Define Books Conducive To Snow Country
Original Title: | 雪国 [Yukiguni] |
ISBN: | 0679761047 (ISBN13: 9780679761044) |
Edition Language: | English |
Setting: | Japan |
Literary Awards: | Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Roman (1961), Mikael Agricola -palkinto (1959) |
Yasunari Kawabata
Paperback | Pages: 175 pages Rating: 3.67 | 17990 Users | 1733 Reviews
Narrative To Books Snow Country
Nobel Prize recipient Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer's masterpiece, a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages, a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.Details Regarding Books Snow Country
Title | : | Snow Country |
Author | : | Yasunari Kawabata |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 175 pages |
Published | : | 1996 by Vintage (first published 1948) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Japan. Asian Literature. Japanese Literature. Classics. Literature. Asia. Romance |
Rating Regarding Books Snow Country
Ratings: 3.67 From 17990 Users | 1733 ReviewsAppraise Regarding Books Snow Country
A metaphor of rotting and unappreciated beauty. Deep in the frozen reaches of the Snow Country a Geisha waits out her days for a man who would give her a life of love and dignity that she believes is her right.Geishas in the Japanese society were connoisseurs of culture and art; they exerted political influence through their patrons; they decided the fates of people who desired their services; they made and broke marriages they were a soft power centre in the Japanese society.But in theAt first I found it difficult to know where to put this book and what to expect from it. We have three main characters: a well off, cultured, married middle age man who travels from Tokyo to the 'Snow Country' (a remote hot springs village in the far North and its surrounding); the man then meets a young woman (who later becomes a geisha due to livelihood problems) and the two of them develop a relationship almost instantly. As time pasts and seasons change, the middle age man travels to the
Butterflies.....Amusing the lotus pondA childs delight. Butterflies dab my tears and lotuses kiss my heart. As a child, I used to spend hours gazing the dainty beauties as they flirted with the boisterous flowers. Amid my hearty giggles, the soft buttery wings browsed my cheeks for a pink watermark. I sought to embrace these coquettish insects as I sat on the wet grass. As I lifted one from its flowering sojourn and laid it on my palms, my eyes lit like the time my mother cuddled me after a bad
Rating: 3.5* of fiveThe Publisher Says: Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabatas Snow Country is widely considered to be the writers masterpiece: a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome.
Shimamura gets on a train to dreamland. He escapes from the urbanity of Tokyo, from the grayish routine, the dull marriage, the mediocre reality that leaves him numb and empty in search of the purest expression of his desires. He is a dilettante, an expert aesthetician who knows that beauty lingers in memory of times past, on the glint of two sad eyes sparkling in a pale face, in a head tilted at a certain angle, in fragrances and sounds and the noiseless rippling waves that assimilate a caress.
Snow Country is one exquisite read. It should be on every classics list, and bump a couple of dead Americans or Englishmen to make room near the top of the "top 100 books you must read to be deemed educated". Two tips. First, I recommend that you not do what I did, and read it over a period of 2 weeks - 20 pages here, 12 pages there. I didn't do service to it. And still. 5 stars. Second, I recommend that you read these two friends' reviews because they also are exquisite and tell you everything
at tosh's prodding i'd been on something of a japanese kick in '07, burned through mishima, dazai, tanizaki, murakami, etc. -- when deciding which kawabata to tackle, charles forwarded an interview in which vollmann mentioned snow country as in his all-time top ten. well, i read it on the flight from florida to california and stumbled off that plane utterly & totally flattened. snow country. whew. snow country. sad and enigmatic and spare and packed with some of the most odd & lyrical
0 Comments