thousand beauties mountain contemporary

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13 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006

No Generic Syrup
If you like Sudden Fiction as a genre but not the usual silliness which accompanies it, this is the perfect union of very short fiction, craftsmanship and seriousness. Not always serious in tone but in effort. For the most part they are tender stories of rememberance, loss and the betterments of life. They are brief and dream-worthy, almost as if they were prose acting as poetry: "Startled by a ...

The Master of Go

16 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1974

Reads like a collection of newspaper columns
I'm giving this book five stars because it's one of only three fiction books available with go as the theme, and I love the game of go. But, this book reads like a collection of newspaper columns. You can literally rip any chapter out of the book and not lose any continuity. Each chapter is on a different subject, starts with a different chronology, and has a different point. For example, ...

The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa

2 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

University of California Press, 2005

Scarlet, Black and Blue
The bruised characters of the underbelly of Asakusa Tokyo life are introduced to us in this early book by the brilliant author Yasunari Kawabata. This first English translation of the master's work contains some "extras"- ncluding Donald Richie's memories of a first meeting with the author. This was my first introduction to Kawabata, and was a wonderful read. It made me want to know more about ...

Snow Country
Yasunari Kawabata

Knopf, 1956

Yasunari Kawabata was the first Japanese recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1968), based on "Snow Country" and two other works. Called "perhaps Kawabata's masterpiece" by Kawabata translator Edward Seidensticker, "Snow Country" is "a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha, which takes place in a remote hot-spring town somewhere in the mountainous regions of northern Japan." (Wikipedia) From ...

Beauty and Sadness

13 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Perigee Books/Putnam Publishing Group, 1981

Revenge
This was the seventh Yasunari Kawabata book that I have read and it is also my current favorite. Kawabata weaves a wonderful story and its title describes it perfectly. The story begins with the writer Oki Toshio. In his younger days Oki had a love affair with a young girl named Otoko. Their affair produced a child, but unfortunately the child was born premature and died shortly after birth. The ...

House of the Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories

13 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Kodansha International, 2004

3 Stories, 1 Theme - The loneliness and desires of old age
"House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories" contains three variations on the same theme, encompassing the soul-sick loneliness of old age, and the longing for ideal companionship, one with no judgments or confrontation, but merely peace and the contentment that comes from loving someone. According to Kawabata, this longing increases with age, and one romances ghosts from the past, using ...

The Sound of the Mountain

19 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Vintage, 1996

This too, shall pass
"The Sound of the Mountain" ("Yama no Oto") should have been a script for an Yasujiro Ozu film. All of the elements are here, with the kindly aged father Shingo who cannot gain his children's respect or love, ready to be portrayed by Chishu Ryu, and the lovely and loving daughter-in-law Kikuko, far more understanding than his real children, designed exactly for Setsuko Hara. The family who has ...

The Old Capital

7 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

North Point Press, 1987

The Old Capital
If you read for plot, this book isn't for you. The fairly dramatic plot (twins separated at birth by a kidnapping)seems almost an aside to the poetic, carefully crafted descriptions of Kyoto life- lanterns, fire flies, cherry blossoms, kimonos. This book will bring you into a world of the perfect beauty and harmony epitomized in Japanese culture and design. The sadness, confusion and longing ...

Snow Country (UNESCO Series of Contemporary Works: Japanese Series)

46 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Knopf, 1956

Kawabata at its best...then again his stories are always great!
Snow Country was the first book i read from Kawabata. To me, his writing style resembles the making of a painting. Kawabata uses seemingly simple words to visualize the story; the result is a rich, velvetly, image that floats in the mind of the reader. You can almost touch it. His descriptions on the environment and the characters are extremely detailed. However, feelings are unclear, and thats ...

Thousand Cranes

20 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Vintage, 1996

Stain of a dead woman's lipstick taints the rim of a teacup
The metaphor used in "Thousand Cranes" is tea, but not simple dried leaves in boiled water. Along with tea, in the tradition of the Japanese tea ceremony, is the complete picture created by the individual pieces of the art, bowels and whisks and jugs for carrying water. The various utensils, each with their own pedigree, are only able to find their true use in the hands of a Master of tea. In ...

The Old Capital
Yasunari Kawabata

Tuttle, 1988

Whether this subtle and brooding novel deserves to rank alongside Snow Country and Thousand Cranes as one of Kawabata's major works is debatable, but it contains all the Nobel laureate's most striking characteristics - acute esthetic sensibility, preoccupation with the clash between old and new, pervasive melancholy and a story line suggestive of a Zen brush-and-ink painting where what is omitted is as important as what is included. Set in ...

The Sound of the Mountain
Yasunari Kawabata

Tuttle, 1971

From the winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize for literature, Kawabata is a master at creating tht poised balance of exquisite surface and symbolic depth at which the Japanese excel.

First Snow on Fuji

8 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Counterpoint, 2000

Tightly written, surprisingly modern
Having read and loved all of Kawabata's long stories and none of his short ones, I approached this book with considerable trepidation. There are some authors like Camus who are equally good in both forms and some others (to remain nameless) who I find are good in one style, but not the other. However, 'First Snow on Fuji' turned out to be from the classic Kawabata mold. I liked Silence, but I ...

The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories

8 reviews
Yasunari Kawabata

Counterpoint, 1998

Innocence and love, age and death, riddles with no meaning
"The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories" is an odd collection of sorts, mixing an elegant, straight-forward short story together with some autobiography and a fluttering of palm-of-the-hand tales. Each element contributes a unique flavor, and a different facet of Kawabata's style. J. Martin Holman proves himself again a master translator of Kawabata, retaining the flow and most importantly ...

The Sound of the Mountain
Yasunari Kawabata

Alfred A. Knopf, 1970

Winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Snow Country (First American Edition)
Yasunari Kawabata

Knopf, 1956

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