#36, 50 PoC Book Review

[brigdh]

36. Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country. Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

A classic novel of Japanese literature, this book was cited as one of the reasons the author won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1968. The plot concerns a small hot-spring town in the mountains. A rich, lazy young man comes to visit several times over the course of a year or two, carrying on a relationship with a local geisha who is in love with him. The book has lots of very beautiful descriptions of landscapes- mountains in snow, fall leaves on the trees, bugs dying against a window in the summer; the translator even compares the novel to haiku- but not much plot. There are a lot of conversations where no one quite says what they mean, and most of the important developments take place in the subtext. That's interesting in some ways, but it's also very distancing, and I never felt very attached to the characters. On the other hand, this is a very short book, so if you want to try out a famous Japanese novel, it's definitely an easy read.

Crossposted to 50books_poc

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Kawabata actually preferred his short stories to the novels, and I do too. (And I actually prefer his protege Mishima, who I think does a better job of using subtext and distance without actually distancing the reader.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

This is the only thing of his I've read, so that's good to know. I don't think I've read Mishima either, so I'll have to check him out too.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I read just book after book after book of Mishima's in high school. If you ever get a chance to watch Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, you should check that out too. He was kind of a jerk, but what a writer.