Beauty and Sadness

Mar 29, 2013 Praj rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: yk

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The acrylics are laid on a wooden table with monochromatic perfection. A blank canvass waits to be explored. Water droplets glisten as they leave the auburn bristles of the brush. A flurry of horizontal strokes awakens the sordid paleness. A dash of vertical Prussian blue collides with wavy ochre. Vermillion over emerald. Sienna peeping through the cobalt notes. The brushes fall and fingers reign the dyed paper. The fingers run wild, flooding the whiteness like an angry rainbow across the empty...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Aubrey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-prize-people, 1000-guardian, translated, japanese, 4-star, reviewed

If we rid ourselves of every cultural artifact that blended love and hate together in equal measure, we would be be left with very little that is worth remembering. Love without hate is optimistic and hate without love is depressing but to have both! That is an accurate portrayal of ourselves, and after countless millennia we still crave the tales that delve unflinchingly into that bright and terrible line between the two.

But is it really a line? What causes one to cross it, and for how long? A...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Mariel rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: beauty is for teenagers

Recommended to Mariel by: sadness is for teenagers

This is gonna get hypothetical because there are film versions of Beauty and Sadness: Tristesse et beauté and Utsukushisa to kanashimi. Somehow I haven't seen either one of these, not even when mass viewing Charlotte Rampling films in the early '00s; nor when bingeing on Japanese cinema, also in the early '00s. I'll rectify this in the future! My movie watching has dropped off significantly in the last three years. Maybe it's how I take on foriegn feelings as if they could be related to me. I've...more This is gonna get hypothetical because there are film versions of Beauty and Sadness: Tristesse et beauté and Utsukushisa to kanashimi. Somehow I haven't seen either one of these, not even when mass viewing Charlotte Rampling films in the early '00s; nor when bingeing on Japanese cinema, also in the early '00s. I'll rectify this in the future! My movie watching has dropped off significantly in the last three years. Maybe it's how I take on foriegn feelings as if they could be related to me. I've been leaning towards (photosenthesis style! I'm a vegetable and in my coma I'm living all these other lives!) less repeating back how people (well, actors) say things to get what they mean (in case of missed subtexts) and more I'M the actor and it (the books) are all big movies in my head.

So I think (despite that there are films of this! Hypothetical 'cause these movies may not do any of the things I'm about to suggest) that maybe I would have felt less studio egos pushing in how they say it went down and more home movie if this had been a movie with actors for me to attach myself to emotionally. I know, I'm contradicting what I said about why I might've turned more to books these days. But damn, some of the major players in Beauty and Sadness were TOO idealized and I got impatient and wish they'd stop insisting it was all so fucking pure. If it were a movie I could have watched someone and thought, "Wow, she looks really sad. I feel really bad for her."

I couldn't put on a pedestal the long ago love affair between middle aged Oki (married with a baby) and fifteen year old (at the start. sixteen at its end in the physical world) Okoto. Oki immortalizes their young love (they love as teenagers do. As only teenagers do? I don't know if I believe that. More on that later!) in a popular novel. Both feel forever young by its everlasting (at least in the twenty years they've been apart) popularity. I didn't see what the big deal was about Oki. He's just a middle aged guy who feels he lost something that had ended. Where was the backbone? The weakened knees and hearts of fire (weakened hearts of fire. Dying lights...)? Oki was really just the bland old man. He wouldn't catch my eye, I'm pretty certain. I don't know if I believed it was ever as great as either one of them imagines it to be. Okoto is a painter. Yeah, self obsessed artist types. It must've been great to see each other reflected back in each other's eyes?

So the teenager thing I said I would get to later. If it's the first time it can't feel comparable to other things, sure. Oki maybe wanted to feel young by being with the teenaged girl. I didn't get the sense that either one of them wanted to still be together, as older people. Okoto was not tied to any one else (her mother is totally different thing altogether), free to force herself, not carefree but destructively free, into these highly romanticized interludes. Oki would love having a new life than his old one. What else did he have to lose? Teenagers do seem to have that free of the future airs. I'm not arguing my case at all, am I? Oki wasn't a teenager. So there!

Okoto loses their baby when she is sixteen. She tries to kill herself. Her mother puts her in an institution for a while (the right thing to do) and then they move to Kyoto to get away from Oki's memory. Oki never comes for her. He writes a novel about it. Okoto paints pictures of the unborn baby. She's a lot of whatifs and idealizations that I couldn't see in my mind... Where are the eyes for ME to see reflections in? Descriptions of paintings and novels were not doing it for me.

After years of being all alone, Okoto makes a name for herself as an artist (I tried to find online the trick photograph of the geisha that may or may not be two geisha that inspires her painting. No luck). Troubled (namelessly so) Keiko is her student and lover. Keiko is Kawabata's loved extraordinarily beautiful young woman. An actress portraying her in a movie would have much to work with as far as changeability goes (but towards what?Teenaged love? I don't know if I believe in it). However, too much wouldn't be a good thing. I wish so much that Keiko had taken shape more apart from the memories of the adults. She claims to want revenge, she says she's jealous a whole lot. If I could have seen it instead of having it described to me. I'm not some blind dude on a date with a woman describing sunsets to him. I can see! I know I can.

It was kinda interesting how Fumiko, Oki's jealous wife, receded into the background of her own life after the novel was published. Oki is such a cold bastard he has her type his manuscript of his affair with the teenager for him! She miscarries, apparently because of this trauma. After the public receives the novel with love and affection (she herself is hardly a spot in the corner of its eye), she sort of accepts what happened because it was written about. What the fuck is with these people going over what happened until it becomes some unshakeable myth? Couldn't someone have done something? Fumiko could have left her husband. Oki could have left his wife. Okoto could have gone to a real hospital in the first place so she wouldn't lose her baby just because her married lover was ashamed of her. Mom could've left her crazy daughter in the hospital. They do all this shit because they believed too much in that damned teenaged feeling. Oh yeah, I was saying that I liked how the wife playing into that flicked the switch more on what they were doing than any of that navel gazing or nutty revenge schemes ever did.

Oh yeah, I wanted to say that it wasn't pure because it was first and stopped all else in its tracks. That pretty much makes it impure. What good is it then? It's blockage like a hard to pass turd.

I guess total immersion in books isn't good when there are wrong things like teenagers I want to ignore. Let's go to the movies.(less)

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Feb 01, 2013 Anastasia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca-civica, contemporanei, giappone

A lettura ultimata ho un momento di sbatti-ciglia piuttosto in riga con la mia sensibilità decisamente occidentale che cozza con quella giapponese: si riconfermano gran parte delle sensazioni, perplessità divertita - lo confesso - davanti a certi modi di esprimere i propri sentimenti (mordersi a vicenda quando si vuole infliggere del male al proprio partner per riscattarsi), certi modi di pensare e ancora certe ostinazioni che vanno fuori dai miei codici, principi e abitudini, e proprio perché n...more A lettura ultimata ho un momento di sbatti-ciglia piuttosto in riga con la mia sensibilità decisamente occidentale che cozza con quella giapponese: si riconfermano gran parte delle sensazioni, perplessità divertita - lo confesso - davanti a certi modi di esprimere i propri sentimenti (mordersi a vicenda quando si vuole infliggere del male al proprio partner per riscattarsi), certi modi di pensare e ancora certe ostinazioni che vanno fuori dai miei codici, principi e abitudini, e proprio perché non è un codice con cui io mi relaziono con la realtà immancabilmente arriva quel momento in cui subentra una sorta di retrogusto in mezzo all'assurdo, in cui subentra la fascinazione che si potrebbe provare davanti ad un curioso alieno che si può osservare da lontano. Motivo per cui alla fine si riconferma sempre interessante leggere di questi strani alieni che aprono le finestre all'uomo dall'altra parte del mondo.
Bellezza e tristezza, appunto, non fa una piega, per quanto alla fin dei conti non abbia una trama al di fuori di ogni previsione. Le dinamiche si concentrano su una sorta di pentagono: c'è Oki, scrittore ormai in là con gli anni, che desidera tornare sulle tracce di una sua vecchia fiamma, la pittrice Otoko, con cui intrattenne una relazione tanto tempo prima, e che gli permise di scrivere il suo acclamato capolavoro: La sedicenne, dal momento che sì, Otoko aveva solo sedici anni e lui invece proprio non direi che fosse giovane, una sorta di Lolita-Humbert. Tutto sarebbe rose e fiori se le dinamiche si fermassero qui, ma subentra non solo la moglie di Oki, Fumiko, che subisce l'umiliazione del tradimento copiando il suo manoscritto a macchina; ma anche la generazione successiva con il figlio Taichiro e l'allieva della pittrice, la diciannovenne Keiko.
Inutile dire che finiranno per andare in una sorta di calderone dove uno sfiora l'altro attraverso il loro ruolo preciso all'interno della storia, come pedine su una scacchiera.
Forse in realtà tutto il motore della vicenda è proprio Keiko, che si pone come interprete di una giustizia talmente intransigente da suonare agghiacciante nella sua logica, e proprio per questo quasi disumana, iperbolica, non adatta ad una persona e una mente che fa i conti con la realtà di sempre, di tutti i giorni. Forse è l'unico personaggio che sembra destinato a rimanere a fine lettura, lei sopra tutti gli altri che non possono far nient'altro che farsi trascinare dalla sua corrente - colpevoli forse di una certa passività - , e se messi a confronto risultano più pallidi, più "normali" di sicuro, meno risaltanti; in fondo sono comuni personaggi appartenenti ad una storia che in fondo è la copia di una copia di una copia se guardiamo le dinamiche e la trama. Curioso, è la seconda volta nel giro di un mese di lettura che mi capita di fare i conti con un personaggio che ha idealizzato completamente ciò che lo circonda, lo ha piegato ai suoi principi e lo ha inevitabilmente travisato. Se c'è una cosa su cui sono sicura è che se incontrassi una Keiko nella mia vita..per carità, alla larga da me: agli, rosari, crocifissi, mascotte e così via. Daaah!
In tutta la fatalità della vicenda ci ritrovo la moderna tragedia greca, che effettivamente si confa così bene ad una sensibilità come quella giapponese. Più a loro che a noi, paradossalmente. Ed è vero: per quanto guarda caso mi trovi a cozzare pure con i classici greci, subisco anche da loro una certa fascinazione per questi processi così rigorosi e dettati da questa sorta di marchio "sentimentale" indelebile, a cui tutto è dovuto, anche il sacrificio della razionalità e del rassegnato e/o umile ridimensionamento dei propri mali e di quelli altrui. Keiko parte in quarta come una protagonista tutta greca ed è per questo che alla fine riconosco a Kawabata quella soggezione mista a fascino che crea non solo negli altri personaggi, ma anche in me!
(Come già specificato: tanto curiosa e affascinante, per carità, ma la dovuta distanza prego)
Un mix interessante questo: il senso quasi rivisitato della tragedia greca misto a una sensibilità tutta giapponese, e ne esce fuori Bellezza e tristezza.

Oddio, adesso dire che Bellezza e tristezza si ferma solo a questo è errato: si discosta dal semplice scivolare sotto un suo antenato con lo stile di Kawabata, la sensazione che ancora prima della trama subentri la neccessità di dipingere quadri su quadri fra le pagine - proprio come Otoko - tant'è vero che a volte ci sono delle vere e proprie didascalie su opere artistiche. Il suo stile è impegnativo - ci ho messo più tempo rispetto alla mia norma per leggere questo libretto -, come alcuni lo hanno elogiato per questi ritratti così suggestivi dei paesaggi, dei personaggi e delle loro azioni - quasi fossero statue dinamiche sempre pronte a fermarsi e posare per l'autore -, altri lo hanno additato un po' deludenti per lo stesso motivo, questa perdità della spontaneità forse, l'essere più inquadrato, rigoroso o geometrico (ma come parlo, ahahah) rispetto ad altri come Murakami etc. Che dire, so' due autori decisamente diversi, interessante per noi occidentali paragonare i vari autori giapponesi, ma non vedo perché questi debbano per forza rientrare nello stesso insieme, se non per il fatto che abitano nello stesso paese. Come variano un Alfieri e un Goldoni (eh, direi proprio), variano anche Kawabata e Murakami etc etc.
Però lo ammetto anche io, questa sensazione di spostarsi solo da quadro in quadro con il filo connettore di una trama non è esattamente ciò che più si addice ai miei gusti, per quanto non possa fare a meno di notare le considerevoli (!) abilità di Kawabata.
(Mi vien da ridere a parlare di "considerevoli abilità" in merito a un Premio Nobel, però, va detto oh)
Forse l'unica cosa per cui mi sento di storcere il naso è questa altalenante farraginosità dello stile, ogni tanto Kawabata esprime concetti due volte nel giro di poche frasi - come se non riuscissi a tenere il filo del discorso - o ancora prima ripete nomi, aggettivi, parole che danno allo stile quella sensazione della "ripetizione macchinosa".
E come inteso prima, i personaggi di questa storia rimangono confinati ai loro quadri, alla loro composizione e sono interessanti proprio perché immersi là e solo là: non sono quei personaggi a cui ti affezioni irrimediabilmente e che ti sentiresti di trasportare qui, nella tua realtà attuale, pensando che questi possano mantenere una loro singolarità se messi alla prova dalla quotidianità. Singolarità che, per inciso, in realtà non sostengono neanche nel loro stesso componimento. Keiko forse rimarebbe "unica", ma io già espressi la mia riluttanza a rapportarmi con codesto personaggio. :-D(less)

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Oct 14, 2008 Revel Atkinson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I sometimes wonder how I manage to avoid living under a blanket of sadness myself. Is the past not fuller than the future? Does it pose more of a threat to loneliness or is it the cause? It’s not permanent—I’m not willing to subject myself to that quite yet—but I live mostly alone in the desert, a temporary hermit at twenty-three. I read Beauty and Sadness recently, and found myself constantly jumping between Kawabata’s story and my own. Oki, who is roughly thirty years older than I, and Otoko,...more I sometimes wonder how I manage to avoid living under a blanket of sadness myself. Is the past not fuller than the future? Does it pose more of a threat to loneliness or is it the cause? It’s not permanent—I’m not willing to subject myself to that quite yet—but I live mostly alone in the desert, a temporary hermit at twenty-three. I read Beauty and Sadness recently, and found myself constantly jumping between Kawabata’s story and my own. Oki, who is roughly thirty years older than I, and Otoko, who is thirty-six, appear to understand love from a brief episode in their pasts, when he was thirty and she was only sixteen, and they both were in love with each other; this moment cannot be replicated and proves irreplaceable in the course of the novel. A truth that Oki’s wife and Otoko’s lover simply have to accept. It was the time when Oki and Otoko were together, young and perhaps innocent in their way that the sensation of love was most brilliant. It is from this relatively short time together—when they experienced their purest sense of passion—that all other love is measured, that love is even understood. Keiko, the young, beautiful protégé and lover of Otoko, is frustrated because she can be nothing more than a reminder for Otoko of the love she shared with Oki. She wants to be more… Even Otoko and Keiko’s physical relationship, though both are female, seems to mimic or echo this past affair. While Oki and Otoko went their separate ways, their sense of love is perfectly preserved in the past. In time is has neither faltered nor faded, and Oki’s novel, A Girl of Sixteen, has even worked to idealize their time together. Keiko makes an effort to “take revenge” on Oki for Otoko, who claims not to be resentful and regrets nothing that happened. Regardless, Otoko’s love for Oki has certainly rearranged her live, disappointed her mother and holds her in a state of longing for the past. The same can be said of Oki, who has become a famous writer from Otoko’s story, has a difficult home life with his jealous wife and is also incapable of moving on, seemingly because there is nothing to move on to: nothing better, nothing worse. There is no choice at all, no choosing to be done.(less)

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Dec 05, 2012 umberto rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, literature, japan

I enjoyed reading this novel by Kawabata due to, I think, my familiarity with his writing style especially his brief descriptions and lively dialogs as communicated by key characters. Indeed, this fantastic novel should deserve a little more in its five-star scale, that is, 3.5 (but I can't rate it there in the meantime) because it's more enjoyable than "Snow Country" or "Thousand Cranes" which are seemingly a bit philosophical. I mean they're all right if you need something to read, reflect and...more

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Mar 22, 2012 B0nnie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Beauty and Sadness is an understated, delicate story. It begins with the sad memories of Oki Toshio, an eminent writer - and then, gradually but fiercely, reveals how those long ago events have done damage to the lives of many. All is revealed in an uncomplicated style, and without overt judgement from the author. He lets the story speak for itself.

Oki longs for a meeting with Ueno Otoko (now famous too, an artist) the woman whose youth he ruined, and to whom the past echoes with obligations...more

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Feb 25, 2010 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: __in-my-collection, asia, yearning, kawabata, 2010-reads, age-gap

My fourth Kawabata book, this and two others being novels and another a collection of short stories...
I don't know if ruminations about the sea and stone gardens and cherry blossoms and fireflies or whatever make this story any less the lurid soap opera. Nonetheless, it's all a framework for what Kawabata does best, about which I elaborate below.
The story, in a nutshell, is told partly in retrospect and partly in the present. A novelist in his 50s, Oki, recalls how at age 30 (when he was newly m...more My fourth Kawabata book, this and two others being novels and another a collection of short stories...
I don't know if ruminations about the sea and stone gardens and cherry blossoms and fireflies or whatever make this story any less the lurid soap opera. Nonetheless, it's all a framework for what Kawabata does best, about which I elaborate below.
The story, in a nutshell, is told partly in retrospect and partly in the present. A novelist in his 50s, Oki, recalls how at age 30 (when he was newly married) he had an affair with a 15-year-old girl, Otoko. She became pregnant, with tragic consequences, and they parted soon after. After a failed suicide, Otoko becomes a notable painter. Fast forward 24 years later, he has become a successful writer, largely on the profits of a novel very much based on their affair. There is fallout from this, including lingering jealousy from Oki's wife and new jealousy from Otoko's young teen artist protege, Keiko. Oki's son soon finds himself drawn into the intrigues. Keiko is masterminding a kind of replay of history -- but with a different result to set the score right. The plot contrivances from there I'll leave alone, other than to say that an elaborate web is woven in which past issues are dredged up and come to a head. Keiko is the least defined character, and yet she's the one who kicks the story into gear, while everything surrounding it is muted in typical Kawabata fashion; she seems like a deus ex machina more than anything. The full nature of Otoko's and Keiko's relationship, at least sexually, is never fully explored, which I found disappointing. Regardless of some of the plot absurdities (Kawabata wants to create a kind of circular arc that bridges past and present, but I'm not thorougly persuaded by how he does it) he is still a master of creating mood and a sense of yearning and exploring the memories, regrets and wisdom of mid-life and old age and reflecting on the follies and attractiveness of youth and the mysteries of time and love, and that's primarily why I like reading him.
His descriptions of Kyoto, Japan's old capital, are so evocative you want to catch the first plane to see it. As usual, there are erotic obsessions and motifs seen in the other Kawabata books; he seems to have a fetish or predilection for feet, fingers in the mouth and the notion of older guys shagging young girls. The book was a mixed bag for me; the ending seemed headed about where I suspected it would -- lets call it a karmic tit for tat, or something. Spoilers prevent me from saying much more. The narrative is layered and mixes memory and the present, deftly for the most part. The main characters in this are artists or scholars, so Kawabata has plenty of room in which to consider artistic concerns. He is especially good at evoking links between historical eras and the present, and also at considering the identities characters have with generations past, including the immediate ties with their parents, especially how we reflect our own parents genetically and spiritually. Things are slowly revealed and Kawabata's style as usual is langorous and dreamy. The story about the exhumed princess skeleton holding a glass plate photo of her lover which fades to blankness with exposure to the air is lovely; possibly the best metaphor in the book about the fleetingness of time and love, and the secrets that lovers carry to their graves.(less)

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Jul 25, 2009 Harun Harahap rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: punya, fiksi, terjemahan

gw dapet ni buku dari Jalasutra..katanya suh terjemahan dari jalsut tuh jelek..tapi entah kenapa ga da yang janggal dalam bahasa yang disajikan dalam buku ni..kata2nya terasa masuk akal dan nyambungd ari kata per kata...

gw suka dengan karakter2nya khususnya keiko..dan gw suka penggambaran latar belakang kebudayaan dan lingkungan jepang yang begitu indah pada masa tahun 1960an gitu..banyak pengetahuan budaya yang bisa diambil dari buku ini..walalupun ada bagian yang bertemakan seks..tapi tidak di...more

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Jan 23, 2008 Alina rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a story about Otaka, a beautiful painter, and her passionate protegee Keiko. Otaka had an affair with a married man (Oki) in her youth; the affair resulted in a pregnancy, the death of that newbord, and Otaka's suicide attempt. It also resulted in that man leaving Otaka, yet later writing a 'fictional novel' that detailed their entire relationship. The entire community figured out whom the novel was based on.
Needless to say, Otaka was hurt. Fastforward 15 years and Keiko, Otaka's teenage...more

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Jun 16, 2007 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: japanese

Beauty and Sadness tells of how people damage one another--through greed, seduction, and even through art. All of the characters in this look are manipulative to a certain degree, even our favorites. One of the characters was so blatently irrational that I couldn't tell if Kawabata meant for her to be a farse.

It's the type of book that I appreciate more after I've read it and start thinking about it, rather than during. I know in the future certain scenes or quotes will pop into my mind.

A defi...more

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Jun 19, 2007 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: japan, sex-as-power, identity

Seeking revenge for her love, young painter Keiko seduces novelist Toshio, the man who seduced Keiko's mentor thirty years before. As neither the novelist or the older artist Otoko have forgotten their affair, each is perversely lured by the opportunity to use the girl as a stand-in for the other. Toshio concedes that his fictionalization of the affair will remain all that he is remembered by (the characters have all read it, including Toshio's wife who typed the manuscript), but Keiko's confuse...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Claudia Glezz Cisneros rated it 4 of 5 stars

Citas: La belleza de aquella historia había sido acentuada hasta el punto de escapar a cualquier cuestionamiento moral.
¿Pero es necesario que una novela sea tan bonita?
—No me asusta la infelicidad.
—Dices eso porque eres joven y bonita.
Ojalá yo también fuera una piedra.

Empecé a leer este librito perturbador y retorcido sentada al sol de febrero de Sierra Nevada en 2009 y no pude terminarlo; no sólo se me hacían insoportable la crueldad de Keiko (la de belleza aterradora, la seductora implacable y...more Citas: La belleza de aquella historia había sido acentuada hasta el punto de escapar a cualquier cuestionamiento moral.
¿Pero es necesario que una novela sea tan bonita?
—No me asusta la infelicidad.
—Dices eso porque eres joven y bonita.
Ojalá yo también fuera una piedra.

Empecé a leer este librito perturbador y retorcido sentada al sol de febrero de Sierra Nevada en 2009 y no pude terminarlo; no sólo se me hacían insoportable la crueldad de Keiko (la de belleza aterradora, la seductora implacable y ciega), la falta de corazón de Oki Toshio y el amor incomprensible de Otoko, también las maneras de Kawabata en esa época me impacientaban y no entendía esas costumbres japonesas de ir a visitar jardines de piedra o esperar a la primera floración del ciruelo del jardín. Me lo he vuelto a encontrar en el estante de la casa de mis padres en su tamaño perfecto para llevar (la edición de Ultramar mide escasos 20 cm y es blandita en sus 176 páginas), y como empieza un 29 de diciembre, me lo he leído tomándome un café en una terraza frente al mar. Cuento esto porque Lo bello y lo triste trata del paso del tiempo sobre el dolor y de cómo se embellecen los recuerdos más tristes, y porque para los personajes del libro son muy importante las vistas de dónde se toman las cosas, ya sea un té o unos pescaditos crudos. ¿Me ha gustado esta vez? No lo creo, pero me ha servido para constatar que los dolores viejos se van disecando como esos pétalos de las rosas que te regalaron y que quisiste conservar secos dentro de algún libro. También para volver a saber que ahora soy mucho más insensible que hace 3 años.
La historia que cuenta Lo bello y lo triste se puede tomar como una tragedia griega, una tragedia de un Shakespeare temprano o una telenovela venezolana para intelectuales. Nunca cuento mucho los argumentos pero como éste es de coco y huevo, ahí va: un señor de 30 años, Oki Toshio, casado y con un hijo, seduce a una joven de 16 años, Otoko. Viola, dice Kawabata. Después del acto violentador ella le anuda a él amorosamente la corbata; viven una historia de pasión arrebatada hasta que ella queda embarazada. El bebé muere y Otoko intenta suicidarse porque el señor, como hacen todos los seductores profesionales, no abandona a su familia y de hecho deja embarazada también a su señora esposa. 20 años después él es un escritor de éxito en Tokio gracias a que contó la historia en una novela titulada Una chica de dieciséis; ella se ha hecho famosa como pintora y vive en Kioto, con una discípula, Keiko, a la que corrompió siendo adolescente usando las mismas técnicas acariciadoras que Oki usó con ella. Con estas premisas empieza Lo bello y lo triste y como es natural termina como el rosario de la aurora, pero ya no cuento más para que lo lean.
Cosas que, sin embargo, me gustan: las campanadas de año nuevo de los templos de Kioto (el sonido que sólo puede producir una magnífica campana antigua, un sonido que parece atronar los aires con toda la fuerza latente de un mundo lejano), también porque me recuerdan a la campana de Arguedas; las bolitas de arroz de forma perfecta que Otoko le prepara a Toshio para su viaje de regreso (Al masticar aquellos bocadillos de arroz sintió el perdón de la mujer en su lengua y en sus dientes. No, no era perdón, era amor) que recuerdo me hicieron rabiar de incomprensión hace 3 años, ahora que yo también preparé una comida de perdón para lo imperdonable puedo entender; los campos de té de Shizuoka que Otoko adolescente ve desde la ventanilla del tren que le oprimen con la tristeza de la separación y que pintará luego de mayor; la historia de la tumba de la princesa enterrada con una foto de su amado que comparten Oki, su mujer y su hijo a la hora del desayuno; la descripción de los dibujos pintados en los kimonos y sus significados; esta traducción que me regaló en traductor de Google: escuché al intentar invocar el nombre del sonido infantil, gran árbol se marchita. El mal de amores es irreversible.
Por fuera del libro:
Yasunari Kawabata es otro de esos escritores suicidas. Parece que ser novelista es más arriesgado que ser escalador. Lo bello y lo triste fue el último libro que publicó, en 1968, el mismo año que recibió el Nobel, cuatro años antes de dejarse el gas abierto antes de darse en un baño caliente. Kawabata fue mentor y gran amigo de Mishima, miembro de honor del club de los suicidas (parece que su espectro se le apareció en sueños a Kawabata 200 noches seguidas). Yasunari Kawabata tuvo una infancia muy triste: sus padres murieron cuando tenía 4 años, a su hermana la conoció a los diez, poco antes de que ella también muriera, y los abuelos que quedaron a su cargo también murieron; a los catorce años estaba solo en el mundo y en cierta manera así se quedó para siempre. Todos los libros suyos que leí son apesadumbrados, dolientes, lleno de personas medio desaprensivas, miniaturas japonesas doloridas muy bien pintadas de cuya contemplación sales agotado.
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Sep 23, 2012 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beauty and sadness opens with Oki Toshio, an estemeed writer, aboard the Kyoto express on his way to listen to Kyoto temple bells toll on New Year's Eve and to, hopefully, see his old lover, Ueno Otoko, who has become a famous painter. Oki starts reminiscing about his affair with Otoko; how much he loved her, and how he ruined her life. He wonders how his best selling book, A Girl of Sixteen, which was based on their illicit love affair has affected her.

Otoko on the other hand, has turned into a...more

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Jul 18, 2011 William Clemens rated it 4 of 5 stars

I always like reading Kawabata for the sense of other that it gives. In any translation I feel that his stories are so soaked in Japanese tradition that they are hard to completely understand, and yet they are so simple and delicate that they convey their story beautifully even though the characters emotions and motivations are not as easy to see.

An aging author reflects on his true life affair with a 16 yr old girl when he was 30. That 16 yr old girl, now a middle aged woman, reflects on hersel...more

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May 19, 2011 Anna Engel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although a translation, Beauty and Sadness is very well-written, using simple, beautiful language in a style that I have come to think of as modern Japanese. I love this style for its deliberateness and simplicity. Less is more, both in the language used and in the details provided in the story. Kawabata's prose is elegant yet spare, descriptive yet simple. His words are the embodiment of Japanese art – Otoko's lifeblood.

Beauty and Sadness is a story of passion (not love) that borders on obsessi...more Although a translation, Beauty and Sadness is very well-written, using simple, beautiful language in a style that I have come to think of as modern Japanese. I love this style for its deliberateness and simplicity. Less is more, both in the language used and in the details provided in the story. Kawabata's prose is elegant yet spare, descriptive yet simple. His words are the embodiment of Japanese art – Otoko's lifeblood.

Beauty and Sadness is a story of passion (not love) that borders on obsession and of intertwined emotional/sexual relationships. Each relationship involves passion, pain, pleasure, and betrayal.

The characters and their relationships with each other are developed just enough to be considered people – but not so much that you know all of the intimate details of their lives.

Oki is that older guy who hits on younger women because he feels like they should appreciate him. However, he doesn't respect anyone – not his wife, not Keiko, not Otoko, not his son. Otoko is sad, but calm, eager to please even though she is independent. Keiko is young, volatile, and unrepentant. Taichiro is young, traditional, and naïve, but desperately wants to do something to please his young woman.

Oki and Otoko are the most obvious and most explicitly described relationship. She's young and headstrong, while he's self-absorbed and unapologetic. Even Oki's wife becomes part of the love triangle as the third, if nearly invisible, side. She is quite justifiably bitter and resentful of her husband's love affair with a younger woman – a woman who is artistic and utterly unwifely.

Otoko grew up and mostly outgrew her relationship with Oki. She evolved into a woman content (but not happy) with her life. Her professional, romantic, and sexual relationship with Keiko provides some extra spice and drama to her life, but no additional happiness.

The natural setting plays a very fundamental role in creating a setting a permanence: the ancient temples, the tea gardens, the mountains, the moon ceremony, the mist.

It's a beautiful book, but sad. You don't come away with a feeling of resolution or that anyone got what they wanted in the end.
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Jul 20, 2010 Ririenz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sastra

KEINDAHAN dan KESEDIHAN
( Beauty and Sadness )
Penulis : Yasunari Kawabata
Penerjemah : Sobar Hartini
Editor : Anton Kurnia
Penerbit : Jalasutra
Cetekan : III , 2006
Tebal : 256 halaman

Sering Aku lihat novel ini jika ke Gramedia atau bila kebetulan sedang ada event booksfair. Tapi ada sedikit keengganan untuk mengetahui isinya, kataku “ Ah ….paling percintaan biasa, nantilah…. “. Tapi ketika di booksfair ada diskon lumayan besar yah … akhirnya masuk juga di Magic Box – ku. Dan setelah aku membacanya t...more

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May 22, 2009 Rauan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a quick, easy read. Maybe. Well, it was for me. Reading it, into sleep, three afternoons in a row. And, waking up, later, covered in sweat. And ditto those same three nights. The chair I read in, you see, makes me sweat.

This is a beautiful book. And it's haunting. Especially Keiko who is the lotus in the flames. And the book for me is Lotus in Flames. All the characters are ruled (or defined anyways) by passion.

And they are, again and again, wrong about the other characters. They are c...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: japanese, nobel

My first impression of this book – logically – was the title and i fell immediately in love with ist simple evocativeness: Beauty and Sadness – i just had to read a book with a title like this.

I needed to take some time and think the book over before sitting down to write a review because it left me with some really mixed feelings. On the one hand I really loved the language: many haiku-like moments in which Kawabata creates atmosphere with some scarce strokes well set. Maybe it’s also because...more My first impression of this book – logically – was the title and i fell immediately in love with ist simple evocativeness: Beauty and Sadness – i just had to read a book with a title like this.

I needed to take some time and think the book over before sitting down to write a review because it left me with some really mixed feelings. On the one hand I really loved the language: many haiku-like moments in which Kawabata creates atmosphere with some scarce strokes well set. Maybe it’s also because I haven’t read any other Japanese classics (so far my knowledge of this countrie’s writers has been restrained to very little Murakami and a little bit more Yoshimoto), but the form of the novel really got me and I sometimes lingered over a particular scene for quite a while and just enjoyed the images it conjured within myself. Geishas, Japanese paintings, the landscape in the different seasons - all that in an unostentatious, beautiful, slightly sad way..... I also really admire how accomplished the erotic scenes were: Few times have I read less sleazy, more tasteful (but not sterile) erotic descriptions.

On the other hand, plot and characters were less accessible: the fatal disastrousness of love and jealousy is an old theme, and especially the end of the novel was quite predictable (but it was the only end the story could logically have, so no critics meant.....and Kawabata delivered it in a graceful and elegant way). The characters were rather well-developed and quite believable, even though not all of them likable. There was some kind of sultry oppressiveness especially about Keiko (but also Oki and Otoko were not completely free of it...) that left an uneasy feeling when closing the book. There’s something about this book I can’t really lay my finger on which made my sleep light and my dreams weird, and I still can’t say if I liked it or not – still, I prefer the kind of book which stays with me for a while after reading it and will definitely read another book by this writer.
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May 18, 2011 Helvry Sinaga rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japan, yasunari-kawabata

Novel ini pertama kali diterjemahkan ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia oleh Asrul Sani pada Tahun 1980. Utsukushisa To Kanashimi To merupakan novel terakhir karya Yasunari Kawabata sebelum ia ditemukan tewas karena bunuh diri pada Tahun 1972. Novel ini juga telah diangkat ke layar lebar dengan judul With Beauty and Sadness (1965).

Novel ini berpusat pada tokoh utama Oki Toshio yang memiliki kenangan cinta masa lalu pada seorang perempuan, Ueno Otoko. Namun, dari cinta masa lalu tersebut, seorang perempua...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Z rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Perhaps it was natural that the picture would have a kind of sweet prettiness — still, could one not also detect the lack of any profound inner spirit?

This line is used in Beauty and Sadness to describe a painting - it also perfectly encapsulates my opinion of the book. A short read, but one that felt interminably long owing to the superficiality and incredible selfishness of each of the characters and the lack of any real insight into their personalities.

Twenty years ago, Otoko, a fresh-faced s...more Perhaps it was natural that the picture would have a kind of sweet prettiness — still, could one not also detect the lack of any profound inner spirit?

This line is used in Beauty and Sadness to describe a painting - it also perfectly encapsulates my opinion of the book. A short read, but one that felt interminably long owing to the superficiality and incredible selfishness of each of the characters and the lack of any real insight into their personalities.

Twenty years ago, Otoko, a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old girl, and Oki, a thirty-year-old married man, embarked upon an affair that supposedly ignited in them a great love, wound up in a stillborn child, and changed their lives forever. Oki stayed trapped in a strange marriage, with a woman he did not quite love. Otoko remained single, and became a painter, living a life almost schizophrenic in its alone-ness and obsession with the past. Now, they meet again, and we must wait and watch (and read) as the future unfolds.

Otoko has recently become involved with her protegee, a beautiful young female painter; Oki's son lusts after the protegee, as does Oki himself; Otoko and Oki are self-centred as ever; and Oki's wife, Fumiko, watches on.

Truth be told, Fumiko is the only character I really felt for, the loyal wife whose husband cheats on her with a teenager and then writes a bestseller based on his affair. She swallows everything, even her portrayal in Oki's book as a jealous moron, and must now suffer her husband's continued infidelities and allusions to his lost love.

The 'great love' between Otoko and Oki is trite, selfish, and obsessive - I have a feeling a lot has been lost in translation as Kawabata usually paints wonderful word-portraits and -landscapes (think Thousand Cranes). I was surprised at how feeble this book turned out to be. I know it's supposed to be placid on the surface, bursting with emotion below - maybe it is like that in the original Japanese? Would not recommend to any but hardened Kawabata loyalists.(less)

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May 01, 2013 Le Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kawabata is a maestro of subtlety.

The aching, haunting lyricism that colors his prose; the ruminations about love and life to the cry of a shamisen and the quavering of pine trees under a drizzle makes me feel like busting out a haiku or two under a scimitar moon, plaintively sipping sake. Yet for all its beauty and sadness, my second outing with Kawabata is far from ideal.

While the background story is intriguing, I can't help but to shake the vapidness that feels over restrained and dispossess...more

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Apr 06, 2011 an rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jepun

jika kau hanya melihat dar bahasa na, maka yang ada adalah: terjemahan na tidak menarik. membuat membaca kisah ini menjadi tersendat-sendat. lagi pula, ngapain menerjemahkan dari bahasa inggris na, bukan bahasa jepang na. pasti banyak pergeseran mak na. dan begitu juga yang terasa di edisi bahasa indonesia ini.

hanya saja... jika dilihat dari cerita na. boleh d kasih jempol. benci adalah cinta yang terluka. maka untuk menyembuhkan na, kau juga harus melukai. itulah yang terjadi pada tokoh-tokoh p...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Chin added it

Shelves: advisory-12-2009-2010

This translated novel, original text was beautifully written in Japanese. Similar to “The Inferno of Dante” was written in Italian. Although the main theme of this book was about love to be precise it is a harsh love affair between two characters who are a married writer and a teenage girl for twenty years. Because of this issue, the protagonist who is the married writer, Oki, attempts to suicide. Not only that affects those two characters but also the people around them, who interacts with them...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Daniele rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: japan-literature

Finora di Yasunari Kawabata avevo letto solo 2 libri, cioè Immagini di Cristallo e Arcobaleni, e non mi ero ancora fatto un'idea precisa di questo autore. Bellezza e tristezza è stata una lettura piacevole. Il ritmo della narrazione, all'inizio molto lento, cresce gradualmente in intensità. I (pochi) personaggi sono tutti collegati tra loro da una sorta di ragnatela di emozioni: ogni azione, gesto o parola da parte di un personaggio ha inevitabili ripercussioni su tutti gli altri. Ma chi è realm...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Sakura87 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-in-libreria, autori-giapponesi, drammatico, novecento

Non è Mishima, non è Murakami...

…eppure Kawabata convince.
Con la solita pacata narrazione giapponese (che stempera caratteri, al contrario, fortemente passionali), ci pennella una storia d’amore travolgente, e le sue conseguenze su molte vite.
I personaggi vengono rappresentati da una prospettiva distanziata, senza che l’autore lasci trasparire il minimo giudizio su di loro. Terribilmente ampio il divario tra i personaggi femminili e quelli maschili: Ōki e Taichiro sembrano totalmente spersonaliz...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Ioana Ştef rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mi-a făcut o deosebită plăcere să citesc acest roman. E un stil cu totul şi cu totul deosebit, nu eram obişnuită cu faimoasa sensibilitate japoneză. Se citeşte extrem de uşor, şi l-aş fi terminat mai repede, de nu începeam alte câteva cărţi în acelaşi timp. Povestea e una simplă: o legătură amoroasă petrecută în trecut vine să tulbure prezentul atât de fragil al protagoniştilor. Şi cum ştim deja că orice poveste are cel puţin două variante, a lui s-a metamorfozat într-un roman foarte bine vândut...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Rui rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I felt a bit putted out on this one, after the middle of the book. The sex scene between Oki and Keiko, told in Oki's point of view, is weird and ridiculous (at some point he even seems to be talk about a stereo equipment, not a woman!). The motivations beyond Keiko are not much structured and her justifications sound quite random and incoherent. The ultimate plot/revenge is quite obvious and come as no surprise. The coquette tone of the dialogs becomes boring after a point, of the kind one expe...more

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Apr 18, 2007 cecelia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recommend

Kawabata is one of two Nobel literature prize winners from Japan. His works are often referred as having the essense of Japanese watercolor paintings. One can find roots of Japanese culture and asthetics in his writings.

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Jan 16, 2010 Hizrah Muchtar rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ditulis dengan keindahan yang sunyi ala Jepang.

Kawabata menulis cerita ini dengan perlahan,menyedihkan, aneh sekaligus membahagiakan.

Anehnya yang terus melekat di benak saya sampai saat ini justru bukan inti cerita-nya, namun kepiawaian Kawabata dalam melukiskan keindahan dalam detail-detail sederhana. Gambar bangau di saputangan, kimono, cangkir porselen untuk minum teh...

Waktu kuliah di arsitektur ITB dulu kami diajarkan juga mengenai keindahan dan kedalaman filosofi Jepang kuno yang tertuan...more

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