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Primera nieve en el monte Fuji
Estos relatos son a la vez una ventana al muy específico mundo doméstico de la posguerra japonesa y una reflexión, destilada al máximo, sobre los sentimientos y las contradicciones humanas, sobre el ser y la memoria, sobre las incógnitas de la belleza y del silencio. Dos de ellos, Yumira y El cristantemo en la roca, fueron incluidos posteriormente en una antología de sus cuentos favoritos que se publicó poco después de que recibiera el Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1968. Esta antología es una fina muestra de la grandeza de Kawabata. En los pequeños mundos de trazos delicados que se abren con cada cuento, en medio de sus resonancias y su luminosidad, descubrimos siempre la inteligencia inquisitiva y el humor de uno de los grandes del siglo XX.
Although he was the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize, Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) remains much more obscure in the West than his high-profile protégé Yukio Mishima. Yet he's a writer of formidable talents. For one thing, Kawabata recognized early on the affinity between Japanese poetry--with its abrupt transition from image to image--and the jump-cut flavor of modernist prose. He also explored erotic life at a truly microcosmic level. Some may find a novel like The Mole--which revolves around a woman's habit of fiddling with her eponymous birthmark--a little too molecular in its approach. But sex, like God, is in the details, and throughout his career Kawabata has unearthed some surprising truths about our most urgent appetites.
Although he was the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize, Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) remains much more obscure in the West than his high-profile protégé Yukio Mishima. Yet he's a writer of formidable talents. For one thing, Kawabata recognized early on the affinity between Japanese poetry--with its abrupt transition from image to image--and the jump-cut flavor of modernist prose. He also explored erotic life at a truly microcosmic level. Some may find a novel like The Mole--which revolves around a woman's habit of fiddling with her eponymous birthmark--a little too molecular in its approach. But sex, like God, is in the details, and throughout his career Kawabata has unearthed some surprising truths about our most urgent appetites.
First Snow on Fuji, a collection of stories originally published in 1958, is a fairly representative slice of the author's oeuvre. In "Her Husband Didn't" (a classic Kawabata title, by the way), a woman's earlobe becomes the discreet object of desire:
The earlobe was just as round and plump as an earlobe ought to be--it was small enough that Junji could squeeze it between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, no bigger than that--yet it filled him with a sense of the beauty of life. The smooth skin, the gentle swelling--the woman's earlobe was like a mysterious jewel.... He had never known anything with a texture like this. It was like touching the lovely girl's soul.For Kawabata's characters, the physical usually leads straight to the metaphysical, which is what prevents him from deteriorating into a soft-core thrill merchant. And in several of the other stories here, he proceeds directly to the weightier issues. "Silence," for example, is at once a study in failing inspiration and a gloss on Kawabata's own career (the latter argument is made very effectively by translator Michael Emmerich in his introduction). And the title story offers an intriguing take on memory, which Kawabata seems to regard as a distinctly feminine operation: it's "the docility of women that makes it possible for them to return to the past."
What we love most in a writer--the idiosyncratic music of his or her prose--is the hardest thing for a translator to capture. There are times, alas, when Emmerich's ear seems inadequate to the task. His rendering never falls beneath a certain literate level--but for a writer of Kawabata's minimalistic delicacy, a clunky transition or flatfooted phrase can sink the whole enterprise. Readers might prefer to start, then, with Thousand Cranes or Snow Country. But for all its linguistic flaws, First Snow on Fuji reminds us that in literature most of all, less can be more--much more. --James Marcus
238 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
Yasunari Kawabata
426 books3,852 followersYasunari Kawabata (川端 康成) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read today.
Nobel Lecture: 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...
Nobel Lecture: 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
September 22, 2023
Remarkably modern stories to say they are set in Japan in the 1950s. The repercussions of the recent war loom over several of the stories. The author, Kawabata, was the first Japanese recipient of the Nobel Prize (1968) and he was mentor to Yukio Mishima. Both men committed suicide.
In the title story, two lovers meet years after their affair. They had conceived a child during the war that was given away by the woman’s mother.
The first story, This Country, That Country, centers around the potential for spouse swapping.
In A Row of Trees, an unusual pattern of fall leaves leads to insight into a young family.
The story, Nature, is about transgender. A male actor in a traveling troupe plays women’s roles so well and for so long that he starts to become a woman.
In Raindrops, an auto accident leads to a man bringing his young woman assistant home, leading his wife to question “are they or aren’t they?”
In The Chrysanthemum in the Rock, an old ghost story leads a man to mediate on death and the type of memorial he wants.
Silence features an elderly author who has determined to stop writing and speaking. His daughter “interprets” his eye movements for visitors. (Kawabata’s obituary included his quote “A silent death is an endless word.”)
In Her Husband Didn’t, a young man is having an affair with an older married woman.
In Yumiura, an elderly author receives a woman admirer who talks about an affair they had ages ago when he had asked her to marry him.
The last story, The Boat Women, is structured as a traditional Japanese play along a female Oedipus theme.
Great stories. Some, like Seinfeld sitcoms, are “about nothing” but they always pack a punch.
Top photo from japancherryblossom.com
The author (1899 – 1972) from japantimes.co.jp
[Edited, spoilers hidden 9/22/23]
In the title story, two lovers meet years after their affair. They had conceived a child during the war that was given away by the woman’s mother.
The first story, This Country, That Country, centers around the potential for spouse swapping.
In A Row of Trees, an unusual pattern of fall leaves leads to insight into a young family.
The story, Nature, is about transgender. A male actor in a traveling troupe plays women’s roles so well and for so long that he starts to become a woman.
In Raindrops, an auto accident leads to a man bringing his young woman assistant home, leading his wife to question “are they or aren’t they?”
In The Chrysanthemum in the Rock, an old ghost story leads a man to mediate on death and the type of memorial he wants.
Silence features an elderly author who has determined to stop writing and speaking. His daughter “interprets” his eye movements for visitors. (Kawabata’s obituary included his quote “A silent death is an endless word.”)
In Her Husband Didn’t, a young man is having an affair with an older married woman.
In Yumiura, an elderly author receives a woman admirer who talks about an affair they had ages ago when he had asked her to marry him.
The last story, The Boat Women, is structured as a traditional Japanese play along a female Oedipus theme.
Great stories. Some, like Seinfeld sitcoms, are “about nothing” but they always pack a punch.
Top photo from japancherryblossom.com
The author (1899 – 1972) from japantimes.co.jp
[Edited, spoilers hidden 9/22/23]
July 22, 2016
The “I” in me seems to have disappeared. Or perhaps I ought to say that a different “I” has been living inside me.”
This book was supposed to be my very first Kawabata. But as fate or rather a clumsy and lethargic online courier service would have it, I had to somehow make peace with his full length novels. Nonetheless, I’m glad at these destined turn of events, for if it had not been Kawabata’s elaborate prose, I would have never found the mysticism of silence that subtly encompassed his literary characters. The empty spaces through which the author becomes an audience and the reader transforms into a writer while discovering ambiguous resolution to magnify the inhabitation of silence. The “I” dissolving in the vortex of time, the soul of its individuality lost in the responses of the past and an altered “I” labouring through a sea of words, the vulnerable emotions crippled by the veracity of the present and the chimerical future.
The mind is most powerful in the sanctuary of its silence; the still waters are the deepest and in the gloomy calmness of the chest, the vigorous thumping of the heart deafening the present voices with the sinister shadows of the past. The mystifying tales from this country, that country seeping through the shadows of waning love, speckled on the white flowers, the sweetness of Takako’s desire burdened by the lassitude of loneliness. The silence of an abandoned love travelled from the stony mounds in the Scottish Highlands into the empathetic “wife-swapping” humour. When love finally abandons its marital abode, the endless nothingness encumbering the sanity of marriage desires an impossible spontaneity to bypass beyond morality, seeking a respite in illusion of the “first man” being a mere clandestine strange “third man”. The agony of discovering another person residing within you, shackled by the reams of probity and silenced forever by the fear of perversion is everlasting. Is it immoral to emancipate the buried “other self” that thrives in obedience to the weariness of regret? “The discovery that two women existed within her- occurring as it did after she committed an immoral act – was strange and of course it caused Takako pain.” The beauty of a fleshy earlobe mislaid by silence of miscommunication and entrenched expectations between the moist strokes of a tongue and the desired reality of sex and love. Can the stillness of death validate a person’s happiness through the chaos of life? Or is it that the universal idiom of life decides whether the dead led a contented life or not? The element of perversion negating the allusions of a burdened mind, the frightening prospects of the quiet existence of the other woman within her, affirmed Kiriko with the changed portrait of herself, the sweet agony of guilt reaching unexplored depths of Kiriko’s life where her husband didn't. Kawabata’s word swell with peculiar silence as yellow leaves flutter like butterflies on a row of trees. The mysteries of human mind amalgamate with the incongruous path of nature, the inattentiveness of the stolen purse vanishing in the sorrow of fallen leaves. Human passion and memories swept like the delicate leaves by the winter wind, slowly swirling in the vacant mind, erasing the cerebral chaos bit by bit by the clever strokes of silence eventually leaving it bare like the majestic ginkgo trees on the hilly path near Soeda’s house. ”Do you think the trees at the bottom of the path always lose their leaves first?”
The past is a dream dwindling within the passage of time, the fragments of lacerated memories dispersed in the reality of the present. “Memories are something we should be grateful for, don’t you think? No matter what circumstances people end up in, they’re still able to remember things from the past.” The voices of poignant illusions searching the a piece of the fragmented memory steadily flow from the tales of Yumiura , the woman’s poignant words lingering between the nothingness of fantasy and sincerity. The egotistical past does not belong to anyone, only to the mind who has the courage to carry its burden into the youthfulness of the present and liberating it through spoken words of its own.
It isn't only a matter of being pretty or ugly – there has to be a woman inside one.....I think that there was a girl inside me. If there hadn't been a war that girl would probably have stayed clamped down inside, but we had a war and thanks to it she was able to push out into the world...’ While gaping into the face that was crawling towards a second childhood, the ghost of Momosuke ponders on the remarkable manner in which the nature bestows itself a gift of happiness. Can prolonged beauty of life expunge the ugliness of the past? When can a transformed nature go back to its natural state? Or can it ever?
Where in lies the beauty of a gravestone? Is it in the expensive embellishments carved onto its cold exterior? Or is true beauty of the gravestone found in the permanent remains of an impermanent life that is safeguarded in the tenderness beneath? When death engulfs me, I shall be cremated, my ashes floating on soft watery whirls, but if given a chance would I desire a nameless rock to be my grave, the remains of my diminished existence resting peacefully under the shadows of the rock. The anonymous rock becoming a symbol of a seamless life and in its stillness blossoms a romance of a lover’s promise in the sweetness of love’s agony. The fragrance of the white chrysanthemum in the rock scattered through the art of the gravestone and the memory its resident with every autumn bloom. I don’t think it is foolish to dream about one’s gravestone for it is the only permanent signature of transient life. “But then, do seamless gravestones really exist?”
The beauty of rain is what I have admired since the naivety of my childhood. “The sound of the rain and the sound of raindrops aren't the same.” Human feelings fleet between active and passive participation overwhelmed by the concern for the loved one and relieved by its passivity when the adversities befall on strangers. That’s why, when the rain thunders, its drops falling in unison, the reverberation of raindrops deafens the chaos in its silence and that of the rain deafens the silence with its chaos. The falling rain cascading through its rippled melodies is indeed beautiful, but the silence of a snow fall is divine. Moments before it begins to snow, there is cautious stillness prevailing through the environment. The air becomes heavier as if it had been stubbornly clutching the rambunctious noisy wind and chastening the birds from chirping. And as the clouds serenely move, there comes from the emptiness of the sky, the very first snowflake, its frostiness daintily melting in the warmth of your palm. Beneath this pristine white blanket resides the ephemeral life in sheer silence consumed by the existence of nothingness budding within the sleepy splendour. The first snow on Fuji draped by wispy folds of clouds, the memories of first love blurred by the muddled blend of snow and clouds , the warmth of a lover’s body vaporized in the steam of the bathhouse bathing Jiro and Utako in the silence of a deficient reunion. The speckled images of a love vanished among the thunderous past of a war, crippling the efforts of stubborn mind to assemble lost pieces of its memories and reconcile the face of the person to the embryonic emotions. A heart that has mislaid its thoughts in the shadowy provinces of futile communication, the clarity of snow magnifies when forgotten words trek sentimental mountains where the trepidation of hateful responses are broken by the happiness of love. Similar to the divinity of Buddha that is present everywhere, but unseen; the salvation of a parental love dances fiercely in the falling snow, the music from the strings of a biwa capturing a woman’s happiness in this ephemeral world. The boat-women leading Murasaki to the sound of her father’s music as the oars cut through the preciousness of snowy waters. The path to Bodhisattva laid in the silence of a longing love.
Speaking about his own literature, Kawabata had once said that his literary works were an embodiment of ‘emptiness’. Kawabata perceives a spiritual union between humans and nature assembling under the umbrella of universality. The seeds of emptiness that Kawabata sows within the spaces of his prose, cultivating rows of human sentiments fleeting through the whispers of capricious universe magnifies as a compassionate mother bestows words to her son’s stories from blank pages fluttering with her thoughts. The grains of emptiness swell in Proustian atmospherics where the reader becomes the writer scripting the language of communication lessening the burden of silence. The accomplices of silence gesture Akifusa with a surreptitious language of their own. Is verbal starvation intolerable? If words do indeed violate the sanctuary of silence, then it is perverse to attain absolute silence. Where does the institution of language, the solidarity of voices reside within the unfathomable vacuum of a soul? Is silence a whore of circumstances or the pious salvation to attain the sanguinity of a virginal mind? Silence is ethereal. Similar to a ghost, the chill of the silence eerily asserts its fertile presence but its reflection shies away from human sensibilities.
A silent death in an endless word. ( A quoted obituary of Kawabata)
A man spends his life clarifying his thoughts, his actions and pacifying his buried sentiments with the obligation of a restrained survival. The language of words, the world of communication caught between the conflict of past and present, memories disseminating through the flirting powers of silence encumbering the fleeting beauty of life. And, thus it is only in the permanence of death that humans liberate themselves from obstinate prejudices and shackled sentiments. If life is forever carrying the burden of spoken words, why is death obliged to further carry this burden? May be that is the reason why Kawabata did not leave any written notes behind after his suicide. It is this very power of silence that I hold onto dearly for in its tranquil core I find the loudest voice for my perplexed thoughts.
January 30, 2012
"Silence is not meaningless, as you yourself have... I think that sometime before I die I would like to get inside silence, at least for a while."
.........
My favorite story in First Snow on Fuji is "Silence". A writer is paralyzed from stroke and writes no more. Tongue and right hand paralyzed and the narrator suspects that the left hand could communicate if it still chose. What controls and uses are there in words, and why would someone with powers over them deny themselves, or others, their meaning? What is even the saddest part of that idea? If it is sadder than your basic fact of life of loss. A twinge, a reminder?
The novelist had one about a young man who wanted to be a writer. The part that is off the paper out of the author's mind, the part that was true? In the story the boy shows his mother blank paper and she doesn't know what else to do, apart from the natural urge to cry, but make up stories herself from those empty pages. She tells the boy stories from his own childhood and he is proud as if she were reading his own memories and soul. She doesn't know if he even understands. She's telling herself things she's forgotten. She's getting better at not being the white paper. And it's not quiet between them this way. The author's daughter starts to feel like they are reading the emptiness to him. Does he still want to write? And if they wrote for him is that part speaking for him?
I didn't spoil that story. I couldn't. There's silence and spaces to fill in. You don't know my half of it.
I love Kawabata. He is my very, very, very, very favorite writer. He writes about the things I give the most a shit about. Those things that I have gut feelings about and don't get to live outside my inner life. I had the feeling a lot about the no one can ever know anyone, no one could ever love anyone, ever speak for anyone. Then there's this Kawabata guy who sees and fills in those empty places. They become moving planets of other Kawabatas who really and truly give a shit. You know the whole strangers perspective. Opening up a book of a looooong dead author and it could be you. You could be there and see all of this with your own eyes. Wanting to put your head on someone's shoulder and all it could take is the wrong or right kind of shrug to make the difference. That kind of knowing if you want to say anything or go on being all alone.
Man cheats on wife, cheats on his heart and its back to front. This is a common thing in Kawabata's books. I wish I could step inside books and show the standing one (the wife or the mistress. It doesn't ever seem to be the man) that... Something. Maybe that the "...." is more than being left behind in the past when they were not too skinny, hadn't been shadowed over by what they weren't (instead of what they could be). There's always something else. I keep feeling this way when reading books. I want to know them and change things. I care! Kawabata must feel that way too, despite that he MUST have been the married man with the mistress with the glorious past and prematurely nostalgic future. He wrote all of these stories. There's more than being cast aside when you're not what someone else wants to hear. 'First Snow on Fuji' felt like the almost comfort of knowing you were once loved. Until it could stay too long to feel even worse. Utako finds relief in letting go of what she had kept in. I found interesting the sense that she must have been holding onto all new things when revisiting the young lover who left her to be knocked up and married to a brute. What about him? Well, the willful could have beens he liked to taste on his tongue (not enough to swallow) were just about right...
Two women say they are "no good" ('This Country, That Country' 'Her Husband Didn't') and because they cheat on their husbands. The meaning is different and the same in another way. Heads hanging, its own grief. Heart beats and feet falling. Is there another self that splits between the two? Life lived in between. Is it no good if you don't feel whole? One woman lives her affair and her husband lives as if it didn't happen. I loved in 'Her Husband Didn't' the affair that meant more in memory, moved to its dreamer's own will. To him he could move it on paper and she would speak to him. To her the other side was waiting for the conversation that is one sided. 'Country' is despair. What could she ever say to herself that would be right words?
'A Row of Trees' made me smile in a kind of sad way. The way that it can feel like you're trying to hold onto the idea of honest in other people. Father and daughter have been stolen from in their lives and they cannot bear to think that they were deceived. The effort was sweet and sad and made me like Kawabata even more. Sometimes it annoys me when people pretend some asshole isn't an asshole, like they don't really mean it. I can't believe what they say and I feel lonelier than ever. Like it's a lie to people who have it in them to try that they have to pretend the ones who don't are just as good. Then there are the can't bear to be all alone with jerks talking to yourself like in 'Trees' that makes me have to smile (a sad one). A son doesn't want to see his father. A wife doesn't want to be infringed upon with her husband's trimmed fingernails. Intimacy when it's tolerated and the twisting of one's own to go on pretending that you're not that alone.
Last one, I swear! I also really liked 'Nature'. A man had taken his acting parts as women into life to avoid conscription. What I really liked about this story is that the man is telling the narrator about these times as the woman part of himself. Like he can't get a goodbye to the people he met ,what the people wanted from him. That silence on the other end and expectations. I freaking loved it.
There's a lot that I love about Kawabata. I pretty much love him as I would anyone who ever made me feel close to getting a grip on that road runner running far away from me knowing anything about anything. So what if trying to write about it is a pain in the ass? It was in my head and I think about his writing all of the time. I've written a lot of these reviews on goodreads and I probably still couldn't tell you all of it, that much I love. It's the wanting to talk to people that he must have seen (real or not it doesn't matter. And it's that it doesn't matter that I also LOVE about Kawabata). It's the like if someone stepping into MY life and told ME that it was okay and there's this Mariel planet too. There's good silence, and painful silence. Mind and memory reading and blank sheets of papers to fill up everyone's books. And it can feel so damned bad to watch all of the time and listen and hear... nothing. Now I can go lean my head on his shoulder and listen to his thoughts all I want. He was amazing. Love, love, love. (Nope, I didn't say all of it. But I tried! The other reviews of this are underwhelming and I am sad.)
.....................
My updated list of favorite Kawabata novels since I have read nearly all of them now.
1. The Sound of the Mountain
1. Palm-of-the-hand Stories
2. The Lake
2. Snow Country
3. First Snow on Fuji
4. The Old Capital
4. The House of Sleeping Beauties
4. The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa
5. The Master of Go
6. Thousand Cranes
7. The Dancing Girl of Izu
8. Beauty and Sadness
I've been sitting on 'Fuji' for some time. It really isn't that romantic to save books, is it? Unless you have it when you need it some far off day and then it's fantastic and I thank my lucky stars. I must have been comforted by the idea of having another one left in the back of the mind/bookcase. No, it's really not romantic. Need is need, like giving in to the desire for some groping or nice kissing. Denial is something else. I can't follow up my three dark romantic successes (Ice, The Lime Twig and Yesterday) with anything else. Only Kawabata will do. Yeah, I keep saying romantic. That's how I feel about it. It's my damned luxury to read this stuff. I pretty much think this is the best kind of book there is. How else am I supposed to feel whole? Where else can you come close?
That leaves "Japan the beautiful and myself" (Mariel, you lie! There IS one more!) and, until such time I learn to read in French, "Correspondence avec Mishima" (if goodreads hadn't deleted books before I could save them I would post a link to the time I read and reviewed a book that was written in French. It was impressive! Now you'll have to take my word for it). Two more! You book saving... Learn to stand on your own two feet. You don't need a security blanket and a Kawabata to...
........
P.s. Translated by Michael Emmerich. He might be familiar to fans of Banana Yoshimoto. I've got bets with myself going on my impending familiarity with translators of other languages this year. I know the big name Japanese to English translators like the back of Kawabata's hand in hand with translators!
P.s.s. Damn, I almost forgot to mention the parallels of outsiders commenting on the nice houses that the inside characters lived in. That's the bird's eye Kawabata view. You could walk outside those windows and they'd have their lights on but not for you or anyone else.
.........
My favorite story in First Snow on Fuji is "Silence". A writer is paralyzed from stroke and writes no more. Tongue and right hand paralyzed and the narrator suspects that the left hand could communicate if it still chose. What controls and uses are there in words, and why would someone with powers over them deny themselves, or others, their meaning? What is even the saddest part of that idea? If it is sadder than your basic fact of life of loss. A twinge, a reminder?
The novelist had one about a young man who wanted to be a writer. The part that is off the paper out of the author's mind, the part that was true? In the story the boy shows his mother blank paper and she doesn't know what else to do, apart from the natural urge to cry, but make up stories herself from those empty pages. She tells the boy stories from his own childhood and he is proud as if she were reading his own memories and soul. She doesn't know if he even understands. She's telling herself things she's forgotten. She's getting better at not being the white paper. And it's not quiet between them this way. The author's daughter starts to feel like they are reading the emptiness to him. Does he still want to write? And if they wrote for him is that part speaking for him?
I didn't spoil that story. I couldn't. There's silence and spaces to fill in. You don't know my half of it.
I love Kawabata. He is my very, very, very, very favorite writer. He writes about the things I give the most a shit about. Those things that I have gut feelings about and don't get to live outside my inner life. I had the feeling a lot about the no one can ever know anyone, no one could ever love anyone, ever speak for anyone. Then there's this Kawabata guy who sees and fills in those empty places. They become moving planets of other Kawabatas who really and truly give a shit. You know the whole strangers perspective. Opening up a book of a looooong dead author and it could be you. You could be there and see all of this with your own eyes. Wanting to put your head on someone's shoulder and all it could take is the wrong or right kind of shrug to make the difference. That kind of knowing if you want to say anything or go on being all alone.
Man cheats on wife, cheats on his heart and its back to front. This is a common thing in Kawabata's books. I wish I could step inside books and show the standing one (the wife or the mistress. It doesn't ever seem to be the man) that... Something. Maybe that the "...." is more than being left behind in the past when they were not too skinny, hadn't been shadowed over by what they weren't (instead of what they could be). There's always something else. I keep feeling this way when reading books. I want to know them and change things. I care! Kawabata must feel that way too, despite that he MUST have been the married man with the mistress with the glorious past and prematurely nostalgic future. He wrote all of these stories. There's more than being cast aside when you're not what someone else wants to hear. 'First Snow on Fuji' felt like the almost comfort of knowing you were once loved. Until it could stay too long to feel even worse. Utako finds relief in letting go of what she had kept in. I found interesting the sense that she must have been holding onto all new things when revisiting the young lover who left her to be knocked up and married to a brute. What about him? Well, the willful could have beens he liked to taste on his tongue (not enough to swallow) were just about right...
Two women say they are "no good" ('This Country, That Country' 'Her Husband Didn't') and because they cheat on their husbands. The meaning is different and the same in another way. Heads hanging, its own grief. Heart beats and feet falling. Is there another self that splits between the two? Life lived in between. Is it no good if you don't feel whole? One woman lives her affair and her husband lives as if it didn't happen. I loved in 'Her Husband Didn't' the affair that meant more in memory, moved to its dreamer's own will. To him he could move it on paper and she would speak to him. To her the other side was waiting for the conversation that is one sided. 'Country' is despair. What could she ever say to herself that would be right words?
'A Row of Trees' made me smile in a kind of sad way. The way that it can feel like you're trying to hold onto the idea of honest in other people. Father and daughter have been stolen from in their lives and they cannot bear to think that they were deceived. The effort was sweet and sad and made me like Kawabata even more. Sometimes it annoys me when people pretend some asshole isn't an asshole, like they don't really mean it. I can't believe what they say and I feel lonelier than ever. Like it's a lie to people who have it in them to try that they have to pretend the ones who don't are just as good. Then there are the can't bear to be all alone with jerks talking to yourself like in 'Trees' that makes me have to smile (a sad one). A son doesn't want to see his father. A wife doesn't want to be infringed upon with her husband's trimmed fingernails. Intimacy when it's tolerated and the twisting of one's own to go on pretending that you're not that alone.
Last one, I swear! I also really liked 'Nature'. A man had taken his acting parts as women into life to avoid conscription. What I really liked about this story is that the man is telling the narrator about these times as the woman part of himself. Like he can't get a goodbye to the people he met ,what the people wanted from him. That silence on the other end and expectations. I freaking loved it.
There's a lot that I love about Kawabata. I pretty much love him as I would anyone who ever made me feel close to getting a grip on that road runner running far away from me knowing anything about anything. So what if trying to write about it is a pain in the ass? It was in my head and I think about his writing all of the time. I've written a lot of these reviews on goodreads and I probably still couldn't tell you all of it, that much I love. It's the wanting to talk to people that he must have seen (real or not it doesn't matter. And it's that it doesn't matter that I also LOVE about Kawabata). It's the like if someone stepping into MY life and told ME that it was okay and there's this Mariel planet too. There's good silence, and painful silence. Mind and memory reading and blank sheets of papers to fill up everyone's books. And it can feel so damned bad to watch all of the time and listen and hear... nothing. Now I can go lean my head on his shoulder and listen to his thoughts all I want. He was amazing. Love, love, love. (Nope, I didn't say all of it. But I tried! The other reviews of this are underwhelming and I am sad.)
.....................
My updated list of favorite Kawabata novels since I have read nearly all of them now.
1. The Sound of the Mountain
1. Palm-of-the-hand Stories
2. The Lake
2. Snow Country
3. First Snow on Fuji
4. The Old Capital
4. The House of Sleeping Beauties
4. The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa
5. The Master of Go
6. Thousand Cranes
7. The Dancing Girl of Izu
8. Beauty and Sadness
I've been sitting on 'Fuji' for some time. It really isn't that romantic to save books, is it? Unless you have it when you need it some far off day and then it's fantastic and I thank my lucky stars. I must have been comforted by the idea of having another one left in the back of the mind/bookcase. No, it's really not romantic. Need is need, like giving in to the desire for some groping or nice kissing. Denial is something else. I can't follow up my three dark romantic successes (Ice, The Lime Twig and Yesterday) with anything else. Only Kawabata will do. Yeah, I keep saying romantic. That's how I feel about it. It's my damned luxury to read this stuff. I pretty much think this is the best kind of book there is. How else am I supposed to feel whole? Where else can you come close?
That leaves "Japan the beautiful and myself" (Mariel, you lie! There IS one more!) and, until such time I learn to read in French, "Correspondence avec Mishima" (if goodreads hadn't deleted books before I could save them I would post a link to the time I read and reviewed a book that was written in French. It was impressive! Now you'll have to take my word for it). Two more! You book saving... Learn to stand on your own two feet. You don't need a security blanket and a Kawabata to...
........
P.s. Translated by Michael Emmerich. He might be familiar to fans of Banana Yoshimoto. I've got bets with myself going on my impending familiarity with translators of other languages this year. I know the big name Japanese to English translators like the back of Kawabata's hand in hand with translators!
P.s.s. Damn, I almost forgot to mention the parallels of outsiders commenting on the nice houses that the inside characters lived in. That's the bird's eye Kawabata view. You could walk outside those windows and they'd have their lights on but not for you or anyone else.
March 4, 2017
Prima d'iniziarlo non sapevo fosse una raccolta di racconti (ogni tanto compro senza leggere la trama o la quarta di copertina, spinta dal fatto che si tratta di un autore apprezzato da persone con cui condivido gli stessi gusti in fatto di libri). Di solito amo i racconti brevi, ma in questo periodo avrei avuto bisogno di un bel romanzo in cui perdermi.
Quasi tutte le storie parlano di tradimento coniugale e devo ammettere che l'autore è capace di capire la psicologia femminile: poche parole per esprimere concetti o sensazioni che forse anche una donna fa fatica a spiegare. Sono storie delicate, malinconiche e, purtroppo, con finale aperto. Non amo molto i finali aperti, ma penso comunque che queste storie esprimono tutto ciò che l'autore avrebbe voluto dire, il finale aperto non toglie nulla.
Sullo sfondo di molte storie c'è la guerra e l'impatto che ha avuto nella vita delle persone. Alcune storie sfiorano anche argomenti come la scrittura (molti protagonisti sono scrittori), le dinastie giapponesi, l'arte della danza e della musica, la morte e l'animismo.
Perché due stelline? Perché sono storie fin troppo lente e noiose, mi hanno comunicato poco, non sono riuscita a relazionarmi con nessuno dei protagonisti e non mi hanno emozionato.
English
Didn't like this that much. Before starting it I didn't know it was a collection of short stories. I usually like short stories, but I wasn't in the right mood, I really needed a good fiction into lose myself.
Most part of the stories deal with marital infidelity and I liked how the author was able to look into female psychology with only a few words. I think he did a good job. But most of the time the stories were boring, or perhaps too slow for my tastes, or I have read it in the wrong moment. Another thing I didn't like were the open endings. I usually don't like them and here there are in every story though I must admit that a real ending was not necessary because the author had already said what was to say.
In the background of many stories there's the war and the impact it had in people's lives. Some stories also touch topics such as writing (many characters are writers), the Japanese dynasties, the art of dance and music, death and animism.
The stories are very sensitive, melancholic, and I think that the author did a good job but it didn't work for me.
Quasi tutte le storie parlano di tradimento coniugale e devo ammettere che l'autore è capace di capire la psicologia femminile: poche parole per esprimere concetti o sensazioni che forse anche una donna fa fatica a spiegare. Sono storie delicate, malinconiche e, purtroppo, con finale aperto. Non amo molto i finali aperti, ma penso comunque che queste storie esprimono tutto ciò che l'autore avrebbe voluto dire, il finale aperto non toglie nulla.
Sullo sfondo di molte storie c'è la guerra e l'impatto che ha avuto nella vita delle persone. Alcune storie sfiorano anche argomenti come la scrittura (molti protagonisti sono scrittori), le dinastie giapponesi, l'arte della danza e della musica, la morte e l'animismo.
Perché due stelline? Perché sono storie fin troppo lente e noiose, mi hanno comunicato poco, non sono riuscita a relazionarmi con nessuno dei protagonisti e non mi hanno emozionato.
English
Didn't like this that much. Before starting it I didn't know it was a collection of short stories. I usually like short stories, but I wasn't in the right mood, I really needed a good fiction into lose myself.
Most part of the stories deal with marital infidelity and I liked how the author was able to look into female psychology with only a few words. I think he did a good job. But most of the time the stories were boring, or perhaps too slow for my tastes, or I have read it in the wrong moment. Another thing I didn't like were the open endings. I usually don't like them and here there are in every story though I must admit that a real ending was not necessary because the author had already said what was to say.
In the background of many stories there's the war and the impact it had in people's lives. Some stories also touch topics such as writing (many characters are writers), the Japanese dynasties, the art of dance and music, death and animism.
The stories are very sensitive, melancholic, and I think that the author did a good job but it didn't work for me.
September 26, 2022
"As long as there are flowers blooming in this world, as long as tall rocks stand against the sky, I do not need to have a stone carved for my grave." (123)This collection of stories by Yasunari Kawabata contains some of his best work. Some favorites, which I'll definitely reread at some point, include: A Row of Trees, First Snow on Fuji, Chrysanthemum in the Rock, Silence, and Yumiura. The last two, in particular, were magnificent.
February 13, 2013
This is now my favourite collection of short fiction ... ever. I thought every one of these, and on every page, was moving, inspiring and beautiful. This guy makes it look so easy! I love Kawabata when you feel that he's got you by the hand and he's taking you through ... like some sort of Willy Wonka ... the landscape and family situations he's arranged just for you.
This Country, That Country:
The best thing about being "culturally significant" must be the random places your turn up. Princess Margaret turns up in a Kawabata! I never saw that coming. I wonder if anyone ever told her? Reminds me of my favourite bit from Q.I.:
- "What is pink, has pendulous breasts, gets sailors all excited and tastes of prime beef?"
- "Was Princess Margaret buried at sea?"
Ha ha ha! back to Kawabata:
"Whenever it seemed that she was about to cry out, Hirata put a finger into Takako's mouth, making her bite it."
Nature:
"'I wasn't a specialist in female roles, I was an actress. I was living as an actual woman.'
'Why? ...' I asked foolishly. Imagining that something of (his) odd gender might be revealed in the area about his waist, I glanced towards it.
'Draft dodging. Hatred of the military. Fear of war,' (he) said coldly, quickly slicing his speech into three. I was caught off guard."
"'Are you a virgin? That's what he asked me. For a moment my heart pounded. I'm a man, of course, and "Are you a virgin?" isn't a question one asks actors in traveling troupes – it's the sort of thing that might have made me burst out laughing, but I was so startled that my voice wouldn't come. I shook my head slowly. ... What do you suppose he gave me as a memento?'
'What did he give you?'
'Cyanide.'
'Cyanide?'
'Yes. His girlfriend had been conscripted to work in a factory, and she had asked for cyanide – as preparation for the worst. Of course at the time that sort of thing was quite popular among young women working in the factories. Apparently she had given a portion of it to the soldier. As preparation for the worst ... But he was going to die anyway – that was definite – so he said he didn't need any drugs.'
'I see.'"
Chrysanthemum in the Rock:
"A natural rock naturally became her gravestone. But then, do seamless gravestones really exist? There may be seamless lives, but I doubt that there are seamless gravestones. Perhaps the rock is a symbol of a seamless life, and perhaps the white chrysanthemum that blossoms there is, too."
First Snow on Fuji:
"Maybe it's easier to give people the benefit of the doubt when you're tired."
"'It struck me as peculiar and also pretty amazing that they would go on hitting drums and playing flutes even as we were losing the war,'"
"It seemed strange to him that she wasn't curious about his body, that she gave no sign of wanting to look at him."
"Jiro closed his eyes, trying to call up images of Tokyo's streets burning in an air raid. He remembered the broken corpses. This was the method he used to keep his desires in check."
"'I do cry a lot, don't I.' Utako laughed. 'My parents are amazed.'"
Yumiura
"'every time your eyes moved to my neck I'd turn as though I had been stung, to hide it from you.'"
This Country, That Country:
The best thing about being "culturally significant" must be the random places your turn up. Princess Margaret turns up in a Kawabata! I never saw that coming. I wonder if anyone ever told her? Reminds me of my favourite bit from Q.I.:
- "What is pink, has pendulous breasts, gets sailors all excited and tastes of prime beef?"
- "Was Princess Margaret buried at sea?"
Ha ha ha! back to Kawabata:
"Whenever it seemed that she was about to cry out, Hirata put a finger into Takako's mouth, making her bite it."
Nature:
"'I wasn't a specialist in female roles, I was an actress. I was living as an actual woman.'
'Why? ...' I asked foolishly. Imagining that something of (his) odd gender might be revealed in the area about his waist, I glanced towards it.
'Draft dodging. Hatred of the military. Fear of war,' (he) said coldly, quickly slicing his speech into three. I was caught off guard."
"'Are you a virgin? That's what he asked me. For a moment my heart pounded. I'm a man, of course, and "Are you a virgin?" isn't a question one asks actors in traveling troupes – it's the sort of thing that might have made me burst out laughing, but I was so startled that my voice wouldn't come. I shook my head slowly. ... What do you suppose he gave me as a memento?'
'What did he give you?'
'Cyanide.'
'Cyanide?'
'Yes. His girlfriend had been conscripted to work in a factory, and she had asked for cyanide – as preparation for the worst. Of course at the time that sort of thing was quite popular among young women working in the factories. Apparently she had given a portion of it to the soldier. As preparation for the worst ... But he was going to die anyway – that was definite – so he said he didn't need any drugs.'
'I see.'"
Chrysanthemum in the Rock:
"A natural rock naturally became her gravestone. But then, do seamless gravestones really exist? There may be seamless lives, but I doubt that there are seamless gravestones. Perhaps the rock is a symbol of a seamless life, and perhaps the white chrysanthemum that blossoms there is, too."
First Snow on Fuji:
"Maybe it's easier to give people the benefit of the doubt when you're tired."
"'It struck me as peculiar and also pretty amazing that they would go on hitting drums and playing flutes even as we were losing the war,'"
"It seemed strange to him that she wasn't curious about his body, that she gave no sign of wanting to look at him."
"Jiro closed his eyes, trying to call up images of Tokyo's streets burning in an air raid. He remembered the broken corpses. This was the method he used to keep his desires in check."
"'I do cry a lot, don't I.' Utako laughed. 'My parents are amazed.'"
Yumiura
"'every time your eyes moved to my neck I'd turn as though I had been stung, to hide it from you.'"
February 6, 2019
Lungo la via del mare sospesa sulle onde
Vedenti e ciechi
Nella stessa nave
Sospinti verso un solo destino.
(Le prostitute delle barche, Dramma con danze)
Nove racconti malinconici dove il tema dei sentimenti si intreccia a quello dell’arte e dove la natura spesso esprime ciò che le parole non sanno dire.
L’equilibrio compositivo e l’elegante finezza dell’espressione sono cifre stilistiche che contraddistinguono l’autore e, per estensione, anche la narrativa giapponese, qui espressa ai suoi massimi livelli.
Ecco un racconto atipico, particolarmente toccante.
In Crisantemo nella roccia, racconto-saggio, il narratore (l’autore) contempla la bellezza particolare delle pietre tombali, accingendosi a scegliere quella che diventerà la sua tomba, roccia destinata a perpetuare nel tempo la traccia di una vita breve, volatile, effimera. E quando la memoria individuale sarà dissolta, quella stupa ovoidale, liscia e senza giunture, continuerà a trasmettere i valori profondi della tradizione giapponese.
In questa meditazione fondamentale si inserisce la storia della donna che morì di freddo, aspettando un uomo all’ombra di una roccia. Il suo fantasma è il crisantemo che nasce dalla pietra perpetuando l’attesa. Il narratore vi conversa amabilmente.
Alla fine
“ Finché in questo mondo sbocceranno i fiori e si ergeranno le rocce, non avrò bisogno di farmi costruire una tomba, pensai. La natura, l’universo in tutte le sue forme, inclusa questa vecchia storia su una donna, saranno il mio monumento funebre. E poi in fondo, se posso passeggiare apprezzando la bellezza delle tombe, è perché sono vivo, e allora che stupido sono a fantasticare sulla mia tomba, mi dissi, E con questi pensieri in mente mi diressi verso il centro di Kamakura, che splendeva alla luce del tramonto.”
Vedenti e ciechi
Nella stessa nave
Sospinti verso un solo destino.
(Le prostitute delle barche, Dramma con danze)
Nove racconti malinconici dove il tema dei sentimenti si intreccia a quello dell’arte e dove la natura spesso esprime ciò che le parole non sanno dire.
L’equilibrio compositivo e l’elegante finezza dell’espressione sono cifre stilistiche che contraddistinguono l’autore e, per estensione, anche la narrativa giapponese, qui espressa ai suoi massimi livelli.
Ecco un racconto atipico, particolarmente toccante.
In Crisantemo nella roccia, racconto-saggio, il narratore (l’autore) contempla la bellezza particolare delle pietre tombali, accingendosi a scegliere quella che diventerà la sua tomba, roccia destinata a perpetuare nel tempo la traccia di una vita breve, volatile, effimera. E quando la memoria individuale sarà dissolta, quella stupa ovoidale, liscia e senza giunture, continuerà a trasmettere i valori profondi della tradizione giapponese.
In questa meditazione fondamentale si inserisce la storia della donna che morì di freddo, aspettando un uomo all’ombra di una roccia. Il suo fantasma è il crisantemo che nasce dalla pietra perpetuando l’attesa. Il narratore vi conversa amabilmente.
Alla fine
“ Finché in questo mondo sbocceranno i fiori e si ergeranno le rocce, non avrò bisogno di farmi costruire una tomba, pensai. La natura, l’universo in tutte le sue forme, inclusa questa vecchia storia su una donna, saranno il mio monumento funebre. E poi in fondo, se posso passeggiare apprezzando la bellezza delle tombe, è perché sono vivo, e allora che stupido sono a fantasticare sulla mia tomba, mi dissi, E con questi pensieri in mente mi diressi verso il centro di Kamakura, che splendeva alla luce del tramonto.”
April 11, 2021
Much of what I love about traveling I love about reading, and once in a while, the two meet together in unexpected places.
⠀
First Snow on Fuji, by Yasunari Kawabata, is a collection of short stories and one dramatic work.
⠀
One of my most memorable trips abroad was my trip to Japan. I was awed by what I experienced there. I was especially drawn to what I interpreted as a culture that valued simplicity, purpose, nature, and the supernatural. Those are the themes I loved in Kawabata’s stories. Reading this collection reinforced how memorable that trip was and how many places I was able to see in such a short amount of time, thanks to an amazing hostess. I recognized the names of places the characters in the stories passed through; places like Hakone, Kamakura, and Odawara.
⠀
I often claim to not usually be able to connect to short story collections as much as to novels or pieces of non-fiction, but by reading collections like this one, I’m slowly figuring out that though I may not devour them like I do some novels, I do really enjoy delicate moments of detail in the short stories.
⠀
First Snow on Fuji, by Yasunari Kawabata, is a collection of short stories and one dramatic work.
⠀
One of my most memorable trips abroad was my trip to Japan. I was awed by what I experienced there. I was especially drawn to what I interpreted as a culture that valued simplicity, purpose, nature, and the supernatural. Those are the themes I loved in Kawabata’s stories. Reading this collection reinforced how memorable that trip was and how many places I was able to see in such a short amount of time, thanks to an amazing hostess. I recognized the names of places the characters in the stories passed through; places like Hakone, Kamakura, and Odawara.
⠀
I often claim to not usually be able to connect to short story collections as much as to novels or pieces of non-fiction, but by reading collections like this one, I’m slowly figuring out that though I may not devour them like I do some novels, I do really enjoy delicate moments of detail in the short stories.
February 29, 2020
Un libro de relatos, unos más interesantes, otros menos, unos más realistas que otros. Pero lo que transmiten, al menos a mi me lo han transmitido, es paz. La paz y la tranquilidad del escritor.
September 28, 2008
Japanesse literature is a contradiction....you do not understand sometimes some situations but only the japanesse books shows the world with a very sutile touch....is something familiar to sit down on a hill and to look at the dawn for a few moments
January 4, 2025
Algo que me gustó mucho fue que me daba curiosidad investigar cada vez que nombraban un lugar nuevo de Japón. Sentí que visualizando los paisajes y las estructuras los relatos se sentían aún más vividos.
January 24, 2016
2nd reading.
April 4, 2020
De nuevo Kawabata, luego de más de dos años desde que leí algo de él.
Relativizar el tiempo es nuestra excusa para mantener los mejores recuerdos cerca. Por eso siempre siento que he leído a Kawabata hace un par de meses. Este libro ayudará a hacer más real esa ilusión.
Los cuentos que hay en esta colección son bastante diversos, aunque hay una tensión, por lo general, hacia la sensualidad y el erotismo. La naturaleza siempre está presente en la obra de este autor, como entorno que interactúa con los personas e historia, antes que como simple paisaje.
Algunos cuentos me fascinaron, otros simplemente buenos. A medida que avanzaba en el libro, fueron mejorando (¿o yo me fui adaptando a los cuentos?).
Relativizar el tiempo es nuestra excusa para mantener los mejores recuerdos cerca. Por eso siempre siento que he leído a Kawabata hace un par de meses. Este libro ayudará a hacer más real esa ilusión.
Los cuentos que hay en esta colección son bastante diversos, aunque hay una tensión, por lo general, hacia la sensualidad y el erotismo. La naturaleza siempre está presente en la obra de este autor, como entorno que interactúa con los personas e historia, antes que como simple paisaje.
Algunos cuentos me fascinaron, otros simplemente buenos. A medida que avanzaba en el libro, fueron mejorando (¿o yo me fui adaptando a los cuentos?).
June 9, 2010
Kawabata is more famous in Japan for his very short stories, such as those in 'Palm of the Hand Stories', and more famous in the West for his novels. I can vouch for his novels, the ones I have read are fantastic.
This was my first venture into his shorter fiction, however, and these stories fall on the in between. They are between 10 and 50 pages, and you can tell that this length is not Kawabata's strongest form. Some stories do suffer from either having too much or too little information in them in this book (Chrysanthemum on the Rock, Yumimura), but most of the others were successful.
The standout stories were Raindrops, Her Husband Didn't, and Silence. Much of this collection deals with marital infidelity, and the first two listed are the best on this subject. Silence, as many other reviewers have written, is a contemplation on a writer who cannot write (or speak) and whether that comes as a relief or makes the mans life miserable. Kawabata is one of my favorite authors, this collection, as a whole, impressed me.
P.S. - The "Dance Drama" at the end of the book, completely lost me. I will need more cultural exposure before I can begin to grasp what was going on there.
This was my first venture into his shorter fiction, however, and these stories fall on the in between. They are between 10 and 50 pages, and you can tell that this length is not Kawabata's strongest form. Some stories do suffer from either having too much or too little information in them in this book (Chrysanthemum on the Rock, Yumimura), but most of the others were successful.
The standout stories were Raindrops, Her Husband Didn't, and Silence. Much of this collection deals with marital infidelity, and the first two listed are the best on this subject. Silence, as many other reviewers have written, is a contemplation on a writer who cannot write (or speak) and whether that comes as a relief or makes the mans life miserable. Kawabata is one of my favorite authors, this collection, as a whole, impressed me.
P.S. - The "Dance Drama" at the end of the book, completely lost me. I will need more cultural exposure before I can begin to grasp what was going on there.
September 20, 2017
With this I round out all of Kawabata's works currently in English translation and I'm a little sad since he is so wonderful. Hopefully, the future will hold some translations of some of his other stuff ('Dandelions' comes out in December).
These are shorter works Kawabata wrote in the late 1950s, pre-House of the Sleeping Beauties. The title story, 'Yumiura', and 'Silence' are all supreme writing. 'Nature', a disturbing tale of a transvestite actor who hid as a woman during the war, stands out as well. Shit, they're all good.
Let me put it this way: you're better off for reading everything this guy wrote. Forget all the academic analysis crap. Just read something beautiful.
These are shorter works Kawabata wrote in the late 1950s, pre-House of the Sleeping Beauties. The title story, 'Yumiura', and 'Silence' are all supreme writing. 'Nature', a disturbing tale of a transvestite actor who hid as a woman during the war, stands out as well. Shit, they're all good.
Let me put it this way: you're better off for reading everything this guy wrote. Forget all the academic analysis crap. Just read something beautiful.
October 4, 2013
Overwhelmed by student writing and all the things I assign people to read, I had a need to read something for pleasure. I remembered "Silence," in this book, a sweet ghost story, and tracked it down to read... So amazing, and then I read another, and another. These late stories often catch Kawabata in a more reflective mode; his subtle observations, especially how landscape descriptions cast emotions and atmosphere, are more powerful to me than any other writer's bombast.
October 5, 2023
Really thoughtful and beautiful reflections on aging, memory, and what lives on after we die. Some of these short stories were a liiiittle too subtle for me personally, and I feel like I would’ve had a much better appreciation for them if I’d read Kawabata’s novels first.
August 4, 2020
Per il buon nome
Raccolta di racconti scritta con la consueta grazia di Kawabata, ha un sapore diverso dalle opere maggiori e mi è piaciuta meno. Quando in Italia sono arrivati i libri degli autori giapponesi, ne ho letti molti con piacere, per avvicinarmi a una cultura diversa dalla nostra. Kawabata è il mio preferito, per la compostezza classica con la quale racconta persone, vite, paesaggi.
In questo libro non l’ho ritrovato, forse è andato incontro al gusto di lettori più generalisti: alcuni racconti sono stati pubblicati su riviste.
Le relazioni umane delle quali scrive mi sembrano spesso false, avvolte in fantasticherie che dovrebbero aggiungere profondità ai personaggi, ma mi sembra che conferiscano più che altro un’idea di peccato anni sessanta: scandalo, oltraggio al pudore, interni borghesi, donne annoiate che cercano trastulli.
In un racconto si parla di una relazione clandestina, che viene raccontata come un pettegolezzo: perché, Yasunari? Io voglio leggerti in versione premio Nobel.
Il racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta mi è piaciuto, ma è alquanto inverosimile.
L’ultimo racconto è in realtà un testo teatrale, basato sulla guerra dei Clan Genji e Heike, avvenuta nel dodicesimo secolo. Questo mi è sembrato bello, con una figura di donna che accetta un destino gramo con un piglio energico, fra l’indifferente e il realista, che mi è piaciuto e mi ha anche stupito.
Alla fine, una lettura evitabile, soprattutto per il buon nome di YK.
Raccolta di racconti scritta con la consueta grazia di Kawabata, ha un sapore diverso dalle opere maggiori e mi è piaciuta meno. Quando in Italia sono arrivati i libri degli autori giapponesi, ne ho letti molti con piacere, per avvicinarmi a una cultura diversa dalla nostra. Kawabata è il mio preferito, per la compostezza classica con la quale racconta persone, vite, paesaggi.
In questo libro non l’ho ritrovato, forse è andato incontro al gusto di lettori più generalisti: alcuni racconti sono stati pubblicati su riviste.
Le relazioni umane delle quali scrive mi sembrano spesso false, avvolte in fantasticherie che dovrebbero aggiungere profondità ai personaggi, ma mi sembra che conferiscano più che altro un’idea di peccato anni sessanta: scandalo, oltraggio al pudore, interni borghesi, donne annoiate che cercano trastulli.
In un racconto si parla di una relazione clandestina, che viene raccontata come un pettegolezzo: perché, Yasunari? Io voglio leggerti in versione premio Nobel.
Il racconto che dà il titolo alla raccolta mi è piaciuto, ma è alquanto inverosimile.
L’ultimo racconto è in realtà un testo teatrale, basato sulla guerra dei Clan Genji e Heike, avvenuta nel dodicesimo secolo. Questo mi è sembrato bello, con una figura di donna che accetta un destino gramo con un piglio energico, fra l’indifferente e il realista, che mi è piaciuto e mi ha anche stupito.
Alla fine, una lettura evitabile, soprattutto per il buon nome di YK.
November 15, 2010
Can a story be done as haiku? Each of the stories here seems to be an experiment with that question. Each presents a season, two images, and a nonconceptual but emphatic link between the two images. Here the sewing machine and the umbrella are not simply juxtaposed on a dissecting table; rather, the one bumps into the other and is bumped into in turn while a warm spring rain and faded cherry blossoms spill and pool about the pair. And after the two part, each going his own way, it seems as likely as not that the whole encounter was just a thought had by the rain itself, a thought that only that rain, on that day, could have.
August 6, 2021
Wow... Honestamente Kawabata me acaba de dejar sin palabras. Cada uno de los cuentos recopilados aquí invitan a la reflexión a través de una pluma mágica en la que nos ambienta en un Japón de los años cincuenta.
Personalmente amo la cultura japonesa y tener un vistazo a ella de la mano de este autor fue fascinante. Siento que su narrativa está llena de metáforas y era tal que algunas veces tuve que releer unas líneas más de tres veces para tratar de entender el significado que Kawabata les quería dar... y aún así seguramente no lo obtuve en absoluto.
En fin, considero que este es un libro al que todos deberían darle una oportunidad. Creo que voy a buscar más de las obras del autor.
Personalmente amo la cultura japonesa y tener un vistazo a ella de la mano de este autor fue fascinante. Siento que su narrativa está llena de metáforas y era tal que algunas veces tuve que releer unas líneas más de tres veces para tratar de entender el significado que Kawabata les quería dar... y aún así seguramente no lo obtuve en absoluto.
En fin, considero que este es un libro al que todos deberían darle una oportunidad. Creo que voy a buscar más de las obras del autor.
March 10, 2019
Preciosa colección de cuentos breves de Kawabata que reflejan con precisión su estilo lírico, sutil y melancólico. Algunas de las historias reflexionan sobre el corazón y la psicología humana, mientras que otras captan la belleza de breves momentos o dan cuenta de la fractura de la guerra y las cicatrices dejadas en el imaginario nipón y la vida de sus habitantes. Un imperdible para los amantes de las letras japonesas.
July 10, 2014
There's a sparseness about these stories. And subtlety. It surprised me to learn they were written in the fifties, but since there are references to post-war Japan, not so surprising. My favourite was First Snow on Fuji where infidelity plays a part. A number of his stories are about husbands or wives stepping out.
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June 6, 2023Première neige est un recueil de six nouvelles. Mais quand on connaît bien Kawabata, on comprend que tout y est : toutes les musiques que ses dits grands livres ont composées réunies ensemble, condensées en une nudité qui évoque et suggère sans réelle intention de dévoiler. Et donc quand je lisais une phrase comme : « c'est que les yeux regardent alors que les miroirs gardent leur sang-froid », c'est tout #Kawabata que je voyais défiler devant moi. Ces mots qui portent leur âme au bord des lèvres sans jamais la prononcer. Ces mots qui se désaltèrent de leur propre substance, baignés d'un onirisme que cet Orphée-vre est seul à savoir dompter.
Mais revenons aux yeux, au regard. S'il y a une chose que ce grand homme m’a apprise, c'est que la beauté réside dans les yeux qui regardent et non dans l'objet contemplé. La douce banalité, l'intimité du silence, tous ces riens qui n'en sont pas, et dont nous avons prostitué le sens. Dans la nouvelle que j'ai préférée ; « Terre natale », on croise des personnages dédoublés, dont la version passée est plus vive que la présente. Dans « Une rangée d'arbres », la trame narrative se borne à expliquer la raison pour laquelle certains arbres ont perdu leurs feuilles, tandis que d'autres pas. Une simplicité au lourd écho, quand on sait écouter.
Mais revenons aux yeux, au regard. S'il y a une chose que ce grand homme m’a apprise, c'est que la beauté réside dans les yeux qui regardent et non dans l'objet contemplé. La douce banalité, l'intimité du silence, tous ces riens qui n'en sont pas, et dont nous avons prostitué le sens. Dans la nouvelle que j'ai préférée ; « Terre natale », on croise des personnages dédoublés, dont la version passée est plus vive que la présente. Dans « Une rangée d'arbres », la trame narrative se borne à expliquer la raison pour laquelle certains arbres ont perdu leurs feuilles, tandis que d'autres pas. Une simplicité au lourd écho, quand on sait écouter.
March 20, 2025
Leer Primera nieve en el monte Fuji ha sido justo lo que necesitaba ahora
Es un libro de relatos cortos que transmite constantemente una sensación de calma y nostalgia a través de historias que oscilan entre lo realista y lo fantástico
Algo muy presente a lo largo de todos los relatos del libro es la fugacidad de los momentos, esa sensación de que cada instante podría ser el último y de cómo el paso del tiempo nos lleva inevitablemente a mirar hacia el pasado. Un tema que, personalmente, me resulta muy agridulce, ya que refleja la esencia misma de la vida… aprovechar cada instante como si fuera el último, pues el tiempo avanza sin detenerse para nadie⏳
Es un libro de relatos cortos que transmite constantemente una sensación de calma y nostalgia a través de historias que oscilan entre lo realista y lo fantástico
Algo muy presente a lo largo de todos los relatos del libro es la fugacidad de los momentos, esa sensación de que cada instante podría ser el último y de cómo el paso del tiempo nos lleva inevitablemente a mirar hacia el pasado. Un tema que, personalmente, me resulta muy agridulce, ya que refleja la esencia misma de la vida… aprovechar cada instante como si fuera el último, pues el tiempo avanza sin detenerse para nadie⏳
September 11, 2023
When short story collections are released (in this case translated) posthumously, they can tend to feel cynical or exploitative. Thankfully, this is not the case here. Michael Emmerich has done wonders with Kawabata's prose (itself exceptional, of course). Many of the pieces in this collection were written after Kawabata's most famous novels and they showcase one of the world's best authors at his most experienced, most refined, and most skillful. Stories such as "Nature", "First Snow On Fuji", and "This Country, That Country" stand as some of his finest work.
May 24, 2020
Hay pocos autores que me impacten tanto como Yasunari Kawabata y esta colección de cuentos no fue la excepción.
Podría hablar todo el día sobre los pequeños detalles de cada relato: las explicaciones a características de los personajes, como obsesiones con ciertas partes del cuerpo, diálogos hermosos o ambientes descritos a la perfección con cargas simbólicas enormes, entre muchas otras.
Estos relatos tienen varias cosas en común, aunque existen excepciones. Kawabata es un maestro del diálogo interno y lo plasma en estas páginas, como siempre, hace historias contenidas, que se sostienen por el vivo comentario de sus personajes y el significado que estos le dan a los hechos.
Hay mucho que aprender de este maestro de la literatura japonesa, recomendadísimo.
Podría hablar todo el día sobre los pequeños detalles de cada relato: las explicaciones a características de los personajes, como obsesiones con ciertas partes del cuerpo, diálogos hermosos o ambientes descritos a la perfección con cargas simbólicas enormes, entre muchas otras.
Estos relatos tienen varias cosas en común, aunque existen excepciones. Kawabata es un maestro del diálogo interno y lo plasma en estas páginas, como siempre, hace historias contenidas, que se sostienen por el vivo comentario de sus personajes y el significado que estos le dan a los hechos.
Hay mucho que aprender de este maestro de la literatura japonesa, recomendadísimo.
January 27, 2011
The beauty of spare prose combined with the complications of conflicted emotions is the way I would describe the titular story in this collection. Yasunari Kawabata, whose novel Thousand Cranes moved me some years ago, manages to convey the sorrows of Japan through a chance meeting between two former lovers in the short story "First Snow on Fuji". In this spare story, as with much of the prose this very modern author, the chance meeting leads to a planned encounter. A trip to the country yields much about the lives of the two lovers, Jiro and Utake, but leaves even more unsaid, hidden between the lines. The conflicted emotions of each of them yield to the pain of war and the even more personal pain of grief and loss, yet this is not a tragedy, at least not in the classic sense. Both detachment and an inability to communicate seem to lead each of the two players closer together only to also underline unsurmountable differences - perhaps.
Ultimately Kawabata, the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature, demonstrates his genius in creating an amazing mosaic of interlocked events, feelings, and meanings - all rich with metaphor and allusion. These are stories worth reading and rereading for their depth defies damoclean certitude. Mysterious as a mount - their story remains as clouded as the brow of the thoughtful man Jiro.
Ultimately Kawabata, the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature, demonstrates his genius in creating an amazing mosaic of interlocked events, feelings, and meanings - all rich with metaphor and allusion. These are stories worth reading and rereading for their depth defies damoclean certitude. Mysterious as a mount - their story remains as clouded as the brow of the thoughtful man Jiro.
November 17, 2013
I love Kawabata, this is a collection of short stories. Kawabata purposely write sparsely and with precision. It is a style that lends it's self to the genre, sadly there are not a lot of his stories in english translation. As a bonus, there is a dance drama at the end of the collection which I always seeing. "Nature" is probably the best story in the group. It's about a man who became a female actress to escape enlisting for the war. The gender identities explored are fairly shocking considering the story was written in the 50s.
July 26, 2022
In these small works, Kawabata’s delicate and sensual mastery shines. I have long been fond of Kawabata’s subtle prose, and he is as masterful a short-story writer here as anywhere else. There are layers of symbolism that haunt and echo through the prose in each of these stories. Kawabata’s concerns are often loneliness, ineffability, longing, and silence; in many ways, this makes his a much needed oeuvre in our current moment.
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Second Reading: 24-25 July, 2022.
Masterful, each story, this collection, the final drama included.
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Second Reading: 24-25 July, 2022.
Masterful, each story, this collection, the final drama included.
March 6, 2020
En líneas generales me gustó. Tiene esa característica tan japonesa que nos deja un sabor a melancolía, a lentitud. Disfruté mucho del desarrollo de los cuentos, pero algunos finales los sentí abruptos y con sabor a poco en comparación con la historia que se venía dando.
Imagino que para la época en que fue publicado, algunas de las historias habrán sido controversiales y eso me gusta. La osadía del autor.
Imagino que para la época en que fue publicado, algunas de las historias habrán sido controversiales y eso me gusta. La osadía del autor.
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