and even through the weakest of them all emit the fragrance of the teachings of Zen philosophy forming blueprints like the lines embedded within the fleshy palm. This may not be his strongest literary pursuit, nevertheless, unlike the face that may lose its freshness in the fullness of time, the words of a man that made me fall in love with him will never lose their novelty and my periodic viewing will only strengthen their beauty time and time again. The melodious bell cricket amid the world of grasshoppers:- Yasunari Kawabata – my literary soul mate.

[Heba]

هلا بسطت راحة يدك...طاوعني واطمئن بأنها تتسع لقصص " كاواباتا" الساحرة...
لا تُبدي إندهاشاً إذا ما رأيت بحيرة صغيرة براحة يدك...تتراقص على سطحها زهور اللوتس المتفتحة...وقد يرتجف وجه القمر بجوارها .. ، تزوغ عيناك إلى شلال المياة الدافقة من قلب جبال بعيدة تعانق نجوم ملتمعة في سماء صافية ...
تبزغ على اطراف أصابعك ثمار التوت الفضي ...لن تقاوم إلا أن تلتهمها سريعاً...
كل ذاك يتناغم مع العاطفة الإنسانية تناغماً بديعاً...تنبض الطبيعة بمشاعر مرهفة فتقف أمام اللقاءات الخاطفة..وتلك التي لم تكتمل.. تستند على جدار الصمت كل الكلمات التي لم تُقل..
حزن شفيف ناعم يكسو وجه القصص بالوداعات الموجعة..
الموت حاضرٌ...شبح يلوح بالأفق البعيد تنعكس صورته الشاحبة على اللوحة كاملة....
الآن يمكنك أن تقبض يدك...هل تعلم بأن حجم قبضتها بحجم قلبك..أجل ...
لابد وأنك أدركت أين غدت تلك القصص بتلك اللحظة ، فهى لم تعد براحة يدك...

[Mariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yasunari Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories could be my key to my own heart. Palmists! Why didn't I think of that? They are short, like echoes inside that sound fainter as time passes, but are important enough to leave its footprint (handprint?) behind. Fucking haunting me kinda faint. "Oh." Much later: "Oh!" Yeah, he's got me. The eyes as windows to the souls thing that I like no matter how cliched it is (staring! you can't look away 'ship WRECKS), the Mona Lisa secret smiles, millions of tiny little taste buds on the tip of the tongue, heart three sizes bigger, the echoes like a bell going off... In the palm of the hand (hence the "palmist" as poet)... If I had had a poetic soul it would've been this. I just wanna touch. I don't want to own everything. That's too big. This is touching for the unpossessive, the alone who aren't lonely when they can remember how to listen to this. If it's in there for me to ever reach any of it... That whole key thing is that, really.

I kinda got this idea that if I'd know myself better I'd have a larger wingspan (for me) and armspan (for others). I should've been poetic. I should have been a dancer. I could've been a contender, ma! What Kawabata has that I really, really need (and why I'm thinking he might be my favorite writer ever) is the sitting in the palms of the hands, not grasping, just being... touched. Yeah, that thing. I think that's it. It's more than that, though. Kawabata is fucking huge, to me. If I don't say that these stories are painful, horny, funny, shocking, sweet, tender, moving.... My vocabulary of relating is limited. I just wanna touch. I don't own those words. That's not what went through my mind as I read and said "Well, damn!". I laughed! I sighed. I love Kawabata. Okay, I'm moved. It just feels like there's more to that, underneath, that I'll get later, when (ahem if) I'm a better person.

One thing I've been thinking about a bit these days is that a long time ago I'd probably have been "Oh, wow!" with my mouth hung open like some kind of struck dumb dumbass by something like "Wow, Kawabata died in 1972. I wasn't even born until the end of 1979! And he was Japanese and an orphan and totally lived differently than I do!" That kinda thing is commonplace when you've been reading a lot of books for a long time. It's hardly the point. It's not by far the most amazing thing. The differences really aren't the amazing thing, are they? (How would you know it?) (More on that later, if I remember what I'm half thinking.) It's easy to take for granted these things that seem to be every day, like someone was living and breathing and touched on people he met, people he didn't meet (outside of his own head), things we might all miss maybe just a little, sometimes, like autumn, and our hometowns, first loves, parents... It IS special, to me, that all these years later someone like me can read these translated versions by these guys trying to know themselves better by Kawabata's reaching out (maybe trying to know someone he knew). That's the only chance I'll ever get, either. He's gone. Now I'll probably go back to taking it for granted all of these lives that are gone and mine that can't be too far behind. There's nothing commonplace about making someone remember not to think so much is commonplace. (Duh, that's what's great about palmists, artists, poets...) I hate it if I ever take it for granted.

What was I saying about the echoes? Have you ever laid up close with someone underneath a blanket? Face to face? And the contours of their face looks different, sometimes more beautiful, or scary, definitely a lot bigger. The rest of the world falls away and for a time it is a lot warmer just the two of you underneath that blanket. That's why these are palm sized. If you stay under that blanket for too long it gets too hot and harder to breath. I don't know how Kawabata does it. His novels really read like you knew that blanket partner that well all the time and then it ends because maybe the arm span was too painful to keep up that long. I don't know what it says about me that I can't get enough of that feeling Kawabata gives me. Maybe I'm greedy. I want to remember the world is bigger and smaller than I forget it really is.

Kawabata's translators love to quote his protege Mishima. Mishima said that Kawabata was the "eternal traveller". Nooooo, stop quoting Mishima! He's a grounded angel. (That was cheeeeese! Don't quote me either.) Call him a traveller if you wanna but you gotta listen to the echo before you move on, guys. It happened. These are not interludes with no intestinal strings attached. (I should say that these are "short" stories just like his novels are "novels". Life with godamned strings attached! Life is stories.)

My insta favorites: (Like when you have "first favorites" the first time you listened to The Smiths. This Charming Man might be the favorite first and then you move on to Hand in Glove and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. Meaning: my list can change!)
A Sunny Place
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket
Canaries
Harbor Town
Photograph
The White Flower
Glass
The Sliding Rock
Thank You
The Silverberry Thief
Summer Shoes
The Maiden's Prayers
One Person's Happiness
There is a God
Goldfish on the Roof
The Young Lady of Suruga
A Smile Outside the Night Stall
The Blind Man and the Girl
Household
The Man Who Did Not Smile
Samurai Descendent
The Rooster and the Dancing Girl
The Bound Husband
Sleeping Habit
Umbrella
Death Mask
Faces
A Pet Dog's Safe Birthing
The Silver Fifty-Sen Pieces
Bamboo-leaf Boats
Gleanings from Snow Country

I am going to write a bit about some of my favorite stories. As I said, sometimes songs on a favorite album will tug at me later as I've changed, or the stories have grown on me. It is possible that on rereads my favorites will change and I will add to or change this list. I don't expect that anyone will care about that? It's a personal thing, changing favorite songs. The "our song" thing doesn't really happen that often, does it? (It is probably forced by couples who try too hard. Or sing-a-longs in mainstream comedies. That really happens! Santana feat Rob Thomas "Smooth" comes on the radio, without fail, every time I'm in the car with my big sister. I'm a cliched movie style buffoon, what can I say?) Sometimes, though, if I "get into" a band someone I knew a long time ago really liked I'll wonder if they still listen to it, or which they had liked. I want to start nosing through favorites like medicine cabinets. "Which will save your life?" Anyway, if some such goodreads people love the Palm-of-the-Hand stories and want to share some thoughts or comfortable silences (or creeped out silences. Some of these are "Well, fuck" type of stories")... I'm here! (It's probably better to go talk to one of the normal and smart reviewers. But they seemed to have moved on and are not a listening on repeat kinda listener...)

A Sunny Place:
Kawabata could've been holding my hand. I have a staring problem too. I trace back how I got into habits and try to feel "okay" about these things. Trying to feel okay and making these relating into some feeling of intimacy... I loved this. Also, my two favorite actors in the world are Samantha Morton and John Turturro (okay, when I like something I can really like it). Both have said that they learned how to act because they had to watch other people to know what is up, how to anticipate when to get the hell out, or play it cool, whatever. I'm sure that a lot of my own staring problems came from growing up in my own when to get the hell out situations. The boy in this was an orphan and tried to trace his adapting/staring skills for the same reason. I wonder if the trying to trace back is also something people (Kawabata was sort of an orphan himself) who were put into different environments as a kid a lot had. It's a way of feeling less orphan? "I can remember that." Like that? I like to build contexts out of fiction too much, maybe...

The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket:
"Even if you have the wit to look by yourself in a bush away from the other children, there are not many bell crickets in the world. Probably you will find a girl like a grasshopper whom you think is a bell cricket.
And finally, to your clouded, wounded heart, even a true bell cricket will seem like a grasshopper. Should that day come, when it seems to you that the world is only full of grasshoppers, I will think it a pity that you have no way to remember tonight's play of light, when your name was written in green by your beautiful lantern on a girl's breast."
I wish there was a way of remembering because this is the truth.

Canaries:
I don't know how to say how this story made all of those half thoughts and mixed up feelings about jealousy and possessiveness rise up. I mean, this is a "theme" in Kawabata's novels... But... It's different. They make me glad that I don't have any grasshoppers or bell crickets. The wife, the mistress... Fuck it. It's like that song by The Cure 'In between days'. That's how I'd say it to myself if I were telling me about it. Or New Order's 'Bizarre Love Triangle'. Or any song about love triangles that I listened to when I was very young and had never been in a relationship. Now that I'm not in a relationship I'd rather see it from that make believe distance and glad it's not me. The canaries had to die. What the fuck? The mistress gives them to him so he'll remember her. The wife takes care of the birds. He remembers the mistress because the wife kept the birds alive. When the wife dies, he won't do for them himself. Bye bye both memories. Maybe I'm the memory killing husband myself. It's easy to do the make believe in a short lived song and then move on to another song. (Love is hard to sustain so long. We're not all Mariah Carey and her high ass notes.) Okay, it's the winning and the losing thing. Wife versus mistress. What the hell do they win? The birds definitely didn't win. It's over when the canaries stop singing.

Harbor Town:
The unlonely kinda make believe. Kinda lonely, pretending to be husband and wife for a time. The Sweet November movie never should've happened. Harbor Town is like when you're a kid and you don't care who sends you a letter, so long as you get one. It's just nice to be thought of.

Photograph:
Photograph is one of my very, very, VERY favorites. Very! "But, I wonder, if the newspaper were to carry that picture of the two of us together, as it was taken, would she come running back to me thinking what a fine man I was?"
Love is blind. Love is a leap and the eyes flashing before your eyes when you jump is, well, blind. Funny I loved this story so much when I do not want to look at old relationship photos. Would the past still be in there?

The White Flower:
"If some man would woo me with one word...," she felt like nodding. And she smiled.
I may be in a mood... It was hilarious how the doctor and the artist completely ruin things with their big mouths while the girl is feeling quite desperate. Nods!

Glass:
"But this was odd. The man had never once in all these years felt the loveliness and freshness in his wife that he perceived in the girl in the story.
How could that bent-backed, pale, sick urchin have this kind of power?"
The power comes from touching everything with your eyes. Like walking along a fence and touching every post with the tips of your fingers. It's an impulse.

The Sliding Rock:
I liked this because the ghostly quality of the rock is something I feel all of the time when I stare at things so long they look monstrous and powerful and I start making things "talk" to me (half talking to myself). It comes from working yourself up over stuff. I wouldn't have gone swimming where there was a rock that made women get pregnant, though. I always had a morbid fear of that kind of thing. My grandmother would demand of me if I was pregnant if I were to so much as complain of a headache when I was a child of ten. The sliding rock? No freaking way. I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it. (Could've slipped and hit my head.)

Thank You:
The introduction says that there was a film based on this story. I must get it!
Thank you to the planes, trains, automobiles, rickshaws, horses, buggies, buses... When something cannot be faced and so the world becomes the yellow sleeve of the bus driver in its place. They all talk back. Thank you.

The Silverberry Thief:
What a con artist! I liked this because the lady was such a con artist. It also reminded me of picking berries as a kid in Alabama. I know, it is meant to evoke autumn in rural Japan and the woman thinks of her own home (where none of her family are left)... It made me feel the same. Some for her, some for me. It was nice.

Summer Shoes:
I tried to tell my twin sister about this story and how much I liked it. I don't think I did a very good job because she wasn't too interested in my ramblings. I'll try again here, just in case. I liked the little girl chasing after the carriage and the driver not wanting to look like a fool. I liked how she was free running outside and caged when inside the carriage (or the reform school?). I hate to wear shoes too! I know how she feels.

Goldfish on the Roof:
I am haunted by Chiyoko's goldfish fascination and her freedom from her so-called parents. If only it hadn't come at the expense (was it?) of the goldfish... I was wanting that to happen all the time and then when it did I just missed the fish. Maybe I'm weird.

The Young Lady of Suruga:
I would've watched the schoolgirl and the factory girl saying their goodbyes (only for now?) in the pouring rain and felt desperate for them not to be apart. I did, though, in my head while reading this story. I feel sad thinking about it. It reminds me of Kawabata's The Old Capital and maybe that's why I think they don't get to be friends anymore. Damnit.

A Smile Outside the Night Stall:
Did I include this in my favorites list? If I didn't I'm adding it now! I loved the smile that was not meant for him. I feel like that all of the time, reading my books with these smiles that are not meant for me.

The Blind Man and the Girl:
This story is one of the most romantic I've ever read, for some reason. Romantic as I'd see it. Not the overuse of the word where it has no meaning anymore, as Orwell would see it. Maybe not anyone else's romantic. That's the word I've got, unfortunately. I wanted to sigh. That's it. The little girl with the blind mama who takes her two sighted daughters into an association of only the blind. Young O-Kayo has the job of escorting her sister's blind lover to his train. Every day they hold hands on the walk and he asks her if everything ahead is still as it was. It was the hand holding! It has to be. They go... they go hand in hand! Damnit, that is it. I felt it and I believed it. Sigh. (I don't care about love connections. That's never said. It's the touching!)

Household:
I've always liked stories about going into other people's houses. Magnetic Field(s), or the film Chunking Express... This is different 'cause it's just feeling home where it's not your home. Like everywhere could be home for you, not the strange strangers strangeland feeling of other things I've read or seen. It was really nice feeling.

The Man Who Did Not Smile:
How would it be if you couldn't stand to be your real self after the illusion of pure happiness of a mask?

Samurai Descendant:
I hope the little girl grows up to be exactly like her supposed samurai ancestor and does something nasty to the perverted artist neighbor.

A Pet Dog's Safe Birthing:
This reminded me of the story in The House of Sleeping Beauties collection if the man was not interested in only playing god. They are all his family, those dogs. Sooooo sweet. I need to look up the Iwata obi breed. I've never heard of them.

The Silver Fifty-sen Pieces:
I wanted to hug young Yoshiko when she saves her allowance and goes back again and again to visit the paper weight that takes her fancy (her first ever impulse buy). I guess this story could be either taken as a creepy consumerism story or just the opposite. Years later, her mama is dead and there are no umbrellas in her Tokyo street after the war. There aren't even any dogs, except for the one on her surviving paperweight. Live while you've got it... I really wanted to give her a hug. That's what I wanted.

Gleanings from Snow Country:
This is a palm-sized version of Snow Country the novel. I read Snow Country the novel twice and this so I guess I've read it three times, in a sense. This time I had the... I don't know if I want to say this? Convoluted female reasoning? Like Komako. When she's so changeable on the outside towards Shimamura. Like trying to protect yourself from what is happening. Sometimes you think you can, other times there is nothing you can do. She seems nuts, railing at him for "laughing at her" (or in the future, as she says). Then she's fine with it... How can you be fine with what you don't know what means to you, yet? It's hard to listen to what's happening when you're trying to listen to that damned future echo. (hide spoiler)]

I love Kawabata sooooooooooo much. I'm going to go back to these. I've already read nine that have been translated into English. What will I do now? I like it too much under the blankets with Kawabata, pining for and fearing the future. Me too, Komako. Sorry this review is so nuts. I don't expect anyone is gonna use this as their reading guide anyhow. I'm more than happy to discuss any of the stories with anyone who so wishes to sing along with me. We'll make it "our song".

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiny stories that are more like poems.

I approached this book in the wrong way. I consumed as many of them in one go as I could and almost certainly shouldn't have. Kawabata crafts beautiful images that can have a profound effect on you but when you pile image upon image they lose all appeal and the effect is dulled. I knew this and yet I kept on reading until my brain couldn't hold any more imagery, kind of like an addiction I suppose.

This is the kind of work you can return to many times and pick a story at random, briefly feeling the effects on your mind and soul and then putting it back on the shelf.

[Ιωάννα Μπαμπέτα · Rating 4 out of 5]

Οι «Ιστορίες της παλάμης» είναι θλιμμένες ιστορίες θα έλεγα.
Οι ανολοκλήρωτες σχέσεις, ο έρωτας, ο θάνατος και οι κοινωνικές συμβάσεις τα θέματά του.
Ποιητική γραφή, υπαινικτική. Τα περισσότερα δεν λέγονται αλλά κρύβονται πίσω από την έκφραση του πρωταγωνιστή. Πίσω από μια τελεία.
Κατά τη γνώμη μου αν και είναι μικρό βιβλίο, καλό θα ήταν να διαβαστεί σιγά-σιγά ας είναι και παράλληλα με κάτι άλλο.

[هدى يحيى · Rating 5 out of 5]

واحدة من أمتع المجموعات القصصية التي قرأتها في حياتي
مذهلة
...

[HuDa AljaNabi · Rating 2 out of 5]

اسلوب كاواباتا غريب، تجربتي الاولى معه جائت بطريقة مفاجئة وعن طريق الصدفة.
نوعية القصص، في الغالب باهتة بعض الشيء، لم اقع في حب هذا الكاتب ولا حتى قصصه، ربما ستكون "الجميلات النائمات" فرصة اخرى .
الغلاف جميل :)

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange book. Two-thirds or more of these very tiny stories (like Haiku) were written between 1923 and 1935. Then 15 between 1944 and 1964, and one from 1972. We have heard of "occasional" writings; perhaps these need to be called "momentary" writings....

A collection of this sort will likely be, perhaps inevitably, uneven. Yet this collection certainly contain some, quite a few Kawabata masterpieces. I preferred the earlier stories, those from the early 20's, and some of the Postwar stories, such as "The Silver Fifty-Sen Pieces".

I've become a great admirerer of Kawabata.

Interestingly, Sorrentino's A Strange Commonplace and Human Abyss is, formally, a modernist (and certainly grittier) version of palm-of-the-hand writing.

[Erasmo Guerra]

I wanted to love this book. Over the years, I've heard so many great things about these short-short stories, but I could never really quite get into them even though I read the entire collection. Reminded me of looking at the gorgeous window displays at Tiffany--things of beauty that I couldn't quite touch, unable to reach them emotionally or otherwise understand what was going on or why. The subtlety and shades of meaning were lost on me. The recurring environments of hot spring inns and characters coughing up blood wore on me. Maybe I shouldn't have read them all in a row over the stretch of a few days. Not that I'm giving up on Kawabata completely. I'll pick up his novels and hope they're not as experimental and are more grounded in narrative rather than a poetic moment. I feel as if I was just the wrong reader for this book. Which is why I'm not rating it and just marking it as read.

[Bushra · Rating 1 out of 5]

حسناً.. كنت أرغب بمنحها نجمتين على الأقل لبراعة تصوير ملامح البيئة اليابانية القديمة وكيف يجعل القارئ يرى ويستشعر أجواء هذه البيئة ويلمسها بطبيعتها وطقوسها حية وحقيقية..
لكن عندما يتصاعد احباطي من البداية للنهاية وأنا أقرأ قصة تلو قصة دون أن أجد أي معنى لأي منها!! باستثناء البعض كانت غالبية القصص أشبه بالهذيان حتى أنني عدة مرات نمت بسببها.. اضافةً إلى أن الكثير من تصرفات الأشخاص وردود أفعالهم غريبة وغير مفهومة.. هذا جعلني أقيمها بنجمة..
ليس غموض ولا رمزية.. بل ربما هناك حاسة سابعة يجب أن يمتلكها الانسان حتى يستطيع أن يقرأ أمثال هذا اللون من الأدب..
أستطيع أن أستوعب أن يكون كل نص من هذه النصوص موجوداً ضمن رواية لكن لا أفهم دوره كقصة..

[Suad Alhalwachi · Rating 3 out of 5]

١- يوم مشمس: تكشف لنا النفس البشرية إذا تعودت على شيئا ما، التحديق في الوجوه عادة أنا اعتبرها سي��ة وكل من تعود عليها لسبب أو لآخر قد تكون طبيعية بالنسبة لهم ولكنها محرجة للآخرين حتى بالطبع إذا علموا السبب.

٢- الوعاء الأضعف:يبدو ان هذا الكاتب لديه الكثير من المشاكل، جد اعمى! أحلام يحدث فيها تحطم للتماثيل الخزفية واحدٍ ما يلتقط القطع الخزفية. والأفضل هو يفسر أحلامه بنفسه. كمثال ان الفتاة في مقتبل الشباب تسقط بسهولة، وبمعنى من المعاني فإن الحب، في ذاته، هو سقوط للفتاة.

٣- قصة الفتاة التي دنت من النيران عن حلم ايضا! غابات تحترق وفتاة تشق طريقها وتمضي بعكس اتجاه دار الحالم. فسرها بأن الفتاة لا تحبه

٤- المنشار والميلاد: هل يخاف الكاتب من موضوع الولادة وبأن المرأة سوف (ربما) يشق بطنها ليستخرج الطفل؟ ايضا حلم. ربما ستساعدني القصة على تذكر أحلامي ايضا.

٥- الجندب وصرار الليل الخوار: اطفال يبحثون عن الجنادب واخذوا يصممون المصابيح بأنفسهم ويرسمون عليها (او يقصون) حروف اسمائهم وعندما يخرج الضوء من هذه الحروف وينعكس على الطفل المقابل ينكتب اسمه وبالعكس. ولكن الاطفال لم يروا هذا الشي بل فقط فرحوا بالجنادرية او صرار الليل.

٦- قصة قناع الموت (صفحة ١٦٠) حتى الموت لم ينجو من العراك. لما شهد اخر حبيب للممثلة القناع الذي صنعه الممثل لم يستطع ان يرى سوى صورة رجل ممزوج بصورة امرأة. انه الموت ياسادة ! لن نستطيع ان نحدد جنس المتوفي، ولكن هذه المرأة استطاعت حتى بعد موتها بجعل قناع موتها يظهر كأنه وجه إمرأة! هل يقصد الكاتب ان الاشخاص المؤثرين سيستمر ذكرهم؟ حتى لو ذهبوا إلى الجانب الاخر؟

٧- قصة "الرب موجود"
قصة غريبة عن شاب يسكن في نزل، يشاهد نجمة تكاد تؤثر عليها بوهجها. وأحس بالبرد ثم ذهب الى الحمام ووثب الى نبع حار. واذا بشخص يغسل امرأة في نفس النبع يبدأ بالحديث معه. تذكر بأنه قد أغوى نفس الفتاة منذ مدة ليست بالقصيرة. يا ترى لماذا انفعل؟ هل لانه سيكون هو الذي يغسل هذه الفتاة لو انه تزوجها؟ هل احس بالنقمة على نفسه لفعله هذا؟ هل أثارت في نفسه ذكريات؟ لنطلب الغفران على كل شر فعلناه بعلم او بدون علم.

٨- قصة انتحار العشاق
لا أعرف لماذا احسست بإحساس غريب في هذه القصة وكأنها حدثت لي! هل حدثت لي؟ لماذا يتحكم الرجال بالنساء هكذا، ويدفعونهم إلى الإنتحار؟ لا أعرف لماذا سمى الكاتب القصة بهذا الاسم، أين العشاق مما حدث؟

٩- قوارب من ورق الخيزران
قصة جميلة عن فتاة قد اصابها الشلل، واحدة من أرجلها اقصر من الأخرى. تلعب مع اخ خطيبها الصغير عند النبع وتذهب معه إلى النهر وتصنع له القوارب! ولكنها تفكر بالخطيب؟ هل سيتزوجها؟ ام ان الحرب قد قتلته. قصة تبعث على الحزن.

١٠- يوريكو
فتاة لا تعرف من هي! تقلد البنات في المدرسة! تقطع قلمها الى قطع صغيرة لان صديقتها يصغر قلمها من كثرة الكتابة وتحمل شنطة رجالية! توسلت يوريكو لأبيها ان يشتري لها شنطة رجالية. وعندما كبرت وتزوجت اصبحت تطيل شنبها وتتصرف مثل زوجها إلى ان كرهها! توسلت إلى الرب ان يغير حالها فأصبحت وردة السوسن

هذا الكاتب غريب نوعا ما! فهو يكتب (غرائبيات) يتحدث في قصصه عن المجتمع وما يحدث به من تغييرات من جراء الحروب! وربما أصابته حمى الكتابة الإبداعية والتي لابد ان يفكر فيها الشخص القارئ ويحاول تأويلها.

قرأت فقط عشر قصص من هذا الكتاب. وأكملته اليوم ومعظم القصص تقريبا متشابهة وبها برك السباحة والمنتجعات المائية وفواكه البرسيمون والبرتقال، وكأن الكاتب مغرم بالنساء.

[طَيْف · Rating 3 out of 5]

جانب آخر يظهر إبداع كاواباتا الأدبي...قصص كما وصفها تماما بحجم راحة اليد...ولكنها تطرق أبواب القلب والحياة...وتربط بين الإنسان والطبيعة من حوله متجاوزة كل الحواجز...فــ :


" الثلج، القمر، البراعم، تلك كلمات تعبر عن الفصول، فيما هي تنداح مفضية أحدها إلى الآخر، وهي تشتمل، في التقاليد اليابانية، مجال الجبال، الأنهار، الأعشاب، الأشجار، وتجليات الطبيعة الوافرة، والمشاعر الإنسانية كذلك"


بحجم راحة اليد...نعم...ولكنها بعيدة عن التسطيح رغم بساطتها...عميقة في اختزال جزء كبير من الحياة اليابانية بتقاليدها وأجوائها الخاصة.

أعجبني العنوان...ودلالته...وأعجبتني خفتها...فما أن تمسك بها في كفك حتى تنفلت كريشة في مهب الريح...وأصابعك تبذل جهدا للإمساك بالمعنى الذي خلفته وراءها.

كثير من القصص يدعو للتأمل...مغموس بالرمزية ومغلف بالسحريّة...مع المحافظة على بساطة السرد وشاعريته...وقد قيل أنها كانت الوحدة الأساسية للتأليف عنده...ولكن برأيي كانت نوعا إبداعيا منفصلا، وإن شئت قل مكملا لإبداعه الروائي، وهو فن لا يملك ناصيته إلا قلة من الروائيين.


يلفت انتباهي دائما لدى كاواباتا دائما تجميله لحالة الموت...ذاك الحدث الذي قد نعتبره الأكثر بشاعة في حياتنا...يضفي عليه كاواباتا مسحة من جمال...مختلفة تماما عن وجهة النظر التقليدية له، خاصة في الثقافة اليابانية التي تقدس الموت وتحتفي به، والشخصية اليابانية التي اكتسبت سمعة يغلب عليها الوحشية في حروبها مع الآخرين.


أما المرأة في عالم كاواباتا فقد اتخذت كذلك رداء من الغموض والجمال والشفافية، واستحالة الفوز بها...فهو يحافظ على مسافة بينها وبين عاشقها يصعب تجاوزها.


سبعون قصة...ستجد بالتأكيد فيها ما يجذبك لعالم كاواباتا...وقد تكون مفتاحك الخاص لولوج عالمه الروائي...رغم أنني تمنيت بعضها أطول بتفاصيل أكثر...وشعرت بأن البعض مجزوءا يحتاج لتتمة...وربما في هذه وتلك كنت محتاجة لرؤية مختلفة تستوعب إبداع كاواباتا ورمزيته.


توقعت الترجمة أفضل خاصة بعد المقدمة الشيقة التي بدأ بها المترجم كامل يوسف حسين كتابه، ولا أدري إن كان أسلوب كاباواتا وتكثيف المعاني واختزال القصص لعب دورا في ذلك...ألم يكن بالإمكان أفضل مما كان؟؟

[Freca - Narrazioni da Divano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finalmente incontro il premio Nobel giapponese che a lungo mi chiamava: ho iniziato dai racconti, che ho scoperto, grazie all'introduzione, essere anche la sua forma espressiva preferita, nonostante avessi in wishlist da tanto il suo romanzo 'il paese delle nevi', che comunque, a maggior ragione, leggerò.
I racconti sono estremamente brevi, succinti ma non minimalisti, anzi ricchi e succosi nel contenuto: poche pennellate ma pastose e ben piazzate a dare profondità. Uno stile che mi ha conquistata: particolare nella sua pulizia, quasi ascetico eppure intenso.
Una immersione nel mondo giapponese, che man mano si sta facendo più familiare: e iniziare con i classici che sono più lontani da noi, perché hanno meno se non nulle contaminazioni europee o statunitensi, ma rimangono le basi per i contemporanei si sta rivelando il giusto approccio.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a number of Kawabata's novels—Snow Country, Beauty and Sadness, The Sound of the Mountain, and Thousand Cranes—while saving his collection of very short stories, known as Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (so small they can fit in the palm of your hand), for later. The stories are supposed to be where Kawabata truly finds his form, which, having read them at last, I find to be true.

Some of the stories were better and more memorable than others (The Jay, for example, is close to perfect). Yet the form of these stories—the way they are constructed, and what they can say with minimum words—is what is so particularly beautiful about them.

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short pieces written over a lifetime: each short story parses the line between “complete” and “undeveloped”.

This is not a book I could read very much of at one time. It’s a long book of very short tales that takes forever to get through. I liked the later works best — perhaps because by the time I eventually got to them I had matured a bit more and so could appreciate them better.

“Tabi” I liked, and “The Jay”. “Water” is barely a page long and says so much about the war, imperialism, and the endlessly-fascinating Japanese mystique.

These stories should be studied by students of the "flash fiction" or "micro fiction" genre.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another annotation from my MFA/Creative Writing work at Goddard this semester:

Talismans Inside Koans Masquerading as Fairy Tales: Yasunari Kawabata’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories

The toss of a silver coin determines whom a boy should marry, but a sparrow shows the boy that in his next life he will marry a sparrow. A vision is had, and something that might be considered a lesson or generalization about human existence is imparted—i.e., don’t worry about marrying the girl, because in your next life you’ll marry a loving sparrow who’s got your back even now. So perhaps the moral is, maybe, don’t worry in general, because you’re going to die anyway, and then you’ll be in another world ... maybe? (64)

It’s hard to say. It’s often hard to say. What exactly are these Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata? Fairy tales? Koans? Allegories? One could take them as a hybrid form of fairy tale or allegory, given their concluding morals, their simple narration and the magical images that Kawabata invokes: the talking sparrow in "The Sparrow’s Matchmaking" (62), the man in a distant land who was tormented by the sounds of his abandoned wife and daughter in "Love Suicides" (53), and the image of the woman-as-frog climbing down a rock face to induce fertility in "The Sliding Rock" (38) are only a few of many examples.

But fairy tales or allegories don’t, as a rule, have morals that are as slippery as eels to decipher. Kawabata’s tales are like koans masquerading as fairy tales, and often his use of a talisman—i.e., an object that is laden with meaning, if not something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects—is the only clue he gives to unlock these fairytale enigmas.

"Riding Clothes," (208) with Kawabata’s use of riding clothes to represent a girl’s only happy memory of childhood as she rode through the country with her uncle and cousin, is one of the easier talismans to decipher. Many other stories in Kawabata’s collection are far more difficult to decipher, but the deceptive clarity of his simple narratives cause a reader to go cross-eyed trying to figure out the moral, and that’s why the talismans stand out in stark relief: We grasp at them like drowning people clutching at rocks, trying to grab a foothold onto a given tale’s meaning. In so doing, we are forced to read slowly. And reread. And delve deeper, making the experience more profound than any simple fairy tale.

Take, for example, "The Neighbors." In this story, Kawabata gives great emphasis to two talismans: the necklace of beads given to Yukiko by her father and the pair of kites being fed by hand by the deaf, old couple living in a separate wing of the house into which Yukiko and her husband have just moved. The necklace as a talisman isn’t hard to decipher, per se: Kawabata writes that “As her father’s prized curious, these dragonfly jewels symbolized for Yukiko the emotion of parting from her parents” (202).

Extending the import of this talisman, after her bridal night, Yukiko’s husband embraces her, and the thread binding these precious beads snaps. The newlyweds then work together to restring the beads, given that Yukiko doesn’t remember how she and her father originally strung them. A tie to her father is broken, and a new tie with her husband has been forged with the restringing.

If it ended there, the story would be easy to decipher. And simplistic. But Kawabata then shows the newlyweds interrupting the old couple’s feeding of the kites, as their approach startles the birds into flying off. And it is clearly an interruption: The old couple were “not even trying to hear” as the newlyweds spoke to them (204). The old man’s greeting is scarcely welcoming and could be rightly interpreted as meaning “we’re fine, just leave us alone:” “Old deaf folks like us—you can think of us as not being here. But we like to see young people. We won’t make any trouble for you, but we won’t hide ourselves away” (204).

The story ends with the newlyweds leaving so as to let the kites finish their breakfast. It is clearly the newlyweds who are “in [the:] way,” not the old couple, who have said quite plainly that they like to see young people but seem to have no inclination to socialize with them.

The feeding of kites is pregnant with social interplay. The stringing of a necklace is another talisman that speaks to the ties between old and young at different stages in their lives. What do the two talismans say about each other, and about the story’s moral? In the story’s beginning, the old couple’s son tells the newlyweds that their youth will be a tonic to his parents: “It’ll be like a flower suddenly blooming alongside the old folks,” he says. “...both the old house and the old folks will be bathed in the sunshine of your youth” (201).

Or not. The old folks are just fine without splashing about in a youth bath. They’re sitting and sunning themselves and feeding ham omelette to kites. Is the necklace, then, a talisman meant to underscore the fact that youth must sever its ties to age, and that age can also live a full life without attachment to youth?

Or what about the house under construction in "Bamboo-Leaf Boats" (188)? Is the house a talisman that stands for the “obstinate” nature of the family Akiko had almost married into, with “no gentleness about it?” (188) Its construction had been stopped during the war, just as the war might have stopped Akiko’s marriage, due perhaps to her fiance dying in the war or a cessation of the “wartime sentimentality” that might have caused him to marry a polio-inflicted cripple (188).

He doesn’t give up meaning easily, this Kawabata. He gives his readers’ brains a workout. In the end, the meaning of these types of koans masquerading as fairy tales are rarely clear-cut, but because Kawabata has given us such rich talismans to chew on, his readers are given tiny stories that are thick with potential—perhaps even multiple—meaning. They are maddening, and they are satisfying.

[Miruna]

Yasunari Kawabata, you have disappointed me big time.

[Athena ღ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Μικρές ιστορίες, όχι όλες τους τόσο δυνατές. Γενικά δεν ήταν το αγαπημένο μου απο τον Καβαμπάτα.

[Nguyên Trang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Đọc ở đâu đó giới thiệu rằng tuyển tập này giống như haiku văn xuôi. Lời giới thiệu thật không thể hấp dẫn hơn và với những ấn tượng đẹp trước đó về Kawabata thì rất đáng tin và kỳ vọng. Nhưng không. Phần đa là không đẹp. Nhiều lúc ghê tởm gần như đọc truyện Trung Quốc đương đại. Nhưng may mắn thay là cho đến tận năm nay, tôi đã có khả năng xét lại những thứ mà xưa nay tôi vẫn coi là ghê tởm, vẩn đục. Giống như một ký ức ngày nhỏ ám ảnh suốt cuộc đời, luôn bị nhìn nhận với sự thù ghét, chán chường, nay bỗng hiện ra trong một ánh sáng mới. Và bỗng nhiên, nó trở nên đẹp hơn tất cả các ký ức đẹp khác. Vì rất nhiều khi, ẩn sau hành động ghê tởm là một nỗ lực tuyệt vọng đáng trân trọng vô cùng. Trong tuyển tập này có lẽ cũng chính là vậy.

Tất nhiên là trong tôi vẫn còn sự phân biệt rất lớn. Sự ghê tởm trong văn Kawabata và sự ghê tởm trong văn đương đại Trung Quốc với tôi vẫn là khác nhau, mà có lẽ thật ra không khác. Hoặc có thể ở đây là vấn đề về diễn đạt, văn chương nữa. Bản thân tôi là dân OCD sợ bẩn vô cùng tận. Thằng cháu tôi mới đi học lớp 1, có hôm hớn hở về khoe là hôm nay nó với bạn nó đi xem cứt tắc trong bồn =)))) Hỏi thích không thì bảo thích. Hỏi lần sau đi xem nữa không thì bảo có =))) Có lẽ đỉnh cao của giác ngộ là người lớn sống như trẻ con. Và thật sự là thế, khi nào mình thoải mái với những thứ từng làm mình khó chịu, đó mới là sự giải thoát sau cùng.

Nói vậy chứ tuyển tập này cũng có vô vàn những truyện rất đẹp. Đúng kiểu đẹp đã khiến tôi mê Kawabata từ mấy chục năm nay. Một vẻ đẹp đơn giản mà ám ảnh bất khả tư nghị. Chỉ có thể tạm diễn giải bằng một chuyện xảy ra đúng lúc tôi đọc cuốn này. Vì mới làm lại vườn nên thời gian này có khi tôi cặm cụi ngoài vườn tới khuya, để trồng cho xong đống cành mới cắt. Trong một ngày khá muộn, sương lạnh và cô độc, khi tôi cũng cảm thấy mệt mỏi rồi, bỗng dưng tôi thấy trăng in trên hồ nước mà tôi đang trồng cây xung quanh. Khoảnh khắc đó, tôi lại thấy được niềm vui trẻ thơ trong mình. Và thấy được cả những vĩnh cửu. Mặt trăng này, đã tồn tại bao đời, mọc lên mà không cần vì ai, ta có thể chẳng bận tâm hoặc đã nhìn nó hàng ngàn lần, nhưng sự xuất hiện vô tình của nó vẫn có thể tiếp tục khơi dậy cái đẹp thuần khiết này. Trong ký ức của tôi, vẻ đẹp thuần khiết và xúc động nhất luôn tới từ những thứ đơn giản và tự nhiên nhất.

Tuyển tập này cũng nhiều lần lặp lại thủ pháp (hay sở thích?) mà tôi đã gặp trong lần đầu đọc Kawabata. Đó là sự phản chiếu. Giống như ánh trăng vậy. Rất nhiều lần, những tình cảm của các nhân vật chỉ là sự phản chiếu. Dần dà, tôi cũng nhận thấy rõ ràng, mọi người xung quanh đều là sự phản chiếu - dù ít nhiều méo mó - chính con người tôi. Cái người ta nói rằng mọi người thường thích lấy người giống bố mẹ mình, theo tôi thật ra là vì họ thích lấy người giống họ hơn. Rất tiếc, phản chiếu thường không chính xác, nên mới sinh ra nhiều rắc rối ;)) Nhưng đôi khi lại rất đẹp, như ánh trăng vậy.

Về bản dịch thì Nguyễn Nam Trân luôn dịch rất tốt. Gì chứ đọc Kawabata là tôi hay khó ở lắm, so đi so lại đủ các bản. Nhưng ông này dịch dễ chịu, đáng tin lắm. Mong ông dịch hết lại các tiểu thuyết của Kawabata với :(( Các bản khác hoặc quá thô hoặc sai :(( Anw, tôi không tìm thấy tên người biên tập. Đáng buồn đây là cuốn biên tập tệ nhất của Tao Đàn mà tôi từng đọc. Và có lẽ là siêu tệ nói chung. Chắc phải tới 4-50 lỗi, cả trình bày lẫn chính tả, mà nhất là lỗi dấu câu. Đọc sạn quá :(( Tao Đàn tái bản thì xin biên tập lại với ạ. Tác phẩm đẹp như vậy mà tự dưng lỗi tè le chời ơiiii

ỦA MÀ KHOAN. Quote yêu thích của mình “The true joy of a moonlit night is something we no longer understand. Only the men of old, when there were no lights, could understand the true joy of a moonlit night.” vốn nằm trong truyện lòng bàn tay sao mình đọc không thấy nhỉ :o ai thấy chỉ với :o

[Rosana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels very difficult to verbalize the experience of reading these short-stories. They at times border on the fantastical, but mostly describe some intricate psychological play, as if Kawabata has access to the deep labyrinths of thoughts and feelings inside a character’s head. Often the stories refer to dreams, and have themselves a dreamy quality, and they left me with the uneasiness of eavesdropping on people’s very inner feelings: the young sister who loves her older sister’s blind lover; the widow that loved his mistress only through the living actions of his now dead wife; or the anxiety of a crippled girl waiting to hear if her fiancé would return from the war.

But mostly the stories are riddles not easily understood, and I was left with the feeling that I missed something essential about it. As if Kawabata wrote of things that were beyond my grasp of feelings and understanding, yet I got a glimpse of it, a sparkle that fed my curiosity and empathy for those people.

Although Kawabata’s writing is very different from Italo Calvino,Karen Blixen and Jorge Luis Borges I perceive in his stories the same feeling that those authors have aroused in me, that of a reading experience that precedes intellectual understanding and transports me to some ancient time where stories carried archetypical meaning. The lover, the mother, the young/older sister, the crippled – all are aspects of me.

It is not a book that will be loved by all, and it may require a certain mood from the reader, but I highly recommend it.

[Xenia Germeni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εδω δε θα πω τίποτα...Τιποτα απολυτως γιατι θα χαλασω τα παντα...Το βιβλιο, το συγγραφεα, την πατριδα του, το μεταφραστη...Απλα θα μοιραστω μαζι σας την τελευταια παραγραφο απο το εξαιρετικο επιμετρο του Παναγιώτη Ευαγγελίδη: "Ανάμεσα στον αγώνα για το σύγχρονο και τη λαχτάρα για τους χαμένους παράδεισους της ομορφιάς του άλλοτε, ανάμεσα στον κόσμο και τη μοναχικότητα, λάμπει το φως του ονείρου, η πραγματικότητα της μη σκέψης, η διάλυση μέσα σ'όλα τα πράγματα, η ενυπάρχουσα πεποιθηση του ότι πράξη και πράττων είναι ένα, ότι η λέξη είναι το πράγμα, το νόημα είναι η αίσθηση και πως, αν νομίσεις πως ξέρεις τι να κάνεις και γιατί και πως, θα πρέπει να είσαι σίγουρος μόνο για ένα, πως αυτό είναι ένας λάθος δρόμος.
Μεταφράζω πρόχειρα ένα χαικού του Μπασό, το επιθανάτιό του:
'Άρρωστος σε ταξίδι
Όνειρα πλάνητες σ' έρημους
τόπους".

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cada uno de los setenta relatos por los que caminamos en Historias de la palma de la mano es un sueño. La lectura es, entonces, un deambular a través de un reino onírico en el que las imágenes y las situaciones responden a una lógica particular que no conseguimos articular del todo, pero que nos tocan hondo, acariciando la cabeza del niño que somos (aunque lo olvidemos) con la sabiduría del anciano que no hemos llegado a ser (aunque a veces lo sintamos).

Conjugada a los reinos de la ilusión, la otra aliada de Yasunari Kawabata en esta colección es la brevedad. El relato más extenso de la antología tiene siete páginas. Podemos leer este libro en cualquier parte, cualquier instante disponible es suficiente para entregarnos a las escenas que nos propone. Cargarlo en el bolso era estar abierto a la posibilidad de disfrutar, cuando se me antojase, del dulce descanso y la magia de una siesta (según Borges, uno de los pocos placeres que nos quedan).

Disfruté mucho las lecturas. A veces, sentí que el código cultural del libro se me escapaba por completo. Que el sistema de símbolos con que se construyen las metáforas me es ajeno (hombre occidental que soy). Esto, sin embargo, no afecta el placer de la lectura: la belleza que Kawabata inyecta en sus tramas es sutil pero fuerte, se trata de un potente oxímoron, como el delicado sonido del trueno. Quizás lo realmente mágico en todo esto sea esa universalidad que nos enfrenta a nosotros mismos en la raíz de toda expresión artística.

La organización cronológica de los relatos en la antología permite una aproximación al universo del autor con todo su paquete de preocupaciones extraliterarias. Leer los cuentos, por ejemplo, escritos luego de 1945, es encontrar en ellos todo el desconsuelo de la barbarie de esos años, siempre matizada por una especie de optimismo. No, no es optimismo la palabra, decir que Historias de la palma de la mano es un libro optimista sería un grave error. Es un libro estoico, un libro en el que sus personajes se someten al destino con la certeza de que la Vida (así, en mayúscula) es muy superior a sus existencias particulares.

Los temas hacia los que deriva Kawabata son microcósmicos en su mayoría. Los universos domésticos que se enfrentan con los fantasmas interiores del individuo: la nostalgia y el amor, la confrontación con la muerte y el descubrimiento del asombro. La vida familiar aparece en muchos de ellos; las tradiciones y los cambios a los que Japón se enfrenta en los periodos de entreguerra y postguerra, en muchos otros. Todos marcados con una poética de lo familiar encausado dentro del curso de una belleza universal.

Por ejemplo, en uno de los relatos, una mujer cae enferma de la columna y debe vestir un corsé para mantener rígida su postura. Es una prenda incómoda, casi de cuerpo entero, que deja, a la altura del pecho, dos agujeros por los cuales asoman los senos. Pese a los cuidados de su hermana, la mujer empeora, y el corsé deja de ser necesario puesto que la enferma debe ahora guardar cama; se desecha el corsé, entonces, en una esquina del jardín:

En las dos aberturas abiertas en el pecho, en esas pequeñas ventanas redondas por donde asomaban los senos, se posaban los gorriones, sus cabezas moviéndose de un costado a otro en una perfecta escena de nevada matinal, como en un triste cuento de hadas. (215)

Otro ejemplo, el primer párrafo del cuento Suicidio por amor:

Le llegó una carta de su marido. Habían pasado dos años desde que él le había cogido aversión y la había abandonado. La carta venía de una región lejana: "No dejes que la niña haga botar la pelota de goma. El ruido llega hasta aquí. Y me afecta el corazón". (77)

Los cuentos Canarios, Ciudad portuaria, Suicidio por amor, Peces de colores en la azotea, Los huesos de Dios, El hombre que no sonreía, Paraguas, El feliz nacimiento de los cachorros, Monedas de plata de cincuenta, y Barquitos de hojas de bambú fueron mis preferidos.

Para disfrutar la lectura al máximo, hay que leer en duermevela. Kawabata lo confiesa en uno de los primeros relatos. Dice: "En un sueño no hay simulación ni fingimiento" (19), quizás por eso sea tan dulce leer Historias de la palma de la mano, porque todo es verdadero.

[FeLicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due to the success of two of my writing teachers (Pete Rock and Bruce Holland Rogers), I wanted to study short-shorts/flash fiction and this was a good place to begin.

Although "Canaries" is probably the most anthologized of Kawabata's stories, I found a other treasures in this tome. "The Rainy Station" is one of those. Beginning with the opening line "Wives, wives, wives,..." it carries the reader throughout the disappointing life of a typical housewife with an interesting twist. So many of these stories have infidelty and unhappiness as their themes, I had to keep checking the dates to remind myself many of these were written in the 1920s. "Palm-of-the-Hand" is worth the read, even if you're not contemplating writing flash fiction.

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a nice surprise, I didn't know Hiroshi Shimizu's 1936 movie "Mr. Thank You" was based off a Kawabata short story.

I know Kawabata also worked on A Page of Madness so I'm going to assume "The Man Who Did Not Smile" is related to that experience, seeing as it's about a writer on a movie set, Noh masks, a mental hospital, etc.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a small stone dropped into a pond, these minute but potent stories send out ripples long after they've been read. Some of the stories I read over and over are "Snow," "Up in the Tree," "Immortality," "Yuriko,"

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong collection of very short and equally sharp stories from Kawabata. In these little gems laconic storytelling and subtle irony join forces with realistic tragedy.

[Rauan · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's been 4 years or so since I read these stories but the way I felt still glows in me. This is not to say I can remember any details of the stories themselves.. I can't. That's how I am. But the feelings of awe. Of encountering strange beauty. Of being led slowly through small but intricate (and glowing also) little gardens and baths. That all glows in me. It's a book of glowing flesh. Of a bitch about to whelp.

I came to this book by sheer chance. Beckian Goldberg Fritz (who's used the word cockring in a poem! why am I such an idiot?) said, in an on-line interview, that this was a book she was reading and digging.

I just read Kawabata's "Beauty and Sadness." I was engrossed. And it haunts me. But I think the Palm-of-the-Hand Stories are better. For me anyways. I'll have to go back and see.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are the Japanese equivalent of Lydia Davis's short short stories, as so employ more aesthetic considerations. Where Davis's stories are pure practices in economy, Kawabata's stories are more about the distillation of complicated interpersonal stories into beautiful tableaux, sometimes with a distracting predilection for the dreamlike.

Notes:

Kawabata, as opposed to Lydia Davis, gives his short short stories a haze of dreaminess with deft, artful, but inexact images, whereas Davis is methodically exact and uncompromising. Many of Kawabata's pieces are extensions of impressions or images, the whims of a writer, spontaneously involved thought, undeveloped. There's a sense of God, or if not God, a God-like order to things in all of Kawabata's stories, because the plots make moral sense and all have a predetermined calm.

Many of Kawabata's tales address the desperation of middle class Japanese life, the trains and western-style houses, reminding us of Cheever's West Chester County. Kawabata's women are conniving or unbearable burdens to their men. They're wrought like grotesque Chaucerian women, or peasants from a Flemish painting. Kawabata's stories, even though they take place amidst horrors unimaginable to many of his readers - the air raids of WWII - are cozy as British mysteries, as everything is seen through the lens of pure aesthetics. The later stories have a quiet melancholy, a wistful nostalgia of the elderly, and quiet observation of youth from a distance.

[Pete Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seventy miniature short stories that Kawabata wrote between 1923 and 1972. It’s said the essence of Kawabata’s writing can be found in these brief episodes in Japanese lives more so than in his novels, but in truth they often feel like fragments of larger stories that Kawabata may have discarded then stripped down to their absolute minimum. Many end with a character staring into the distance, perhaps wondering something, or with an unresolved issue still hanging uncomfortably in the reader’s mind, but there’s also a sense of give-and-take here because while Kawabata often goes for the minimalist effect he’s also careful not to remove the points and markers that can give his characters an often luminous form. It’s interesting to read short stories composed differently from the way we are used to experiencing them, though the reader may still be left with a small sense of dissatisfaction with many, although those written nearer the end of Kawabata’s career are rounded off with more depth: best of all is the brief, impressive ghost story ‘Immortality’, the imaginative flourish of ‘Snow’, and ‘Gleanings from Snow Country’, loosely connected to his famous novel Snow Country. Altogether gentle and enjoyable, but frequently too slight.