Some of these short, short stories felt shocking and absurd, either because of Kawabatan intention or because of the brutal reduction of the narrative–or both: Kawabata was an avant-garde writer back in the day, influenced […]
Tag: YasunariKawabata
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
Chikako was once Kikuji’s father’s plaything (Kikuji’s father, deceased in the novel, was a Japanese man of leisure with a reputation in tea ceremony). Kikuji remembers going with his father to Chikako’s home as a […]
The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
One needs to be a good listener to read Kawabata properly to hear what is not written. There were times where after a reading session, I felt the quality of my surroundings change, while at […]
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Snow Country starts (and ends) with Yoko, a girl with “such a beautiful voice that it struck one as sad.” Shimamura is only permitted an indirect apprehension of her through Kawabata’s window-mirror (there is an […]